Your new EP Chaos Magick was released earlier this month on Ska Punk International. What has working with them been like?

Michi: It’s been awesome. [laughs] We’ve been friends with Chris for a while now. We got to be on the first Songs For Moms compilation that Ska Punk International put out. That was their first release ever. So we’ve been there and been part of the Ska Punk International community but this is our first release with them and it’s been really great. People have been very supportive.

Mike: It’s kinda cool because we watched the label really grow from its inception. When we did Songs For Moms Part 1, I think that Chris was doing just the podcast at the time. He also did PR for our first album, Rainbow Heartache. We put it out independently. We had a DIY label do tapes, Broken Camera Records.

Michi: We did everything ourselves with our first album.

Mike: We were already working in a pretty close capacity with him so we already knew we really liked working with him. Since then we became really close and watched his label grow. More recently, Michi started helping with PR as the label is growing. It’s cool to have our first official release out, now that we’re also with the label.

Michi: It’s great to say that we’re a part of it. That it’s also our label. [laughs]

Mike: Yeah! Also seeing where our EP is in the succession of all the other releases has been really cool. Right before us was Sgt. Scag’s album. That was phenomenal. Right before that was Simple Minded Symphony. They’re really good friends of ours. They’re on our EP too, on two of the songs. After us is PWRUP who we’re friends with, we play with them. I’m on their album! That’s the most exciting part of being on a label - a really good succession of releases that are all amazing but for all different reasons.

Michi: He’s on the finale of PWRUP’s album.

Mike: The big finale. I play a solo at the end of their album. But even before we were on SPI we were friends with all these bands. It’s not like, “Oh we’re labelmates so I gotta play nice”, we’re just genuinely close with all these people.

Michi: We genuinely support these people. We’ve been friends with PWRUP for many years now.

Mike: We’re genuinely friends and close with most of the bands on the roster.

So that’s how the guest spots from Craig of Common Sense Kid and Leah and Kevin of Simple Minded Symphony came about?

Michi and Mike: Yeah.

Michi: The idea for “Dude Poisoning” was pitched to me by Eichlers actually. [laughs] As we were working on it I was like, “Should I ask Ike if he wants to do a collab part on it?” I really wanted to work with Craig because I had the idea in my mind that having a guest talk about positive masculinity while the track is all about toxic masculinity is kinda like having somebody be like, “You could do something different. This is what we should do”. When I pitched the idea to Craig, I was like, “You’re a father, you have a son, you have a daughter. You could look at this through this lens”. That’s the story I wanted to present through Craig’s verse. Craig also had a song that they were working on that was basically anti-alpha male personalities so I believe he took some of the material from that track and made it into the verse but I might be wrong.

Mike: He was working on it at the same time.

Michi: He’s been working on that track for a while. I’ve never heard the finished product. I’ve just heard, “Hey! Check out this little rap from this” and I was like, “Oh cool! I’m definitely going to put you on my track!” [laughs] We met SMS at SPI Fest.

Mike: We were kinda talking here and there and Chris was very much like, “I think you guys are gonna click really well!” He was right. We just really, really got along well with them, musically too! They’re different but they’re pulling from a lot of similar things.

Michi: They have a lot of the same influences as us for sure.

Mike: A lot of proggy, mathier stuff.

Michi: A lot of math rock definitely. [laughs]

Mike: With the song “Chaos Magick” originally I just wrote MIDI horns. I knew I wanted to realize it and hire real horn players. SMS’s horn section absolutely blew my mind at SPI Fest. They’re so tight and have such good stage presence.

Michi: And they write beautiful arrangements. We wanted to work with them.

Mike: The song “Look Alive” is a bit older and hadn’t made it onto anything.

Michi: When I wrote that track, that was before Mike was in the band. My old guitarist Andrew and I wrote the song together. Andrew had vocal lines in the song so we stopped playing it because Andrew wasn’t in the band to play it with us. I was like, “What if this was a duet with someone else? What if we brought this back?”

Mike: That became a duet between Kevin and Michelle. It came out really cool. That song ended up sounding completely different.

Michi: It used to be a funk track. It sounded like Vulfpeck. [laughs]

Mike: It used to be really slow, slower than it is now, and there wasn’t any ska in it. It was a lot less heavy too. We kinda just took it and turned it into what it is now. I thought Kevin was perfect for the version of the song that it turned into.

Michi: We’re just glad to be surrounded by our friends.

That comes through. There’s such a positive feel to the EP even when it’s like, “We’re going to talk about experiences with toxic masculinity but here’s how things can be better”. I think that’s one of the bases for the practice of chaos magick.

Mike: I think that’s right.

Michi: Whereas magic and witchcraft in general are like potions and spells, chaos magick is more based on intentions and beliefs. Like the idea that if you believe something, it could happen. It’s not as clean-cut as straightforward witchcraft. It definitely is witchcraft and has definitely moved from being this outcast idea of magic into more mainstream witchcraft. Putting your energies together definitely makes something new and different and makes change in the world.

How do you personally practice chaos magick?

Michi: This has been my new thing, in the morning I wake up and write an intention. Then I turn it into a sigil. There are different letters that refer to different numbers in numerology and you could draw a sigil based off a wheel that has those different numbers. That sigil is a symbol of that power and that intent. That’s one way that I practice chaos magick every day.

There are sigils that show up in the video for “Chaos Magick”.

Michi: Yeah, they do! I designed a whole bunch ahead of making the video. They’re about my intention for the song, what the song means, and what I want it to mean to the people who reach it. That’s definitely one piece of chaos magick that I should’ve mentioned before, it’s not only just believing it’s manifesting things. So trying to manifest that it falls into the hands of the person who needs it. I’m having fun with it. I feel like that’s another piece of chaos magick, your energy doesn’t necessarily have to be positive, it just has to be active and not passive. So the more I’m actively thinking and feeling about it, hopefully, that manifests into the music finding the people who need it the most.

So that’s the meaning behind the sigils in the video?

Michi: Yeah. I’m not going to say the actual intent that I wrote only because I want to keep my spell intact. [laughs] I feel like that’s also the intention behind the lyrics. We were having a rough time and our community was there for us so it was like the community gave us their energy and now we’re going to give it back.

How would you describe your songwriting process?

Michi: For these tracks, in particular, Mike wrote the music instrumentally first. That doesn’t always happen, it just happened to work out that way. [laughs]

Mike: A lot of these were written on Logic at home. I would just arrange them based on trial and error to find out what worked. It was weird because these were written at different times. I started writing the title track, “Chaos Magick”, while Rainbow Heartache was being mixed. That was maybe two years ago.

Michi: Probably in July 2021.

Mike: Then I wrote “Dude Poisoning” not too long after. Those two songs didn’t have names at the time. We were writing this EP and our second full-length around the same time. We were just writing a bunch. The rest of the second album was starting to take shape differently in its own world. I always felt that “Chaos Magick” and “Dude Poisoning” fit really well together. Then we had “Look Alive” sitting around and it felt that one kinda fit. We also had the Alanis Morissette cover as an idea.

Michi: The Alanis Morissette cover was totally born of a joke. [laughs] My friend Keith from Public Serpents tweeted, “Skalanis Morissette” one day and I was like, “Oh, that’s great! That’s so funny!” I guess it just lived in my subconscious because about a year later I was like, “Hahaha Skalanis Morissette” and tweeted it.

Mike: Everybody was freaking out.

Michi: It was just an ongoing thing for that whole day. I was like, “What if I made all of my usernames ‘Skalanis Morissette’?” [laughs] I’ve gotten my voice compared to Alanis Morissette before so I was like, “I’m gonna do it!” Then when we arranged that cover, sonically we knew what the other tracks were like so we were able to put it together. We were trying to do a split initially.

Mike: The original early, early idea between LP1 and LP2 was like, “Maybe we should do a split, and ‘Chaos Magick’ and ‘Dude Positioning’ will be our side”. But as we kept writing it made more sense to do it as an EP. It’s hard to get a split together, maybe one day. For these it just made sense to release them with “Look Alive” and “You Oughta Know”. The process for this one was a little weird. The way they all fit together it felt like they should be their own release.

Michi: He arranged it to make the EP its own cohesive piece of work.

Mike: Before I wasn’t sure if “Dude Poisoning” would end up on the second album and I knew “Chaos Magick” didn’t fit at all. As we kept writing stuff, it really made sense as its own release. I’m really glad we did it that way because it made it more of an exciting release. There’s more to dig into. It feels like these songs fit together and have their own identity. It’s veering off musically from Rainbow Heartache but it still makes sense as the next official studio release.

“Dude Poisoning” talks about your experiences with toxic masculinity within the music scene. What can be done to eliminate toxic masculinity within the scene?

Michi: That’s a really good question! I’ve definitely seen improvements from day one of being a musician. I do think including people who are not men is really important. There’s definitely times when I see festival announcements or show announcements and it’s all white men, all straight people. It’s just kinda like, “Did you try? Did you try to book other people besides your buddies?” [laughs] Do they realize that it looks intentional? I don’t know. Putting people in the spotlight is important because I think a lot of people don’t know how hard it is to be a woman in music or to be genderfluid or trans in music. There’s definitely different pressure than there is for men and I feel like if people are given opportunities to shine and to show what they can do then just having that representation is one step forward. Since I started being a musician in 2011 I do think it has grown a lot. I can’t tell if it’s just the people I’ve chosen to surround myself with or if it really is a step forward. [laughs] But I do think including people is super important, especially in big lineups at festivals. When women make up a certain percentage of the population and that doesn’t show on the poster, what does that say to the audience? What does that say to young people showing up?

Mike: Especially on big festivals when there’s tons and tons of bands playing, I feel like it definitely looks discouraging when it’s all white dudes who all sound the same.

Michi: It looks on purpose. It definitely has improved but there’s definitely work to be done.

Mike: I agree with that Michelle is saying. The community that we’ve chosen to surround ourselves with is a lot more inclusive.

Michi: When we played SPI Fest, I think there was maybe one or two or three bands that had only straight white men. Ska is a community where it’s more diverse. That could be just where we are but I feel like we see that even looking at Coachella or Pouzza Fest or FEST. It’s not more than 50% but you can tell it’s more inclusive.

Mike: It feels like it’s going in a better direction.

Michi: I definitely think that if bands who are bigger and draw a lot of people take smaller bands on tour that makes a huge difference. Like when Thursday took Pinkshift out or when Streetlight Manifesto brought Catbite out for a bunch of dates. Even when My Chemical Romance did their reunion shows you could tell that a lot of opening acts were intentional. It was like they know that they’re a powerful band and they could choose whatever bands they wanted to bring in so they chose bands with queer members, bands that had women, and bands that had people of colour. When you do that, you’re exposing a huge crowd to them. If that’s made into the norm where larger bands are helping out the smaller bands and not just taking their buddies from the old days out, that makes a huge difference. I think that’s one way the scene could move forward and combat toxic masculinity or the patriarchy in general. [laughs]

Mike: I feel like MCR had a good mix of both. They had a very big variety.

Michi: Every date had someone different on it, it was cool! If larger acts, even if mid-size acts were doing that more often, where you’re at least giving that job opportunity to someone who represents not straight white men, then at least that’s becoming more of the average, more of a normal thing that should be happening.

Mike: Yeah! You’re showing a band to thousands and thousands of people.

Michi: I definitely think that would combat some of it because those people need opportunities too.

Mike: We went to Adjacent Festival in New Jersey. It was a very big festival. They had Paramore, Japanese Breakfast, Coheed, and Blink. Huge, huge festival. A lot of the side-stage bands were very diverse.

Michi: Getting to see Meet Me @ The Atlar again is always amazing. I’ve never seen Pinkshift before and it was my first time seeing them there.

Mike: They’re amazing! Meet Me @ The Altar put on an amazing show.

Michi: There were so many bands, I can’t even recall all of it.

Mike: I feel like they did a pretty good job of booking the festival.

Michi: It was a large festival. There were a lot of people there. There was no moment where I felt like there was toxicity going on and that was neat.

It’s nice when you have that not only with the bands you’re watching but also in the crowd where it’s like, “I can be involved in the pit” instead of, “Oh shit”.

Michi: Yeah!

Mike: I felt that a lot during Meet Me @ The Altar’s set.

Michi: Meet Me @ The Altar purposely makes a girl pit like, “Ok, all ladies no gentlemen get in the pit!” [laughs] When we saw Coheed we got up to the front to the pit.

Mike: They’re one of our favourite bands.

Michi: It was in the sand and so when you got pushed around people were still picking you up like, “You’re ok, come on!” For the genre of music that Coheed makes, being closer to metal, it was like, “Cool! I like this!”. [laughs] They’re definitely one of the bigger bands that brings out bands that are more diverse and who are young and growing like Mothra and Meet Me @ The Altar.

Mike: They also bring in bands that are diverse in genre too. They really pull from everything when it comes to their support bands. They’ve played with so many different people.

Michi: For what bands I would pick for positive masculinity I would say MCR and Coheed are doing it and I love it! I’m here for it. They use their power for good. [laughs]

The video for “Chaos Magick” was shot in the ruins of an abandoned castle. How did you choose where to film? What was filming there like?

Michi: I chose to film there because I had actually visited there during my day job. Someone took me on a hike and when we went there I was like, “Woah! What the hell is this?? It would be really cool to do something here at some point.” [laughs] It’s like these graffitied ruins and it’s so cool! When we were trying to figure out what we were going to do for this video, I was like, “What if we just brought our gear to the middle of the forest?”

Mike: Go to King Zog’s rooms.

Michi: King Zog was from Albania and bought a big plot of land in Muttontown, New York. There was something going on with Albania and another country and he was looking for asylum so he spent all this money buying this property in New York. Apparently, he was famously not good with his money. If you go online you can actually see what it looked like before it got ruined. It was this beautiful mansion on all this land and then it fell into disarray. Now there’s graffiti everywhere. There’s been a few other bands who have done things there.

Mike: A few Long Island bands have shot videos and photos there.

Michi: It’s a great spot as a photographer and as a videographer.

Mike: There’s a lot of cool areas.

Michi: It’s beautiful. It’s disgusting but it’s beautiful! [laughs]

Mike: I feel like it fits the vibe of the EP very well because it’s…

Michi: Disgusting but beautiful! [laughs]

Mike: Maybe not that. [laughs] It’s chaotic but it’s also kinda magical. And spooky. But it’s also very colourful because of all the graffiti.

Michi: It is. There’s graffiti on top of graffiti on top of graffiti. It’s all over.

Mike: We basically did the photoshoot and the music video shoot all in one day. We took our camera and got all dressed up. We took some shots, took some videos.

Michi: Basically I would set up the camera and for the photography I have a remote so we’d pose and take the photos. We had a speaker so we were playing the music and it was like, “Ok, while we’re here in this pose, we’re going to play here before we move on to the next place”. It was fun.

Mike: It was really cool. It was a little tricky to get all of our stuff there because there’s a rickety trail and we had a wagon full of our stuff.

Michi: The rest of the Muttontown Preserve is equestrian so it’s great if you’re walking around with a horse but if you’re walking around with a wagon full of gear it wasn’t, it was hard. [laughs]

Mike: It was worth it, we made it! [laughs] There were a lot of people. I remember there was a group of people riding horses.

Michi: They saw him with a guitar on his back.

Mike: They were like, “Are you going to play the guitar in the woods?” They didn’t know what was happening. [laughs] It was a cool location that very much fit the mini-album. It’s kinda regal looking but it’s also in disarray and covered with graffiti and stuff. It’s a little witchy.

Michi: I feel like in witchcraft being connected to nature is super important so it was like, “Here we are in this weird building in the middle of the woods!” [laughs] It is witchy.

There’s something about ruins that has a mystical feel.

Mike: Yeah, exactly! I remember seeing a picture of the mansion before and you could kinda tell, “Oh this is where this water fountain is or that’s where these stairs are” when you are there. Was it torn down or was it just lost to time?

Michi: No one took care of it and it just fell apart.

Mike: That’s what makes it look so cool. There’s plants growing on top of stuff.

Michi: I can’t remember when it was actually built, probably in the 40s or something. It’s just been sitting there for that long. I have an outtake where a whole family just walks right into a shot. It’s really funny because there’s one shot of it where it’s just me singing in a path and when you’re watching the music video you can’t see them but when my arm goes up, if you really look you could see them. [laughs] In the outtake video they walk up and they all stop when they see me singing. It’s really funny!

Mike: Just three people on a hike and they just stumbled upon a band making a music video. They looked so confused. They were like, “I don’t know what’s happening here but I’m going to let this play out”. [laughs]

You should’ve kept them in!

Michi: I felt bad because I didn’t ask them for permission. [laughs] I do want to post the outtake to TikTok at some point.

Mike: It was funny because they definitely didn’t know what was happening.

Michi: I’m singing and dancing and they just walked right through. [laughs]

Did you get a feeling from the ruins or from the place as a whole?

Michi: Like a magical vibe?

Yeah.

Michi: Not that much. I mean there’s definitely energy there. People hike there and take photos there a lot. I didn’t get any haunted vibe from it either. There’s definitely spots on Long Island where if you go it’s like, “Oh yeah…something bad happened here” but I didn’t get that vibe. It felt pretty safe.

There’s some place I went for a hike more recently for work and it overlooks the water. It’s on the North Shore of Long Island so you could see the bay. There’s this house there that’s all boarded up but it’s part of the property where you can go for a hike. I was like, “Let’s go! Let’s get out of here!” I did think about taking photos there but I was like, “No, I don’t wanna go back there!” [laughs]

You two have been together for a long time and recently celebrated your first wedding anniversary. What have you found to be the key to a strong, healthy relationship?

Michi: This would be the same advice I’d give to bands, but communication is so important. I can’t assume that he’s going to do something or that I’m going to do something. You should just be straightforward and say, “Can you send that email to that venue?” or “Can you unload the dishwasher?” or “Can you take Butterbean for a walk?” Like, “I’m going to do this, can you do that?” I think that’s really important to have as both a couple and a band.

Mike: There’s a lot of overlap between being in a band and being in a relationship. I think communication is definitely important. Also, it can be trickier than it sounds, but knowing when to be like, “Alright, no more business talk” or “Alright, we’re going to allot this time to work on stuff” is also important.

Michi: “And this time is time off, we need to just relax now”. It can be hard to stop yourself. [laughs]

Mike: It’s a little trickier now because the EP just came out and we’re trying to plan so much stuff. I was trying to iron out merch drop details and stuff like that last night and I found a point where I was like, “Alright, we’re done. I’m going to go play Pokémon. We’re not going to keep working on this now”.

Michi: Like, “We’ll work on this tomorrow, it’s tomorrow’s problem now”. [laughs]

Mike: I think it’s trying to get a good balance. It can be tricky but when things are going well it’s very exciting.

Michi: Because it’s like our family thriving.

Mike: Yeah, it’s like your family business thriving. When we succeed it creates more opportunities for both of us, for our family, and it gives us much more of a reason to put 110% into it. But at the same time, when things go wrong it can be a lot of stress. We went through a really rough patch earlier this year and that makes it extra hard because it’s like your family is suffering.

Michi: You can’t really escape that stress. It’s just the two of us here together. It’s like there’s this thing happening that you can’t stop thinking about. Maybe if it was a job in an office you’d go home and the day would be over but you don’t get that when you work from home. It’s like, “How do I separate the space where this happens?” We don’t go home from being in a band, we’re always in a band. [laughs] If something happens that’s that level of stressful it’s like, “We need to stop thinking about it. We need to go do something else. I can’t stop thinking about it”. There’s no clocking out. There’s pros and cons to that.

I definitely think being direct is key to successful relationships, marriages, business relationships, and friendships. Just never make any assumptions about anything.

Michi, you recently wrote a guest column for New Noise Magazine where you talked about being married and being in a band and you cite a lot of other ska bands who have married members. Why do you think ska bands have a higher rate of married members than bands in other genres?

Michi: That’s really interesting! I do think maybe because there’s so many people in the band.

Mike: The chances are higher.

[laughter]

Michi: Even the ones that I mentioned, two of them didn’t have horn sections. [laughs] Catbite and Stop The Presses don’t have horn sections.

Mike: Stop The Presses has six people.

Michi: They do have a lot of people.

Mike: Slightly more than the usual amount.

Michi: There’s definitely a lot of married couples in other genres. I just feel like some of them aren’t as open about being married. [laughs] Whereas like with Catbite it’s out there, you know that they’re married, and with Stop The Presses, they’re married. Maybe in other genres, people just don’t bring it up.

Mike: It depends on the band. I think maybe the bands that we’ve been playing with and surrounding ourselves with tend to be leaning more toward ska these days.

Michi: That could be it! That’s just who our friends are. [laughs]

Mike: A lot of the bands that we’ve been playing with and working with have been ska bands. That just seems to be the genre and the community that really clicks with us the most.

Michi: Yeah, they took us in. [laughs]

Mike: Even before we were playing ska when we were just a little bit ska-influenced.

When in doubt, go ska.

Mike: Yeah. [laughs] I think for this EP that was just the music that we’ve been the most inspired by and excited by in terms of newer bands. It felt right to embrace those influences.

Michi: I think in ska itself people don’t seem to be as judgemental about your age as other genres tend to be.

Mike: That’s a good point.

Michi: I feel like being old enough to be married is just more accepted in ska. [laughs]

Mike: A lot of the bands we’re close with are in their thirties or in their forties. I feel like there’s other genres people would be like, “Ugh, you people are old. I’m not a rockstar yet, I don’t want to do this anymore”. I did notice that ska people are definitely more open to people being a little older. People are much less judgemental about it and more respectful about it like, “Oh you’ve been doing this for a while”.

Michi: That’s definitely true in ska-punk for sure.

Mike: Not everyone is older but I think there’s more acceptance of it where you can do whatever you want at whatever age you want. I feel like that’s really important. Personally, I feel like I’m writing the best music I’ve ever been. We’re doing the best we’ve ever done as a band and we’re in our thirties. I feel like if I went, “Well, I’m into my thirties. It’s time to throw in the towel” then I’d be missing some of the best parts of our career. [laughs]

Michi: That’s true. I also feel like in other genres people think that 26 is old.

[laughter]

Michi: I’ll hear that from emo bands and from other genres that’ll be like, “Oh, now that I’m getting to be this old I should maybe just quit music”. What!? That’s not old! "Oh no, I’m 24 I’m gonna quit!" [laughs] But that’s the truth, you’ll hear people say things like that in pop-punk and emo. Are you out of your mind?? What is the thought process? That people shouldn’t keep going if they love something? I don’t know. I know a lot of women in music who won’t put their age out there because they don’t want to be treated differently. I get that portion of it.

Mike: I think people are much more judgemental of women who are older.

Michi: For sure. I’m more on top of my game now than I was when I was 24.

Mike: I feel like in my twenties I was a mess. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. [laughs]

Michi: This band started when I was - I don’t know if I should say.

[laughter]

Michi: How old was I at that point?

Mike: 15 or 16?

Michi: If I was like, “I’m not going to start this band because I’m too old” then none of this would have happened. [laughs] It’s just funny. That’s probably why people are more open about being married because they’re actually old enough to be married.

Mike: I feel like sometimes people have that connotation where it’s like, “Oh you’re married?? That’s like an adult thing.”. Even when we got married, people were like, “You’re an adult now. You’ve got a wife!”

[laughter]

Mike: I mean it is a big step but a lot of people see it as, “Oh they must be much older” to some extent.

Embrace the age!

Mike: Yeah! We have lots of life experience.

Michi: We’ve got more to write about now. I mean, not that I didn’t at 21, I totally did. [laughs]

Mike: Now there’s more to pull from!

Michi: I definitely listen to more music now than I did when I first started a band. I think I listened to Taking Back Sunday and Glassjaw. I already listened to ska at that point but I feel like my music taste has widened so much since then.

Seeing different shows, being around different people.

Mike: Yeah, exactly! There’s so many people who are integral to our career who we only met a few years ago.

Michi: We would never have met them if we hadn’t started this band because I was too old. [laughs]

Mike: There’s so many people I couldn’t imagine this band running without, like a lot of people in the SPI world. There’s a lot of people who I couldn’t imagine our lives without that we only met a couple of years ago.

Michi: That’s very true.

You have some shows coming up later this month. You’re playing Bad Mary’s Skalloween Skapunkalypse - which is the best name for a show - on October 20.

Mike: They’re great with their names!

Michi: They always make silly show names. [laughs]

I believe you’re playing Stop The Presses’ Halloween show as well?

Michi: I’m vending for Ska Punk International and I’m reading tarot cards there. They asked me to read tarot cards because they watched the “Chaos Magick” music video and were like, “Can you do that for our party?” I was like, “Hell yeah! I’m stoked to do that!” [laughs]

Mike: We’ll both be there but we’re not playing. On the 20th we’re playing Bad Mary’s Skalloween show with The Going Rate and Bending Over Backwards.

Michi: Bad Mary’s also married! [laughs]

Mike: They’re another married band! We always gel really well with Bad Mary. They’re our general go-to band to plan stuff with when we’re doing stuff at home. We have a very good fan crossover. We both love each other.

Michi: They’re our hometown besties. Definitely, when we play together we will draw a lot more people. I guess there are people who like us both who maybe would’ve been like, “Nah, we’re not going out tonight” but they see that we’re both playing and are like, “Yeah! I’m going to go to that show!” [laughs]

Mike: It’s going to be really fun. We’re going to be dressing up.

Michi: Oh yeah. Bad Mary always does Bat Mary.

Mike: They’re going to be bats.

Michi: It’s very cute.

Do you know what your costumes are going to be yet?

Michi and Mike: Yes.

Mike: We’re going to all be Pokémon. We all got a bunch of onesies. I’m going to be Vaporeon.

Michi: I’m going to be Pikachu. I was going to do Jigglypuff but I couldn’t find a costume I liked.

Mike: The lead singer should be the main character Pokémon. [laughs]

Michi: The most popular Pokémon.

Mike: Then we have a virtual release show on our Twitch.

Michi: Flying Raccoon Suit, Simple Minded Symphony, Common Sense Kid, and Yours Sincerely will be there. Our friend Rorie Kelly is going to read tarot.

Mike: It’s going to be fun! That’s going to be on October 25 on our Twitch - https://www.twitch.tv/megawednesday. We haven’t done one in a bit but we like to do concerts together because it’s a really cool way to get people from all over the world to watch and put lineups together that are logistically impossible. You can really do whatever you want and you can be more one-on-one and communicate more with your community.

Michi: It’s fun being in the chat and everybody being like, “Yeah! This is awesome! I’m singing and dancing in my house!” [laughs]

Mike: Originally we started our Twitch for the pandemic but we’ve been trying to keep it going and create an experience that’s very different from our live show. We have our Twitch release show and we’re planning some more in-person release parties.

Michi: Those will be later in the year when we have our record named.

Mike: We’ll plan some more shows later down the road in early 2024. That’ll be really fun too. Hopefully, the EP will take us to new places and we’ll get to meet new people because that’s what we love to do.

Michi: That’s the best.

Mike: Maybe it’ll take us to Canada. [laughs]

Michi: That would be sick!! This year’s Pouzza Fest looked like so much fun. I saw the videos from Hans Gruber and The Die Hards’ show and there’s a circle pit in front of the stage and people were jumping off the stage. Then when I saw the video of Rosey crowdsurfing with her saxophone I was like, “What??? I am so mad I missed that! That looks so cool!!”

What does the future hold for Mega Infinity?

Michi: We’re definitely working on our next LP. It’s a concept album. It’s going to be different than our other stuff but it’s going to be cool.

Mike: We don’t have a timeline on it but that’s definitely a big priority.

Michi: Hopefully finding permanent members who want to be part of our band. That’s something we hope to find within the next year.

Mike: We’ve been playing with fill-in drummers recently.

Michi: Right after our wedding our drummer had a child. So he left around that time. Our bassist moved to Rhode Island so we haven’t had a permanent bassist in a really long time. Maybe at some point, we’ll have other permanent members besides us. [laughs] That’s something I really hope happens in the future. And I hope touring is going to be more of a thing. We’re definitely working on small weekends here and there. I’ve applied to some festivals so we’ll see what happens. Maybe I could try harder at manifesting it.

Mike: Mainly just a more stable drummer, playing some new places, getting our next album going. I think those are our big goals.

Michi: Writing some new music. I definitely have some music videos I’m working on for this EP in particular. That’s probably more of an immediate thing.

Mike: In the near future. [laughs] So far it’s been really exciting to see people really embrace this EP because it’s a little out there.

Michi: Genre bender. Not that Rainbow Heartache wasn’t, Rainbow Heartache was a genre-bender too. But we pushed the button even more on this one.

Mike: It’s a little more aggressive in its genre-bending. It’s definitely a big relief to see people enjoy it and see it do even better than Rainbow Heartache did. Hopefully, we’re going to keep that momentum going. Mega Future.

Michi: Mega Nation!