Breaking Small Town Barriers: How Frogs in Milk is Healing the Delaware Music Scene by Simply Being Themselves

Sitting down with Frogs in Milk, I couldn’t ignore the love these guys had for each other. That love along with Led Zeppelin posters and records saturated the room. As a lifelong Delaware resident, I knew an embarrassingly small amount about the local music scene, but it is impossible to ignore the growing attention on local acts. Walking around Main Street, Newark, through the heart of the University of Delaware, live music is in our backyards, bars, even on our street corners. As an outsider, it excites me to witness a blossoming passion for local sound and a celebration of art. But it runs much deeper than that.

I first heard about Frogs in Milk from a local venue, the Tire Shop, which I came to learn was born from their bassist Kyle and their lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Peter Jack. The single story, unassuming house located at the top of Main Street became a fundamental force in bringing about Frogs In Milk. 

Frogs in Milk was kindled by a warm appreciation for The Grateful Dead and a red-blooded ardency for music. Made up of five members, Peter Jack the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist, Kyle the bassist, Jack the lead guitarist, Kevin on drums and Miles who plays keys. Their music makes its own place in a world of categorical boxes and barriers as it defies pre-destined recipes through a combination of lurid guitar riffs and basslines that take you with them alongside the melody. I was interested to hear how they felt their sound didn’t ‘fit in’ with the broader community, and it became clear that being a musician today comes with inhibitions that only ingenuity can break through.

What is it like being a small band in a small town in a small state? How’s the scene here?

Our conversation reiterated the strife their uniqueness has brought them within the often “pretentious” “exclusivity thing” that is the Delaware music scene. The Delaware underground failed to recognize the Tire Shop as a real venue, or accept our band at all. This is something “we would like to end, and instead just bring love and music to the area.” However, our venue is still one of the most popular DIY venues in the area, with the same bands that exclude us asking us to play here. Frogs in Milk isn’t concerned with pettiness, “we don’t wanna exclude people, we just wanna do music, we don’t have much of a choice to be in the music scene, we just do what we want.” To the band, “it’s bizarre, because to us it’s about. a good time, community, the music and spreading love and good times to whoever’s interested, there is a strange groove you’re expected to follow if you’re a band in Newark and we refuse to fit the mold, we aren’t interested in fitting the scene”. Following the unconquered taste of their music, the band welcomes any act with an interest in bringing music to new ears. Beyond their critiques of standards within the area, most of the crowd is great they say, and overall Delaware is composed of a “passionate music community always eager to hear something new” and the band themselves are always eager to “hear a new sound or shake a new hand”.

How do you feel the rise in popularity of social media affected you as band, is it to coexist with?

“What I don’t like personally, is that social media is now something required for bands to do” venues want you to promote yourself on social media “on top of being a band you also have to be an influencer”, the bassist comments. While recognizing the pros of being able to promote music easier than “selling CD’s on the street”, the guys feel the pressure of all the other acts doing the exact same thing. “We do want to up our social media page, but the dopamine quick hits of social media are the opposite of what music is. It becomes difficult because you want to keep your soul in the music, but it needs to be enough to grab a listener’s attention in a sea of a million things.” The band all agreed that their desire is not fandom, but to “be human beings not human doings”.

How do you all feel about your sound? Do you all see yourselves reflected in it?

We all have a different approach to songwriting. Some lyrics and riffs are written solo, and sometimes it’s a low pressure groove that allows an “organic lifeform to be created”. (Which is a great way to describe their sound by the way.) You can always tell who writes what song. Sometimes we’re just mindlessly jamming, resulting in a song that is a hodge podge of everyone together, which are the most interesting sessions because the song isn’t tied down to specific genre, a sentiment that the group exudes. Just getting together and getting the sound out “really does transcend what I would assume what the song would become”, the keyboardist celebrates.

And of course, I had to ask, what’s with the name?

After being a band for three months, we got desperate for a name. Frogs in Milk came from a Jerry Garcia interview on David Letterman, where he described the psychedelic sixties as being “more fun than frogs in a glass of milk”. We know it’s a little odd, we’re learning to embrace the funky and the weird. I agreed that the eccentricity of this story perfectly encapsulates the ingenuity of the group.