INTERVIEW // The Q-Tip Bandits: They’re Coming For Your Toiletries and Your Playlists

These days, there is a lot of discourse around “music people” and “lyrics people” — one subsect's taste in music is subject to the beats, melody, and musicality of a song and the other is subject to its poetic verses. It’s rare that you find an artist that excels at both. Coupled with an electric stage presence, The Q-Tip Bandits does just that. The band is comprised of five members: Maclin Tucker (trumpet, keyboard percussion), Hoyt Anthony Parquet (trombone, percussion), Claire Davis (bass, vocals), Leo Son (guitar, vocals), and Dakota Maykrantz (drums, vocals).

With a name like The Q-Tip Bandits, you’d think there’d be an elaborate backstory behind it, but according to Davis, “The meaning of the name has followed the name instead of the other way around.” They say the name is akin to bands like Rainbow Kitten Surprise and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Son says they have “let the name become its own thing.” The band used to tell an “elaborate” and “truly entertaining”, albeit fictional, story regarding the origin of their name but has since opted for a more truthful approach, explaining that the name, while coming from nowhere significant, has taken on a new meaning. As Son puts it, “Q-Tip Bandits: we clean your ears, we steal your hearts.”

I’m not sure about the first part, but once you see them live, The Q-Tip Bandits will certainly steal your heart. Directly before taking the stage, the band always has its signature huddle. They get into a circle, take three synchronized breaths, shake their knees as a way to “shake out some last-minute nerves”, and count “1,2,3,4”. Once they’re on stage, they somehow manage to put on a show in a 250-capacity venue that has the intimacy of seeing your friends jam in their garage and the energy of a major music festival. The band dances, jumps, kicks their legs, shakes their asses, and sometimes even mouths along the lyrics to their songs. It’s clear from the audience that they’re a group of friends having a great time on stage. Every once in a while, two members will start synchronously shaking their hips, jumping nearly as high as the microphone stand, or banging their heads into the air — so in tune with each other that you can’t help but wonder if their moves were carefully choreographed or if they are just so connected that they can communicate through a quick glance. Oh, and have you ever seen someone kill it simultaneously on the trumpet and tambourine? Well, neither had I until Tucker held one in each hand during the band's encore at their February 3rd, 2023 Mercury Lounge performance.

The group’s Instagram bio describes their music as “Soulful sounds with indie rock roots”, but it’s hard to capture their essence in just one sentence. The band beautifully ties funk, pop, indie, and rock genres into one cohesive package. With a diverse range of influences, Davis says, “Part of what has made us struggle with putting a label on the music for a long time is because each of us [has] such different musical influences and comes from such different musical backgrounds that it all meshes together into the music that we perform.” Maykrantz describes it as an “intersection of five different worlds.” Influences range from Anthony Parquet citing Hippo Campus and Son citing the guitars from Red Hot Chilli Peppers and lyrics of Cat Stevens and Leonard Cohen.

Just as their inspirations and musical backgrounds differ, the band also varies in preferred listening and production styles. When posed with the question “analog or digital?” most members had a hard time deciding. Ultimately, Tucker, Anthony Parquet, and Son settled on analog, and Davis and Maykrantz claimed to live in “a digital world.”

Lyrically, The Q-Tip Bandits range from witty to poetic to deep. In the second song off their 2022 album Melancholy Flowers, “Lifeline”, Davis sings, “You like to live life in the fast lane/ On the right track of the wrong train/ On the left side of the right brain/ And on the outside of the insane.” Davis describes what was going through her head and heart when writing these lyrics: “When I was writing that song I very much was picturing a friend that I had kind of lost touch with over the course of the last few years. This particular friend was kind of just running themselves into the ground by the lifestyle that they were living and Lifeline was the emotions that came out when I was really feeling like I really wanted to reach out to this person and help them but didn’t know how.” Son compliments Davis’ lyricism applying it to his own experiences: “there’s a duality to that verse and [as] someone having felt like I had driven my life into the ground I feel like it paints a really great picture of… the back and forth of… the internal pendulum of extremes.”

The Q-Tip Bandits have an exciting year coming up; they’re currently finishing up their winter tour, will embark on The Tip Toe tour in March, and will be playing Boston Calling Music Festival Memorial Day weekend. The band will be on the lineup among icons such as Alanis Morisette and the Foo Fighters. Boston Calling will be the biggest stage they’ve played together thus far. After Son declared that he’s “as excited as [he is] terrified”, everyone muttered in agreement. The band talked about being excited to share the stage with their inspirations, including Paramore, The Flaming Lips, The Lumineers, and Queens of the Stone Age, as well as old friends, like Couch. Davis also expressed excitement about making new friends at the festival: “What’s cool about it is it’s the people we hear so much about but have never gotten to meet in person. We’re all in this little line together. It’s nice, it’s gonna be an exciting meet-up.”

Being from the area, Son calls Boston calling “the pinnacle” and explains that playing the festival is a dream come true. The Q-Tip Bandits took turns explaining their other hopes and dreams for the band: Anthony Parquet talked about his dreams to play a show in space, à la what Lady Gaga was supposed to do around 2015, with Ripe, Something Simple, and Seeing Double; Tucker, a Colorado native, dreams of playing Red Rocks with Couch; Davis stated her love for summer festivals, wanting to play Lollapalooza with Twenty One Pilots and Joy Wave; Son wants to play Fenway and to recreate the 1991 Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam tour, but this time with The Q-Tip Bandits, Post Sex Nachos, and The Doozers. As for Maykrantz, his dream came true, twice, when the band played The Sinclair, but he also stated that he would love to play with Jack Johnson or Flipturn.

If they keep doing what they’re doing, these dreams may become reality for the band. Equal parts lively, funky, and amusing, The Q-Tip Bandits are destined to make it big.