IN PASSING: PUDGEL

This series of blogs is called IN PASSING, and in it I'll be interviewing bands and artists whom I love and trying to shed further light (in the small ways I can) on their music and give anyone who may come across this a reason to listen to them. I want to focus on smaller music that deserves more attention than it gets. All blogs in this series will include unabridged (yet slightly edited) interviews with the artists and a small write-up from me.

In December of 2023, I was given the opportunity to interview Roman and Gavin of Pudgel, a band that has taken the southwest scene by storm with their debut album, Pudgel. They embrace theatrics and use winding math-ish, post-rock passages to mold the skeleton of nostalgic storytelling, all without losing the biting edge that fits them into Las Vegas's rising hardcore and emo scene.

I've made a companion playlist for this post featuring Pudgel and other bands that we discussed below. If you'd like to listen to it as you read you can do so here. 

Roman (Vocals and Guitar) = R. Gavin (Drums) = G... if that isn't clear.

pictures courtesy of Pudgel.

How has the album release been? 

R: Numbers wise it hasn't been that impressive, you know, but I'm happy. People's responses have been really good. They're genuinely enjoying the album and getting it and we're finally being understood, you know, so it's really cool. That's the way I wanted people to be. I'd rather have a small amount of people really be into it than a big amount of people not get it--then it just doesn't mean anything. I want that cult. 

When was Pudgel first formed? 

R: It's kind of a grey area because we've been friends since we were like five years old. It kind of formed when we were 12.

G: That wasn't Pudgel, though. 

R: Yeah, that wasn't really Pudgel. That was just us in a band, right, just doing covers and trying to make music. But we were like literally 12. Then we started producing and in 2021, I think, is when we actually made the song Train Station. So, I'd say 2021 basically.

I know you had a single out before then, how has Pudgel changed since? 

R: That was when we were doing computer music. I'm planning on releasing some of that pretty soon, like [this] year. It's not that good compared to the other stuff that we did after that production-wise. I kind of have these songs that I just want to put out. 

When you were starting out, did you have a specific vision for the band? What did you want it to do with it? 

R: When we made Train Station, we were like "Oh shit," you know, "This is pretty good." And then we were like, "Let's make music that people can mosh to hella and then after that let's just make crazy avant-garde music with a little bit of electronics and stuff like that"--so kind of on that wave right now. In the year of 2021 we made three songs, which were Jean Jacque, Train Station, and Somersaults. Then in 2022 and the beginning of 2023, we made Towers, Sidewalks, and Ball of Yarn. Right. They kind of feel like different records in a way. I feel like we could have, if we wanted to, put the first three songs on an EP and then the other three on a new project or something, but I don't know. I forgot the question. 

Where do you guys record? 

R: We actually recorded the album like three times. 

G: We went to this place called MDV, which is a rehearsal space, and just rented a bunch of microphones and tried to record it ourselves. I kind of recorded it and then we sent it to this guy who was going to mix it. He kind of was like, "This is shit, I'm not going to mix this for you. If you want me to mix this, you have to rerecord it at my house." We were kind of on the fence. 

R: He didn't give us that hard of an ultimatum, he was just like, "This would sound a lot, lot better if you recorded it [with me]." And then he kept on pushing it and pushing it. 

G: He wouldn't really stop pushing, but then we went. Good thing we did because it sounds way better and we put down a way better performance. That was Tyler from Spring Breeding. We recorded at his house and then he mixed it and we sent it to a different guy to master it. 

R: Yeah, the guy that does The Garden. 

What are some inspirations that you guys have now and had starting out, whether that's music shows, books, movies...?

G: Well, of course, we were starting out with black midi and Black Country, New Road, hands down, hands fricking down. I'm still inspired by Morgan Simpson from black midi--I just don't think that'll ever stop. That's where it kind of started and then we kind of got to a point where we were like, "Okay, we need to stop being inspired by Black Country and black midi." Also just whatever Roman's into at the time or whatever.

R: [Gavin]'s definitely on his Greg Saunier/Zach Hill thing. With me, I got into black midi and Black Country, New Road, but my core is the early 2010 hypnogogic--like Connan Mockasin and Ariel Pink... Yeah, we've had beef before me and Ariel. 

G: Beef?

R: Yeah, we've had beef. 

G: It's not beef, he just called you a loser.

R: I was 16 and I was texting him, "Yo, when's your new album coming out?" And he was like, "I don't know, dude." I'm like, "Come on. Don't play with me." Right, and he's like, "Leave me the fuck alone." Like, what the fuck? But, I'd say that influence comes up a little bit definitely in the zaniness of the record--and Frank Zappa. We got inspired by Frank Zappa.

G: And Slint.

R: And Slint. Definitely. Also, our cousin band Crochet. Zach's playing is so good. I'm still inspired by Zach playing now--and he actually played cello on a ball of yarn. Recently, we just did a show and he played second guitar. That was really cool. I'd say those are the definite mains, and Big Thief. When Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You came out, that's what we made Ball of Yarn. We would mix it with Crochet and this band Caroline a little bit.

What is the Vegas scene like? I've heard horror stories and some good things.

G: It's definitely hardcore. That's anywhere you go. There's always going to be the definite hardcore scene. There's also the big emo wave going on--the big emo/skramz wave. There are a lot of emo/skramz bands in SoCal and littered in Vegas. We're not even in a scene because people don't book us yet. We moved to New York, we came back to Vegas. People didn't book us. We would hit them up and they would either leave us on seen or not even open it, so Roman made Pudgel Productions and we started making our own shows. 

R: We have our own scene basically, and our own scene is like Crochet, Spring Breeding-

G: King Fun.

R: King Fun. All of these bands are amazing. Incredible--not supposed to be here, but nobody talks about them because people in Las Vegas are hella culturally irrelevant. They just culturally follow, you know, they just suck. Spring Breeding, I didn't even know they were from the Vegas scene. I actually found them when we were living in New York and when I went back to Vegas, there was a Macula Dog show and they were playing. I was like, "What the fuck? What are they doing here?" It turns out they were having such a hard time finding any shows here. They were playing shitty bar shows and stuff. Then Crochet and Pudgel and King Fun started coming up and getting shows.

G: But yeah, now we just book them like every bill and like our fanbase really fucks with them. 

R: Yeah. Our fanbase really fucks with all of these bands. 

G: Yeah. 

R: But it's very small, but it's very strong and tight knit. 

What are some of the favorite bands that you've played with so far? 

R: Macula Dog. 

G: Yeah, they're super sick. We played with this band called Happy Death Man in Portland. 

R: They were pretty cool, very good stage presence. Our friend Peachole, we play in that band. Post NC, this little jazz band here is pretty cool.

G: I can't think of anyone else. 

R: We haven't played with super crazy people. 

G: Our bills just consist of Crochet, Pudgel, and whoever wants to open. Other than that, like Spring Breeding.

R: Spring Breeding is like dance punk and they are literally one of my favorite bands to see live. I would pay to see them live, they are so good. Same with King Fun, too. I can't even watch King Fun because it's so humbling. They're literally like 17. I can't even watch. Same kinda thing with Crochet sometimes, too. I don't even want to watch Crochet because it's so good that I'm just like, "How can I be better? How can I be better?"

What was this album about for you specifically? 

R: Okay. Lyrically, I think each song is a different thing. Jean Jacque is about just my hatred towards my family and then I kill all of them in the song and run away to the forest. And then Somersaults, I don't even wanna say because it's just gonna ruin it for people. So I won't. But, the end of Somersaults is just a fun little story, you know? It's just an angry little story that I made up in the end. It's a little zany thing, but I'm just gonna skip over that. The Anti-Forest is about my ex because I sent her that song privately and then she streamed it 2000 times because she's kind of like a stalker. She's kind of crazy. So I was like, "Okay. I don't like her anymore, but I gotta give something for that, you know?" And so The Anti-Forest means she sucked my spiritual energy out of me. She's a spiritual vacuum. It's kind of a play on that. Sidewalks is about my difficulties with, I don't wanna say it... This girl broke us down and said the word societal unease. I think that's a good description for my thing on Sidewalks. Towers is just a play on theatrics. If you look at the lyrics, it's kind of written like a screenplay a little bit. So those are my theatrics, like kind of Frank Zappa. And then Ball of Yarn is me trying to be vulnerable and go into like, "I'm turning 20 and things are changing." Moving back from New York and stuff like that. I was kind of trying to maintain this alter ego throughout the whole thing of just this manic anxious, but really fun kind of character. But it's an alter ego to give the name James. I mentioned James a lot, but I kind of tried to maintain that, but it wasn't very cohesive, so I'm not gonna say that that's what it is, but I tried, you know. 

And then with the music, I just, I just want that shit to hit. That's it. I just want that shit to sound kind of fresh--as fresh as I can. The challenge with this was that all the music was actually only written with guitar and drums first. The song Towers has no bass on it, just guitar and drums. So, I overdubbed bass after the whole structure was written and then sometimes I would overdub vocals. That was the challenge--no effects on the guitars, straight guitar and drum, you know. And yeah, that was cool. 

I mean, that's what they did with Slint. Everything is so incredibly dry. You don't have these aftereffects. 

R: That was the inspiration. Because we would literally be like, "I know how Spiderland was written." I mean, they were just playing the same thing for hours and hours and hours. And that was us--all the time playing the same thing every day for hours and hours and hours just getting each part. Sidewalks is, I think the best song on the record in songwriting terms, because we just go through so many like musical ideas in such a short amount of time. Those took so long to really map out and get right. Maybe we started that song in October of 2022 and finished it completely in maybe March, 2023. 

G: That song was fucked. We were writing it in New York and then right when we moved back to Vegas we had band practice for a week and wrote basically the rest of it and it sounded good. Then we got the verse of Towers just instantly. 

R: Just a lot of tweaking. That one, the tweaking phase afterwards took a long time. It took a couple of months to kind of tweak everything out. And I would just be in my room with these demos drinking some of this [holds up can of Yerba Mate] and just going bonkers, banana crazy. That's where a lot of the zaniness comes from is me just in my room in a big mattress fort going bonkers, banana crazy.

When were you in New York? When were you in Vegas?

R: We're from Vegas. We went to New York in September of 2022 and were like, "Oh, we're gonna go to New York and we're gonna make this album. We're gonna meet a bunch of new people, blah, blah, blah, blah." We had Ball of Yarn almost done and we had the other three songs. We needed some new songs, you know? So we go to New York and then, it just sucked my balls. It's like that bad. I was depressed. 

G: Yeah, Roman was depressed. 

R: I couldn't be on my grind shit. I couldn't like go to the gym. I couldn't like have a lot of time, you know? All my time was just spent on the subway or at work, you know? There was like an era where we had to go to work at six o'clock in the morning.

G: That means we had to wake up at four o'clock in the morning, but three hours ahead, so that's like us waking up at one o'clock in the morning here. We're sleeping in a closet with Peach and if we fucking are too loud, she gets really upset like, "Yo, y'all got to stop making so much noise." So we have to sneak around to get ready at four o'clock. 

R: And then we go on the subway when it's dark out and it's that time on the subway, freaks are out. The penises are out on the train. The penises are out.

G: Like actually on the train.

R: We would see crazy stuff. I remember one time I woke up in Peach's room and--I'm a dramatic person, so like I took this to heart--but I woke up and we made a little bit too much noise. Then right when we were about to go out, she's like "You can't live here anymore." I'm like, "All right, I'm homeless." I just went to work and I'm like, "Yeah, I'm homeless."

G: We're walking to work and I'm sleep deprived and tired and Roman's like, "What are we going to do if we're homeless? Like, I don't know what we're going to do in New York." And I'm not even listening to him because we're not homeless. I was like, "He's just being silly."

R: I was being for real.

G: I know you were. 

R: And then after like three o'clock, we'd be so tired. And then we'd be like, "All right, let's have band practice," you know, and we'd go to the studio and have a cold brew.

G: Yeah, we were at the Starbucks so we got we got free coffees. 

R: Yeah, we worked at a Starbucks at the Empire State Building, right? And that shit would just like, fuck us up. We'd be so fucked up. The thing that we got most done in New York was getting a new sound because we didn't finish any songs, we just got really good instrumentally. But then we came back from New York. I came back January first in 2023 and then that's when things started to come together with the new songs and Towers and Sidewalks and stuff. Ball of Yarn was actually the last song to be done completely because the bass was so fucked.

I don't know if I'm making this up. Was the album a loop? 

G: Yeah, it is. Fuck yeah. 

R: Nobody noticed. We used to play Train Station into Jean Jacque, so then we just kind of switched it around. 

What are your guys's plans with Pudgel moving forward?

R: We just want to do some little tours in 2024 to figure out how to tour and just feel stuff out, you know, promote the album. We're most likely going to drop that little collection of computer songs just to give give bruhs something to chew on while we're making new stuff, you know? But I can't really say--all I want to do is just build off of what we did before, but not in a predictable way, you know, just get a lot better, just get better.

G: Yeah, it takes a really long time for us to write music, so I think we just got to go back to band practice every day and trying to find out what works.

R: Just get bigger and better, brother. Just go on tour.

G: We learned a lot in New York. I feel like we just have to learn a lot again and just have to be fucked again for a little bit and the cool music will come out of it. 

R: Got to have the the school mindset that you're not that good and you still have a lot to learn. I would like to put electronics on the new album, though. I don't know if it will completely happen, but would love to. 

G: Definitely more theatrics. That's all Roman's doing. Just brilliant ideas. 

R: The ambitious ideas. It's more of those, you know. 

What are you listening to lately? 

R: Check out my new playlist on Spotify, I just made this playlist and I've listened to it four times a day. It's all the new stuff I listen to but also a little bit old stuff. It's just hidden little bangers, you know. It's called Roman's Swag Person Playlist. I've been listening to a lot of Radiohead and Pretty Sick and this band called death insurance--kind of like a Machine Girl/Death Grips thing. It's run by this girl named Kat and she's just so cool.

G: I'm listening to this jazz record called Ex Machina that King Fun's Daniel put me on. It's big band jazz--their French. I started today and I already like i. It's pretty dope. Thank you, King Fun Danny. 

R: We love you.

What is your favorite Pudgel song? 

G: Oh, that's a good question. Mine's Towers or Sidewalks for sure. 

R: My favorite Pudgel song is... if somebody likes something the most then I just change my opinion on it and I start liking it the best. It's probably just Towers or Sidewalks. 

G: When I got the mixes back from that and it wasn't even out, I loved sidewalks a lot. I was asking Roman and some other people and they were like, "I don't think people will really fuck with Sidewalks as much." And then towers came out and we showed all our friends and they were like "Towers is the best song hands down, hands down." We dropped the album and then everyone was going crazy about Towers, but now Sidewalks is number one. 

R: Yeah, they go crazy about Sidewalks. 

G: I think Towers is more the little musician song that's more experimental and angsty. So, our little musician friends can appreciate it more than Sidewalks, which is just a good song. 

I'm so very excited to put this out here. When Pudgel dropped their debut, I listened to it on loop for the rest of the day and I never cease to find more in it from every listen. They're unique, charismatic, new, and have the potential to be a monger of modern experimental rock. Thanks to everyone for listening and to Gavin and Roman for allowing me to attack them with stupid questions over Zoom. 

-Foster