Download "Lions in the Parking Lot" by Mangrenade for FREE HERE!
Give us some background on Mangrenade...
we got started a little over a year ago. I (Nick Thieme) play guitar and sing, Ben Morgan plays bass and also sings, and Erik Olsen is out drummer. Ben and I have been friends for years and have played together in a few other bands, none of which were based in Cincinnati. We decided that we needed to start a new band, so Mangrenade was born. We found Erik on Craigslist in the "Looking for love in all the wrong places" section....not really, we found him in the musicians part. He was the only drummer we auditioned and he was perfect. We've been playing all over Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana for the past year, promoting our previous EP, "More Than a Handful" and have made some great friends along the way.
How did you get involved in the Cincinnati Music Scene?
We actually had no ties to the scence (other than a few friends) before we played our first show at the Madison Theatre with Lemon Sky over a year ago. There we met up with Aaron and the boys and they started introducing us to people. Around that time I hooked up with Jimmy Nielson from Dr. Bombay and we started doing some shows with them. They were very instrumental in breaking us into the scene. From there, we just played as many shows as we could in the key places like Mainstay, Mayday, Motr, Southgate House, etc., and people started taking notice. We're really fortunate to be from Cincinnati. There's such a badass scene here and there is literally something for everyone. We've made some great friends here that we love to hang and play with. We've also found a few of our new favorite bands like Valley of the Sun, Mad Anthony, The Killtones, and Lemon Sky. Those dudes all slay, and it's pretty humbling to be in the good graces of those guys.
What is next for Mangrenade?
We're going to continue to play regionally as much as possible and promote our new EP. We've got a handful of Cincy dates coming up after our EP release party on july 27th as well. We're honored to be taking part in one of the Mad Anthony Benefits at Mainstay on 8/9. We plan on hitting the studio again in January to begin work on a full length. Until then we're just going to keep playing our asses off, pedaling our wares wherever they'll listen.
