Interview w/ Emmett and Kat from Sugar Bomb

Have another interview to add to my ever growing collection of past Artist Spotlight alumni! Today, we sit down with Emmett Ceglia and Kat Hamilton, drummer and frontwoman respectively for the Boston based band called Sugar Bomb. The band is currently living in Brooklyn right now, but the members all attended Berklee College of Music where they got their schooling in how to properly master the musical art and properly articulate their musical message to the crowd, which has so far being received quite well. The two were nice enough to sit down and chat on how the band first got started, where they plan on going forward, and why Emmett loves taking off his shirt so much while up on stage. Here is the transcript from our little chat:

Give us your names and your positions in the band?

My name is Emmett Ceglia, and I am the drummer and co-founder of Sugar Bomb!. Moreover, I am equally Kat's right hand man and devil's advocate, constantly challenging what the band is and pushing the envelope. We're not really similar at all but that constant compromise between us makes us a tremendous duo; if Kat's the Sugar, then I am the Bomb!, exclamation point and all.

My name is Kat Hamilton, and I am the co-founder and front woman of Sugar Bomb! I also write the songs, although we have been co-writing a lot lately.  Since the first album is about my life, I guess I would say I am also the center of the band. I am the pink pants behind the operation ;)

How did you guys meet and when did the band form?

Emmett: This band's history is insane. It has enough characters to cast its own broadway production, and so being Kat and I debate the exact timeline all the time, I won't involve too many precise dates.

She and I met at Berklee's Slam Poetry Club, and I truly found her annoying. Holy hell. However, after getting to know each other through the crucible that is Slam, we found we both had at least one common interest, Pop-Punk, and after that, Kat invited me to rehearse with a band she was apparently putting together. I was skeptical, but I bleed Pop-Punk so that reason alone was enough for me to give it a shot.

It was a bit of a train wreck. There were 6 people in that room, including a violin, and that day ended up being the only time we'd get together at all. And with that, I figured Sugar Bomb! was just another extinct experiment, a fun one with possibilities, but really not anything more.

An entire year went by until Kat approached me again about restarting this band. Thankfully, whatever we threw at the wall started sticking, and we had Sugar Bomb! 2.0 on our hands. We paired things down to just four members, and strung it together just tightly enough to put together an EP. Things started to wash out on us again pretty much right after I'd recorded my drum tracks, but at least we had something to shop around. The two of us were pretty lukewarm on the whole thing, but people actually liked it! Finally, we had some ground to run on and a direction to run in, and with that behind us, Sugar Bomb! was actually given the chance to grow into what we have now.

Kat: So, I approached him about being my drummer because, to be honest, he seemed like the first person who took me seriously. All I had were a couple of poorly drawn out lead sheets for Meteor Shower and Under Your Spell (which are both on our upcoming album) Also, at that time I had also had a reputation at Berklee for being a bit of a joke. I don’t think people thought I would end up actually graduating, so when I started recruiting people for the “Kat Hamilton Band”, I think they assumed it would be a massive fail. Funny enough, the first ever “Sugar Bomb! Rehearsal” was for all intensive purposes, a massive fail! We played with any person who said they would do it and I spend the majority of that rehearsal underprepared, frazzled with no direction. We stopped for a while until the beginning of 2012 or so when I asked Emmett to revisit the project. We recorded the E.P, which made me force myself book our first show in our school cafeteria. For as much as Emmett and I bicker like an old married couple, I will always respect him for jumping on board this crazy train. After the E.P it only became more apparent that this was not just the “Kat Hamilton Band”, but that Emmett and I were a team. Since, we have had endless lineup changes, but we consider Marshall Biever as well as Tom Shani, to be our core lineup. We still chat with those two all the time!

What is the origin of the name 'Sugar Bomb!' for your band?

Emmett: I don't know where it came from originally, somewhere deep in the sticky pink mess of Kat's brain I suppose. We debated the name for quite some time; however, it does sum up what we are the best without giving it all away or having some part of the female anatomy involved.

Kat: As I recall, I was having dinner with my mentor, Caroline, and our friends James and Sarah with the name first came up. Someone at the dinner called me a Sugar Bomb, referencing my intense and often abrasive, but sweet personality, and the name just lodged itself in the back of my mind.

At first the name, to me, represented the music. Sweet and sour, dark and positive, a Sugar Bomb! is the juxtaposition of opposing ideas. Just like Emmett and I, LOL. After he came in the picture, our dynamic was the Sugar Bomb.

Describe your sound to those who may not be too familiar with you guys?

Emmett: It's like the 80's, Nirvana, and Green Day all got together in a blender and had a chopped-up-body-fluids pool party.

Kat: I’d say it’s a little No Doubt, A little bit Runaways, and The Distillers “Coral Fang” had a huge impact on how I wanted the record to sound. Lots of girl power!

Who are some of your musical inspirations from a young age?

Emmett: It depends on how young we're talking, because that can of worms could include Kindergarten, and I'm not about to reveal Backstreet Boys in public...oh wait... My general approach to drumming comes from always wanting to be like my favorite drummer, Tre Cool of Green Day, who is also my favorite band. From there though, things get strange seeing as I'm really not a fan of radio-Pop music at all. Although, I did always dream of crashing the party and fucking shit up, so I guess that's what I'm doing here.

Kat: Stevie Nicks, was a big one. I used to put on a silk robe and twirl around my room to dreams. I also loved Bikini Kill, Green Day, The Ramones and the Sex Pistols. Nirvana also had a huge impact on me, especially Nevermind. I can be very old school!

How do your individual personalities contribute to the success of the band?

Emmett: Like I mentioned earlier, it's the fairly stark contrast between Kat and I that drives things along. In a musical sense, she's trying to make things more welcoming for the audience, and not that they don't matter, but I say fuck the audience, let's get as crazy as we can. The music benefits by being both listenable on surface level as well as a more detailed one: the audience gets to engage how they wish and we get to go ham and engage ourselves as musicians. Bottom line with Sugar Bomb!, everyone gets the chance to win.

Kat: Emmett and I are the definition of polar opposites, but it makes the band dynamic very intriguing. He’s Blunt, Opinionated, and very Hardcore. I’m sort of Dreamy, Hyper and I can be a bit of an airhead in a good way!

The music is a marriage of those qualities. I actually joke all the time about how Emmett is my platonic husband, since I don't really swing that way.

Many of our previous band members personalities color the music as well. Marshall is this kind, optimistic and jolly, ray of light. Tom was the master of funky and laid back. Joe, resembled a kid on a candy bender on stage. I'm really excited to see what how the new kids influence the music. 

I also bring a lot of my pop influence to the table. The songs are all essentially pop songs, that we then fuck up with a sledgehammer.

Now Emmett, you have a reputation for being the shirtless one, how did that all start and how does performing without a shirt make you feel?

It's a reputation I enjoy! I do it because drumming, at the least the way I'm doing it, is an athletic event, and so I sweat quite a bit, usually until glistening. I've been taking it off since high school, so the better part of my career actually. A wet shirt is restricting, so I take it off and bam!, problem solved - I get to be the free flailing maniac I always imagine I am. Any other positive outcomes are purely icing on the cake, but I love them all the same because let's be honest with ourselves, cake without icing sucks, hard.

For fun, what do you guys like to do away from the stage, any fun activities/adventures?

Emmett: I enjoy fantasizing about changing the country as a future president, cooking, watching educational YouTube and anime, fantasizing about owing a hedgehog, kayaking, hugging, stand-up comedying, and supporting women's emotional needs.

Kat: My answer will probably sound like dating profile. I love to cook and drink beer, my brother and sister are both chefs so I hold little iron chef competitions, with myself. I’m obsessed with the television show, My so called life. I also love to exercise: Running, Dancing, Jumping, Prancing, Competitive Chatting. Otherwise I spend a lot of time panicking about the future, for fun.

What's coming up next for the band, any shows coming in the near future to the Boston area?

Emmett: Up next is our first show in six months, finally! We'll be playing at Arlene's Grocery onMarch 4th. We also have a new guitarist and bassist finally!! You'll all get to meet them very soon. They're adorable. Then our second single "Kiss Me" and it's subsequent music video will be arriving, so stay tuned for a four minute make out session. In April we're finally playing with our fellow Brooklyn Pop-Punk/Emo companions in Sulene.
Lastly, our debut album, "Sugar Bomb!," is due out before the summer FINALLY!!! There's quite a bit of "finally" with this band. That puppy's been on quite a journey, so we're excited (relieved really) to get it out into the world.

As far as Boston goes, I have no idea when we'll be back there. Hopefully before the year's out. It's where it all began, and we have so many friends still living there so what better excuse to go see them?

Kat: I’m hoping we will hold a CD release there. But we are trying to find a venue that will let us bring pie ;)

Lastly, what is the one thing you'd like everyone to know about your band?

Emmett: Trigger Warning: we've got a lot of feelings to share. We hope we can have mutually beneficial and consensual feelings intercourse with all of you.

Kat: That we love what we do, each other and you. And that you should come to our show at Arlenes Grocery. March 4^th!


Thanks once again to Emmett and Kat for being so awesome and gracious with their time in doing this interview! They both have a clear artistic vision of where they want their music to go, and I could tell from first listen that they have the necessary components to make it, they just need to catch their big break which is not too far away. For more on their music, 'Like' them on Facebook here and follow them on Twitter here, and don't forget to catch their performance at Arlene's Grocery in NYC on March 4th if you live there or plan to make a road trip there.