BONGINATOR and FROG MALLET join forces to smoke out The Nile and turn the frickin' punks gay

Bonginator performing at The Nile Underground in Mesa, AZ on January 13, 2025. Photographed by Alex Gold.

Two Massachusetts based powerhouses of vocal shitposting, BONGINATOR and FROG MALLET, made a stop at The Nile Underground January 13th on their “Froginator4 Modern Tourfare” co-headling tour that packed the room full of croaking, smoking, and insane moshing.

For the first rotation on the stage, local band CONVICTED started off with lead vocalist and guitar player BRANDON LOOMIS breaking the strap to his guitar and dejectedly sitting down for a moment before an audience member appeared to remedy the situation. A few songs into the set, it was announced that this would be CONVICTED's last performance as the band was breaking up. "All good things must come to an end...enjoy it while you can," said LOOMIS.

By the end of their set, the crowd was chanting a mix of "long live convicted" and "unretire," but I couldn't help but be left thinking that wasn't really a fitting announcement for the local opener of a three act co-headling show to make. While the crowd's reaction showed that they were quite big fans, it just felt out of place for a local band formed in 2023 to announce their retirement. Doing a quick dive into the bands activity online for insight as somebody who isn't familiar didn't prove to be much help as their most recent post before this show was a 2024 recap captioned "Ready for what's coming in 2025?" Apparently, CONVICTED were not ready themselves. 

LOOMIS cited a need to "put his identity back into God," but would start up again "if God wants him to pursue this band."

My brother in Christ, you just opened for a band known for a song about 420lb poops. He wants you to find help.

Next up was FROG MALLET–formed in 2020 by SEAN MCCORMACK under the pseudonym BEEF HOPPINGTON, taking Deathcore and comedically immersing it into wetlands of Boston, substituting pig squeals for guttural croaks. Before starting the set, HOPPINGTON placed a stuffed frog on top of the amp stack and balanced his glasses on its face. There was no name given for the stuffed frog, but I assume it is “Lil’ Hoppington.”

Looking through the crowd, it was clear that there was an equal amount of love for both headliners. Looking out from the stage was a sea of frog hats, and onesies. Also, a hell of a lot of weed whenever the pit calmed down momentarily.

With a never ending pipeline of new bands being formed–regardless of how good the music is–there's gotta be something to spark that initial attention from your audience. In the words of NEKROGOBLIKON, "we need a gimmick", and between the two headliners of this show I personally can't decide who has the better one.

HOPPINGTON’s guttural croaks don't feel at all out of place from the usual squeals and shrieks of the genre, but FROG MALLET takes things a step further to really make sure you're immersed. From a primarily green light plot to wrapping the mic stand in fake leaves, and ambient swamp sounds playing in place of the traditional musical play-on for a set.

After slamming through nine frog-themed songs–including a brand new one, “Snack Time,”–it was time to clear out the swamp and let the smoke roll through.

BONGINATOR's gimmick is pretty straightforward, but certainly doesn't stop at the surface level of just weed and poop. With a storyline about weeds extinction, astronauts (that smoke weed), aliens that worship an "Intergalactic Gorebong of Deathpot", and slamming riffs to accompany truly thought-provoking lyrics that the audience shouted along to such as, "big poop, butt squirt, shit blood, stinky poo poo mess.” It's truly an example of musical shit-posting at its finest.

There wasn't a whole lot of banter between songs for the set. Much like the effects of a bong, they just hit hard and fast until the bowl was empty. One of the moments that frontman ERIK THORSTENN did address the audience, he said, "This is the part of the set where I say 'If you have any drugs, leave them at our merch stand tonight.' We need them more than you do." My editor probably wanted me to say he jokingly said that, but I truly don't think that he was.

Near the end of the set, THORSTENN addressed everyone again saying, "I love everything you guys are doing tonight. The circle pits, the push pits, but one thing would make me happy tonight: two-step to this next song. If you don't know how to two-step look, at these two stupid fucks in the middle. It's not that hard."

To end the night, the PA switched to playing “The Hampsterdance Song,” which absolutely did the exact opposite of clearing the room. People immediately began to split between dancing again or lining up to meet THORSTENN for photos and signatures.

Hoping to get some more insight into the process behind the chaos, I waited out by the band's signature repurposed school bus to ask a couple of questions before they left for the next stop. Not wanting to take too much of their time while they were exhausted and awaiting their post-show munchies, I tried to stick to the basics.

ME: It's been a year since BONGINATOR graced Phoenix while you were supporting the now not-so-beloved ESCEULA GRIND, and I wanted to know what you would cite as your proudest accomplishments in that stretch of time.

ERIK THORSTENN (vocals/guitar): Going on this, our own headlining tour with FROG MALLET, and having just as much, if not a lot fuckin more, attendees. Seeing the crowds on this tour is fucking surreal, given that it's just FROG MALLET and us that are driving people out. We've yet to have like a dead show on this run; like, they've all pretty much all been packed.

BEN SONSIRE-CUMMINGS (guitar): We also got to headline one of the days at Muddy Roots last year, and that was really fucking cool, too. We had a huge crowd for that!

ME: I know it's kind of generic, but what's everyone's individual influences?

JACK GIALLO (bass): For my bass tone, I draw a lot of influence from, like, stoner and doom stuff. I just love having a fat fuckin' fuzzy tone, that's a great layer underneath everything. 15-inch speakers really bring out that low end.

JOSEPH MCNAMARA (drums): I'm the sole deathcore apologist in the band. I love a lot of metalcore, deathcore, like the good shit, not the fucking like Sirius XM or Octane shit. The whole, like, revival shit. I like KNOCKED LOOSE. I know it's cool to hate KNOCKED LOOSE, but whatever.

Shit like GIRL OF GLASS, and BOUNDARIES, as far as metalcore bands that I think are really doing the old sound justice. I really fuckin’ listen to a lot of shit, but that's the shit I've been listening to the most. And that's kind of I kind of get inspired a lot by that shit. I love, like, reviving old sounds in a new context and kind of combining nostalgia with like a breath of fresh air. That's just my two cents. 

ERIK THORSTENN (vocals/guitar) - I could say everything in the new wave of death metal like 200 STAB WOUNDS. As far as like one of the biggest ones that got me to kind of combine the whole synth wave with death metal was FULCI. I heard what they were doing, and we kind of wanted to do this same thing but with action movies and shit, so that's where “1986” came in.

Then another one like this band LEFT BEHIND. They have this album, “Sweetness of Nothing,” and I heard that album for the first time probably six or seven years ago and it completely changed my riff writing for the rest of my life.

BEN SONSIRE-CUMMINGS (guitar): I love the gory, noisy shit. I love FLUIDS, but I'm also really into jazz and fusion. I worked that into a lot of my lead playing with like a CASIOPEA-P4, and a little 70s shit. I've also been on a big folk kick recently. 

ERIK THORSTENN: We listen to so much BILLY STRINGS. It really hits when you're in the countryside on the bus, or cooking steaks in a parking lot. 

ME: Just one more. I know there's kind of like a big trend with bands doing their own sponsored weed strains. Then, Shavo from SYSTEM OF A DOWN took it a step further and made his own brand with 22Red. Do you see anything like that in your future as you guys keep progressing and growing? Obviously you're gaining traction, it fits the theme and there's a heavy market for it.

ERIK THORSTENN: It'd be sick. I mean, we had seeds for a while, the reality of it is right like, but now that it's legal and shit, it's just the same as like making t-shirts or fuckin' doing a collab with any other sort of business. So if any one of them came our way like fuck yeah, instantly. Do it.

ME: Well, hopefully somebody from 22 is reading, but I don't want to take up more of your time before you can go get some food.

BEN SONSIRE-CUMMINGS: You're the one that keeps saying you're taking up our time; it's been a pleasure chilling.

ME: I did overhear the crew discussion trying to decide where to go to eat. Did you decide between Taco Bell, or Waffle House? What's the move?

ERIK THORSTENN: Fuckin’ Waffle House.

Not gonna lie, BILLY STRINGS wasn't exactly the name drop I expected from that. The more I thought about it, though, the more it made sense: STRINGS blends a lot more than typical bluegrass and folk music, leaning pretty far into psychedelic and jazz elements. I'm not going to say that jazz and death metal are entirely the same, but I'd be willing to bet if you threw some heavy distortion and double bass onto Paul Bufano that the Colgate Comedy Hour wouldn't be too far off. Both genres heavily rely on complex structures and pushing boundaries past their limits and into uncharted territory to stand out from the rest. One just has a lot more screaming, and sometimes frog poop.