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Madison, WI’s …or does it explode has spent the past five years carving a space in the local scene with angular riffs, introspective melodies, and a dynamic lineup featuring Shawn Bass (vocals/guitar), Brandon Boggess (guitar), J Granberg (bass), Erik Rasmuson (drums), and Katya Pierce (vocals). Their previous albums, Chrysalis and The Medium is the Message, earned critical praise, with the latter landing on Rockambula’s Top 50 Releases of 2023 and featuring tracks recognized by Tone Madison.
Initially, Tales to Needed Outcomes was imagined by Shawn as a quieter, solo endeavor—an introspective counterpoint to the band’s typically restless energy. Written during the uncertain early days of the COVID lockdown, the songs reflected a more melodic, reflective side. However, when the band heard the material, they saw potential to expand it into a full-band project, weaving their signature edge into Shawn’s softer concepts.
The result was a natural dive into Midwest emo territory, retaining their sharpness while exploring new emotional landscapes. Recorded over a focused week at the iconic Pachyderm Studios near Minneapolis—famous for hosting the likes of PJ Harvey, Hum, Soul Asylum, Live, and Nirvana—the band brought these songs to life, enlisting Madison collaborators to enrich the soundscape with trumpet, violin, flute, mandolin, and cello.
Threaded throughout the album are Shawn’s inventive tunings, born from a chance attempt at learning a This Town Needs Guns riff. The songs echo the anxieties and reckonings of the pandemic era, grappling with themes of self-examination, community, and structural imbalance. Questions of inclusion, release, and resilience anchor the narratives, drawing on the cultural undercurrents of movements like #metoo and Black Lives Matter, as well as personal reflections on relationships and priorities.
Today, we’re thrilled to premiere Tales to Needed Outcomes, accompanied by a track-by-track commentary from the band and their list of Wisconsin artists you shouldn’t miss.
The band cites a range of influential inspirations, including Animals by This Town Needs Guns, S/T by American Football, Clarity by Jimmy Eat World, Some Kind of Cadwallader by Algernon Cadwallader, Viewing by Stay Inside, New Hell by Greet Death, Music to Practice Safe Sex To by Pool Kids, Rooms of the House by La Dispute, Keep You by Pianos Become the Teeth, and Brother, Sister by mewithoutYou.
The album sees or does it explode leaning hard into melodic forms, but they haven’t discarded their typical intensity. Quiet passages blur with moments of abrupt power, sometimes amplified by improvised takes.
Musicians like Becky and Rin meshed brass and strings with the group’s guitar-driven foundation, weaving surprising layers. The collective approach sharpened the record’s sense of open space, underlining themes of repeated motifs, cyclical reflections, and the raw tension of uncertain times.
Today we are super stoked to bring you the premiere of the new album by Madison, Wisconsin-based post-hardcore band Or Does It Explode?! The album is called Tales to Needed Outcomes and features 12 incredibly dynamic tracks. We caught up with guitarist and singer Shawn Bass to hear the stories behind each of the songs. Tales to Needed Outcomes will be out everywhere on February 1 and you can pre-order it right here. Listen to the album and read the track-by-track breakdown below right now!!
https://www.emmiemusic.com/interviews/ordoesitexplodelocalinterview
Madison locals Or Does It Explode? plan to release their third album titled Tales to Needed Outcomes on February 1st, 2025. In anticipation of this new professionally recorded album EMMIE asked them a few questions:
This interview has been edited for clarity and length
How was the transition from self production to using a professional recording studio?
Katya Pierce (vocals): Fun. Different. Probably the biggest difference for Shawn.
Shawn Bass (guitar/vocals): In the past I've done the recording so I wanted the experience of having somebody else do it, without me having to think about everything. Getting to sort of just be the musician and not the producer was fun and interesting.
Do you think that recording in that professional studio changed your sound at all?
Erik Rasmuson (drums): I think, to a certain extent. I mean, they have way better equipment like they have ten $20,000 microphones and stuff like that. And, you know, as a home recorder, you just can't afford that sort of stuff. And a $10,000 mic does sound better than a $1,000 mic. Both me and Brandon didn't actually play on our own amps. We use amps that were there, so just certain things like that. That was really nice.
SB: Yeah, I think you both got to use sort of vintage, famous amps that we couldn't get our hands on. So, I think that it changed the sound, because it was literally a different amp than what we typically play.
There are a lot of guest features on the album, how was it collaborating with so many artists?
SB: That was awesome... The first one I recorded was the violin player Rin (Rin Ribble of The Five Points Jazz Collective), and she killed it, and it sounded so amazing. I was like, I actually just got that sound on tape. Like, that's, that's crazy. It sounds so good. So that was a really neat experience.
ER: Yeah. They were all really good, yeah, like all of them. I was like, Oh, wow…
SB: And they're actually all going to come join us at the album release show!
The album was originally going to be a solo project, how has adjusting your sound from your post-hardcore roots to a more midwest emo sound been?
Brandon Boggess (guitar): It was nice to not fall back on feedback and singular sounds as a crutch. You know, find different ways to express myself.
ER: We grew to love the songs a lot as we as we did it, and they took shape in studio, adding layers, adding more instruments, even against my will, but I really like the finished product. It sounds incredible.
KP: Yeah. The funny thing is my partner, and also Shawn’s partner, both of them, I think, don't really listen to so much of, like, the loud kind of discordant music and stuff. They both are like, “Oh, this is some of my favorite stuff” But for me, my background is not in any kind of rock. This is the first band I've ever been a part of. I grew up doing folk music and classical so as a vocalist, I was like, oh, I kind of get to revisit some vocal techniques that I don't get to touch so often when we're doing the louder, heavier, noisier stuff.
Do you want to continue this kind of sound, or do you think this was just a one off thing?
SB: To be determined? I think one of the things that I love about this band, and I think one of our strengths, other people might say it's a limitation, is that we don't set ourselves to have to stay within the genre. We can play with whatever fits. So I think the songs that we've been writing that will be our next album will definitely be a little bit noisier, more angular, a little more leaning into the mathy sides of things. But we had some softer songs before this, and I can't imagine us not having one or two there.
EB: A lot of us come from very different backgrounds musically and also culturally so it can go in many directions. In recent years, I've been playing more of the softer type of music and this is me going back more to the heavy stuff, going back to what I did when I was younger. To me, a lot of these songs just fell right into what I had been doing or close to that style. I would see it going in all sorts of different directions.
What does the title Tales to Needed Outcomes mean to you?
SB: It's a little bit of a joke. I wrote it during COVID, and we were just like, blacked out at home, right? Nothing to do. And I was like, I'm just gonna learn a This Town Needs Guns song. That TTNG song was in a tuning I've never used before and I spent like 30 seconds trying to learn this song, and then I was just like, this tuning is really cool. So I just started writing things and so forever, we just called these the TTNO songs, as in This Town Needs oDiE. When I needed to come up with a name for the album I wanted something that still used those letters. After playing with lots of different words, I was like, okay, that makes sense. So the name I ended up on Tales To Nedeed Outcomes, which I think fits the material that's on there. There's a lot of vignettes, stories, tales on there, right? So we literally had songs talking about things that I think we need to reflect on and change so there is real meaning to it.
KP: One thing is that the wording and the phrasing of it does tie it back into some of the earlier material. It reminds me of a line in Chrysalis. That's like “whispered tail brings rebirth” So I think it's cool that it's still attached to the material, even though people would probably think of it as a pretty different sound from that album.
Having played at many venues across the Madison region, how has Madison's music scene influenced your journey and sound as a band?
SB: I’ve been playing in the Madison scene for quite a while, and I've seen it be a really rich environment, and I've seen it be really in the lows, where there's not much happening, but in the last four or five years, the scene has just been amazing.
KP: I've noticed just a really surprising degree of openness to musicians who are maybe trying something new. I think it's really important for musicians to be able to express a new idea and not worry that people are gonna get it.
Is there anything you want to see changed in the Madison music scene?
SB: More venues. More people coming out to shows.
KP: That’s literally the only thing I was thinking.
https://isthmus.com/arts/music/or-does-it-explode-mixes-midwest-emo-and-political-awareness/
Madison’s music scene is flourishing right now. “What’s been interesting as a musician in this town for a long time is to see the ebbs and flows, these times where the scene is super vibrant,” says Or Does it Explode guitarist Shawn Bass. “Right now, the scene is killing it! There are so many good bands in Madison right now, it’s awesome.”
At their upcoming show at High Noon Saloon on Feb. 17, Or Does It Explode will bring their explosive energy alongside a lineup that includes fellow Madison-based bands Boxing Day and Mio Min Mio, as well as Milwaukee’s RiotNine and Snag.
Comprised of Bass (guitar/vocals), Erik Rasmuson (drums), J Granberg (bass), Brandon Boggess (guitar), and Katya Pierce (vocals), Or Does It Explode seamlessly merges elements of Midwest emo and post-hardcore, crafting a distinct sound. From clean guitar riffs to the steady rhythm section, every instrument shines through on songs like “The Great Forgetting” — the penultimate track from their 2023 sophomore album, The Medium Is The Message. The album is filled with memorable, melodic guitar hooks on songs like “Symbiosis,” while all five members show off their instrumental prowess during the heavier breakdown on album closer “The Next to Last Time.”
Or Does It Explode morphed out of Our Friends, The Savages, a previous project Bass and Rasmuson were part of. When Granberg and Boggess replaced the guitarists in 2019, Bass decided to take the band in a different direction, and Or Does It Explode was born. “I always envisioned more of a Midwest emo thing, and [instead] we had started veering off more towards a hard rock sound,” Bass says. “It was nice to get back to the roots of where I wanted things to be.” In 2022, Or Does It Explode released their debut album, entitled Chrysalis — a name which Bass says is an homage to the band’s change in sound and personnel.
About a year ago, the band responded to Katya’s Craigslist post while searching for a vocalist to split vocal duties with Bass.
“My biggest reservation in bringing in a singer who wasn’t me was I was really worried we’d get someone who wrote bad lyrics,” Bass says. “It was a huge relief to find a singer who writes great lyrics, is very thoughtful, creative, and has a passion for writing meaningful topics”
Taken from a line in the Langston Hughes poem “Harlem” (which also gave a name to Lorraine Hansberry’s classic play A Raisin in the Sun), their evocative band name is a nod to the kinds of subject matter that inform their music. “I can’t write without thinking about social and political issues,” Bass says. “I wanted something that communicated some political and social message without being too in your face.”
That message translates through their dynamic sound as well, especially in the use of samples on songs like “White Witch,” a track about white privilege. Bass deploys the samples sparingly, which gives their occasional appearances all the more impact. They’re also a way to give voice to other communities. “I’m a straight white male, right? And I can talk about social issues because they’re really important to me but sometimes there’s that issue of people like me talking for others,” Bass says. “I really hope the use of samples gives voice to the community I’m speaking about.” Layering engaging samples of political commentators between vocals from Katya and Bass, the song crescendos to a powerful finale.
Live, Or Does It Explode delivers an engaging performance. They want to ensure shows never feel routine, and they never play the same set twice.
“The shows that I feel the best as an audience member are when I’ve experienced something new and something unique,” Katya says. “It can be a band that I’ve seen multiple times, but if I really walk away thinking, ‘this is a night that is never gonna happen again,’ that is a really special and intimate experience.”
Five Madison bands bring emo, post-hardcore, indie rock, skramz to High Noon Saloon stage for ‘Don’t be afraid, I will be your Valentine’
Four local bands will hit the High Noon Saloon stage for a post-Valentine’s Day concert Feb. 17 at 7 p.m. “A great thing about this show is it is more age-inclusive and exclusively local bands,” co-promoter and University of Wisconsin senior Arthur Machado said.
“Don’t be afraid, I will be your Valentine” is organized by co-promoters Machado and Waisman Center Community TIES behavior consultant Shawn Bass.
The goal of the show is to promote local bands and give them a space to reach a wider audience. “Most local bands play in basements and house parties, which have barriers due to age restrictions or accessibility issues,” Machado said. “Whereas popular venues, such as High Noon Salon and Orpheum, are almost exclusively populated by popular bands or bands from other cities.”
The show includes different music genres apart from just emo, which is the most common among Madison bands. Machado, a senior in UW’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, sits on the editorial board of the music magazine EMMIE. Machado wanted to be a part of the band before graduating, so he teamed up with other students to create Mio Min Mio, Swedish for “Mio my Mio,” the title of a popular Swedish children’s book.
The band members are all people of color — an intentional choice, according to Machado —to bring some change into the music scene here in Madison.
Apart from working with the university as a behavior consultant, Bass is a guitarist for the band Or Does it Explode, taking its title from the famous poem “Harlem” by Langston Hughes.
The band initially grew out of the previous Our Friends are Savages, which after a few changes in members and the arrival of a new guitarist became Or Does it Explode just before the eve of COVID-19. Machado and Bass decided to put together a show after meeting each other at WSUM, Madison’s student-run radio station, where Machado served as director. It would be six months before they could secure a weekend slot at the High Noon.
Their decision involved adding other local bands in Madison to the show including Riot-Nine, a trans-activist band in Madison, Snag, popular for their eco-activism and Boxing Day, famous for their love songs and unique for their trumpet player who is said to be expected on Feb. 17 according to the band’s founder and UW–Madison student, Shayfer Huitt.
The show at High Noon Salon gives a chance for local bands such as Machado’s and Bass’ to perform in a highly accessible, public and safe place, giving them a wider audience.
According to Or Does it Explode vocalist Katya Pierce, who moved to Madison a few years ago from New York, Madison’s music scene has an advantage that many other cities don’t — a chance for local bands to thrive and Machado and Bass are making that happen.
“In a lot of cities, it can be pretty tough for local bands to break into these kinds of venues, but when I moved to [Madison] I went to live shows and was like ‘Oh my God! that’s a local band, that’s a local band,’” Pierce said. “It’s a really special culture. It has been an adventure and I have loved it ever since.”
Pierce first started as a classical musician, but wanting to try out the music scene in Madison, she joined Bass through a Craigslist advertisement and is now their lead singer.
Bass, Machado and Pierce together, along with other members of the show, want to create a post Valentine’s Day theme, featuring a wide variety of music on love, personal experiences and wild tunes, promising a night of fun, romance and strange emotions.
“A brave first date,” Pierce said, for anyone to try.
The audience can expect the show to begin with post-hardcore music from Mio Min Mio, led by Machado, and Or Does it Explode, led by Bass. They will be followed by Riot-Nine and Snag with more bursting music, ending with slower tunes from Boxing Day to end the night with love.
Audiences, apart from fun, romance and wild post-hardcore beats can also expect personal anecdotes and experiences of the musicians. “The political always ends up being personal,” Pierce said. “It is impossible not to engage with [such] themes since they affect your life directly.” Each band has its own story, with people from different lives and different experiences who each have something important to share, something personal and central to their life experiences.
“Some individuals take a stance while other people don’t and ultimately the individuals who take a stance put themselves at the risk of victimization or abuse but still stay driven to take the stance regardless of the risk,” Bass said. “We want to honor and recognize that.”
That is the central theme of the song “In doing So” which the audience can expect to hear. Another such song is “Killswitch” also played by Or Does it Explode, which focuses on keeping cultures alive with myths and rituals.
The show brings together people with different stories — from different journeys and moments of life — some who are still in college, others who passed its steps many years ago, people who come from different states and countries, each with their own unique story to tell. They bring together what is most important to them through music.
The show begins at 7 p.m. with the doors opening at 6 p.m. Tickets can be purchased for $10 pre-day or $15 the night of.
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