Today we’d like to introduce you to Degenerate Breakfast
Hi Degenerate, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My name is Liam Wilde and I am the frontman and songwriter for Degenerate Breakfast. In August 2023, a new semester began at The University of Memphis. This new semester marked the start of a new life for many people, including myself. While I didn’t know exactly what kind of a career I wanted to pursue, I knew I had a passion for music and the music industry. I realized early on in my life that your level of success doesn’t usually come from how talented or hardworking you are, it comes from the people that you surround yourself with. My goal when coming to Memphis was not to sit in a dorm room all day stressing about a grade point average, the goal was to find a community of amazing musicians and people who were ready to create art and support each other. Now, in my fourth semester at the school, I am proud to say I have done that and more. In August 2023 all of this was a new opportunity, now it’s what I wake up to everyday.
A week into the Fall 2023 semester, Liam Wilde (New Jersey) met Bridger Whittier (Texas) at a dorm building fire drill. They started talking about their record collections, as most music nerds do, and the rest was history. They quickly became best friends, hanging out everyday and figuring out college life together. Bridger and Liam would play music together in their dorms often, and it didn’t take long until they knew they needed to start a band. Liam began performing on stage with his dad at the age of 3, and Bridger had been playing the saxophone and guitar for over a decade. In the early stages of the band, Bridger and Liam wrote a lot of folk and blues inspired classic rock music. This was until they recruited Marshall Rambin (Arkansas), another music major, to play drums with them. His style of drumming along with his instrumental additions of trumpet and keyboard quickly moved the band in more of an indie rock direction. While the three of them enjoyed making music together, they knew they needed a grander sound. This came when they met James Alberts “The Jersey Devil” (New Jersey), who happened to be roommates with their close friend Sandor. James, an upperclassman music business major, specializes in face melting guitar solos. When the rest of the band met him, they immediately knew he needed to be the lead guitarist. Shortly after this, they were lucky enough to link up with Brandon Kelly (Tennessee). Brandon is a textbook multi-instrumentalist, and he was exactly who the band needed on bass guitar. The first rehearsal as a full band was pretty messy, and the original songs were not quite there. In a desperate effort to get something productive done, they started brainstorming band names. At one point Liam said “What about Degenerate Breakfast?”, and sure enough, it stuck. Although the songs didn’t sound great yet, they knew that they were great friends with a great band name, and honestly that is more than half of the battle.
As time went on they began getting booked at local venues around Memphis and even got the opportunity to play Mempho Fest last October. They released their debut single “Campus” on November 10 2024, followed with a music video. Since then, they released “Kleptomaniac” and have their next single “Sorry Eyes” coming out in March. The debut album will follow shortly after.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The biggest problem for us when we first started playing was finding a space to rehearse. You would think that at a music school it would be easy to rehearse as a band, but it was not. There were definitely spaces in the music building large enough to set up a five piece band, but we didn’t have a drum kit and the school didn’t have any you could borrow or rent. Our good friend Sandor offered his kit to us, but the only thing was that we would have to drive to his hometown of Hot Springs Arkansas. We were willing to do anything to rehearse, so we quickly made the drive over to retrieve his kit. Once the kit was in Memphis there was only one problem, we had not place to put it. We all lived in dorms at the time and no one had the space to house any part of a drum kit. We began contacting every department head in the school of music in hopes of a room or closet where we could store our drums. After lengthy back and forth with multiple staff members, they let us store the drums in a secluded closet in the basement. Multiple times a week, we would get together from 10pm-2am and lug the kit up and down the building just so we could rehearse. Although this era of our music was extremely inconvenient, it is when we truly found our sound and learned how to compliment each other as musicians. Now, Bridger and Liam live in a house together and host all rehearsals with ease.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Degenerate Breakfast creates for themselves and performs for the audience. We’re known for our live performances, but once the album comes out we’ll be known for much more than that. Out of what we have released, we are most proud of the music video we made for our song “Campus”. What sets us apart from other bands is our extremely diverse taste in music and our stage presence.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
We are always looking to work with videographers, photographers, and visual artists. Anyone who believes in our music and wants to take this thing to the next level is more than welcome to work with us. You can support us by going to live shows and sharing/streaming our music with your friends. We have shirts and stickers, but we intentionally don’t make a profit on our merch yet. We are focused on spreading our name and sharing our art.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://degeneratebreakfast.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/degeneratebreakfast/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DegenerateBreakfast
- Other: https://linktr.ee/degeneratebreakfast
