Vundabar

Before Vundabar, Brandon Hagen and Drew McDonald were in a band with a few school friends called No Nada, but the band separated in 2012, everyone going their separate ways, except for Hagen and Mcdonald. Some of the old songs have been found by fans through Hagen's now retired SoundCloud, and through other sources. When McDonald was attending college he met Zack Abramo. McDonald introduced him to Hagen and they decided they would make a good pair for music composing. In 2013 they released their debut full-length album titled Antics.[2] They adopted a more gritty tone on their second album Gawk in 2015, which added a more post-punk sound to the mix.[1]

In mid-2016, a new member of the band was present in an interview.[11] The former bassist, Zack Abramo, appeared to have left the band to work on his own music group, being the lead vocalist and guitarist for Crag Mask. Their new bass player was Greyson Kirtland. He continued to appear in live shows and interviews until late 2018, when the band tweeted about their next show, in which Abramo would be joining them again.[12]

In 2018 their third studio-album was released titled “Smell Smoke” originally called “Crack Mask” according to an interview with Audiotree. For their fourth album Either Light they changed their style and their songwriting technique. Hagen revealed in an interview with Allston Pudding that they wrote much of the songs on piano or synthesizer instead of guitar.[13] The album featured jangle elements on a few songs and different instrumentation such as synths, vibraphone or acoustic guitar. In 2021 their song "Alien Blues" went viral on TikTok and has since been streamed over 300 million times on Spotify. In 2022 Vundabar released their fifth album titled Devil for the Fire and their sixth album, Good Old, was released in September of the same year.

On May 5, 2023, they released two new singles, "Digital Forest" and "Sugar Pill."

Their musical style is described as indie rock with elements of post-punk (Gawk and later albums), jangle pop (Either Light and later albums) and surf rock.[1] Allmusic describes their style as "jangly, fuzzed-out math- and surf-tinged indie rock shot through with plenty of post-punk spirit".[14]

As influences, the band named Dick Dale, singer Brandon Hagen also named the Osees, bassist Zack Abramo named electronic music such as Burial, and drummer Drew McDonald named Tame Impala.[15]

On their first three albums, Vundabar mainly played their music on guitar, bass and drums. On their albums Either Light and Devil for the Fire, they also used synthesizers, electronic drum sounds and other instruments like piano or Omnichord.[16]

In an interview with Sound of Boston, McDonald explains that the band started a cassette label named Gawk Records in order to avoid financial pressures of signing to a label and to foster a community of artists.[17]

Current

• Brandon Hagen (vocals, guitar)
• Zack Abramo (bass, background vocals)
• Drew McDonald (drums, synthesizer)[16]

Past

• Greyson Kirtland (bass, background vocals)