Are we ready?

M: Uhh, probably as ready as this chaos is going to be

 

Can you introduce yourselves?

T: Hi, We’re man moth!

D: I’m Daddy Magic Fingers.

M: Um I’m-I’m Monty.

T: And I’m the artist formerly known as trash scavenger.

 

How did man moth start? 

D: I gave… I gave

M: No, it was before covid

T: It was those two sets. We were like ‘we’re gonna okay two sets and then break up’.

D: Yeah, I gave Terner. Or Terner rode with me to a screamo gig in Ann Arbor in 2019 and we entertained the idea of doing free jazz and noise at the same time as these two were entertaining the idea of doing a noise project together. And then we formed to do two shows with Jack Wright and then never stopped.

T: That was like November 2019 I want to say.

D: Yeah something like that… The very very first man moth was in the basement of my parents house while my mom was working. Terner was doing tape manipulation, Monty was doing modular and I was playing the drums. 

M: No. He’s lying. I was playing saxophone.

D: Oh yeah! That’s right Monty was playing saxophone. The iconic moment from the day, we were smoking a cigarette on the porch afterwards; my mom came out and smoked one with us. And my sweet midwestern mom, Monty goes “So did you like the free jazz?”; and my mom paused, went through like all five stages of grief in her facial expressions, and then just quietly went “No”.

The guitarist in Tagetes… I don’t know his name: I just want to say that one of the very first Tagetes practices, we finished and he (Dylan) goes “I think my mom likes this band way more than my other one”.

 

You are always consistently doing new things for shows, what inspires your ideas? 

D: Being stupid.

T: Being really dumb

M: Imma give a smart answer. I think the continual push for all of us to maintain a certain mentality of free improvisation, be it an instrument or anybody playing whatever they bring to the table. It was never, we never set forth to be like “You’re gonna only play this and I’m gonna only play this”. Like the whole point of like playing music and like free music is the joy of what everyone brings together, all at once. 

D: We have a hard and fast rule of we never do the same set twice.

T: I think that’s like what I wanted to do with my personal sets so much but it runs hard when you only have so much gear. So to be able to do that with so many people is like you always have new options, you always have new barriers to push.

D: Sometimes it’s three guys playing Fight for Your Right by the Beastie Boys.

T: I don’t want people to have an idea about what’s the man moth set gonna be. I don’t want them to see another our name on a flyer and be like “Okay, it’s gonna be that set, isn’t it?”

D: Which is fun because when we do a really cool set that attracts a lot of people, then they think that’s what they're gonna see and they come and it’s something completely out of left field.

M: And it kind of helps us with maintaining a certain freshness with the bills we play. We don’t only play noise shows, we don’t only play punk shows, but we try to hop in really anything varied as we can. Just because like maybe even that day will spur something different then what we initially planned on performing or playing.

 

Obviously the Beastie Boys but are there any other bands or stuff that inspires your music. 

T: Black Flag

M: Black Flag, Gastr Del Sol 

D: Gastr Del Sol over here too.

T: Hank Williams Sr., the second and the third.

M: Damn, all three.

D: John Coltrane

M: John Fahey (…) We kind of, we all love a lot of the same punk but we also all love like experimental music. We’re able to show each other things that none of us ever would have gotten turned on to before.

D: Very frequent discussion at man moth practices is one of us pulling out a Fahey deep cut and trying to see if the other hasn’t heard it. And we universally, have always heard the Fahey deep cut and play it anyways. 

 

What’s in store for the future of man moth? 

T: Show up and find out.

(this interview is old and they talk about a show on november 9 that has gone and past) 

D: (…) and who knows… we’ll see. 

T: Look forward to the new album coming 2030

M: There may or may not be bandcamp mysterious drops that may or may not be deleted within days of being posted. 

T: Who knows! 

M: Who knows! 

 

How can I find you on bandcamp? (this question mostly just for me but it is helpful to the general public as well)

D: mandotmoth.bandcamp.com um if you search gang gang gang I’m drunk with a firearm, it will be the only result!