Puddle formed one night back in 2021, when a casual hang out of friends turned into a jam that was so successful the Bozeman cops were called out on a noise complaint. “Starting this band for friends so that you have somewhere to hang out and make music spawned Puddle,” recalls Rusty, the band’s drummer. Most of the band’s seven members are college students with varying academic goals. Music pooled them together that night; hence, the name “Puddle.” As lead guitarist, Sergei explains,” Puddle is a representation of the accumulation of perspectives that our members evolve from. We all come from different parts of the country, with differing life experiences. The difference in our musical tastes and experiences has really driven us to take on new sounds that individually we may have not liked previously.”

True to their egoless ambition to remain a sincere collaboration as a band, Puddle refuses to name a front person. Everyone in Puddle gets a moment in the spotlight to showcase their talents; most members play multiple instruments and trade off on vocals for the high-energy group, which self identifies as a “Psychedelic Punk Funk Rock” act. Current Puddle members are: Ollie on keys/vocals/guitar; Rusty, drums/vocals; Sergei, lead guitar; Hunter, rhythm guitar/ vocals; McKenna, lead vocals; Cole, trumpet, and Jordy, bass. McKenna sums up their collaboration; “It is a big collection of everybody putting in their own talents, their own input, their own creativity. I wouldn’t say that one single band member has more influence than any other. Everybody cares about each other very much and everybody respects each other an equal amount and wants everybody to have their moment.”

Puddle’s fan base demographic is, according to Hunter, “probably college students who have good enough ID to get into the bar. No, hee hee hee,” he says with a laugh and grin. “We have a range. We are big into the ski crowd and get a lot of opportunities with ski groups that are hosting events. Level 1, the MSU Student Free Ride Club. Our demographic is definitely young people in their twenties.”

Gigging around Bozeman at venues like The Filling Station, Tune Up and The Elm, Puddle’s set lists—mostly cover tunes peppered with several originals—gets the crowd up on their feet for the entire show, dancing and interacting with the band. Fans seem to know the original songs word for word as they sing, sway and move intuitively with the band. Puddle is trying to fade away from covers, and has a full-length album of all originals coming out in May. Titles like “Sorry, Wrong Person,” “Sex in Public,” “Avalanche,” and “Cougars” explore lyrics and sounds inspired by a plethora of genres and bands, some of them so ancient that Puddle’s members weren’t even twinkles in their parent’s eyes when the music was first released. 

Who influences their sound? It depends on which band member you ask. Rusty responds first; “Nobody in the band likes the same shit. If you listen to the originals we have produced, they go across the spectrum. Yeah, there is a giant umbrella of Rock n’ Roll with all these subgenres; we like to sit on the top of that umbrella, so we soak up everything we like.” The spectrum he is referring to spans from classic rockers like Led Zeppelin to The Grateful Dead to funky Stevie Wonder and disco queen Gloria Gaynor, with punkers like Dead Kennedys, The Chats and pop rocker Elton John thrown in for good measure. 

Puddle’s musical diversity translates to their choice of cover tunes as well. “We cover everything under the sun,” says Sergei. Pink Floyd, Nectar, Tool, Smashing Pumpkins, Jane’s Addiction, The Doors, Little Feat, Supertramp, The Districts—all might make the set list at any show. Some covers, more than others, have left their mark on Puddle. “Individual covers that have shaped us as a band? “I Wish,” by Stevie Wonder. That was a big step for us, I feel like,” offers Ollie, whose grandmother taught him to play piano as a child, and who has been self-taught on keyboards from the age of twelve.

Like Ollie, most members of Puddle have been playing instruments since childhood. Lead vocalist, McKenna considers her voice her instrument, and it is the only one she plays within the realm of Puddle. “I have been in a couple different bands,” she explains. “When I got out of high school, I joined a Christian missionary-based music program. We traveled around Cambodia and Thailand playing shows. After that, I moved to Taiwan and ran an English café where we would have music nights. I went to high school in Kalispell, and I grew up skiing Whitefish Mountain. Puddle attracts a lot of skiers, and we have a lot of ski influences,” she says. Like McKenna, Rusty has been in bands since his youth. “I have been playing drums and percussion for 10 years. I started in middle school, played in jazz band in 7th grade, then concert band, orchestra, and marching band all through high school, rock bands in high school, and jazz for two years at MSU.”

Hunter and Sergei also come from musical homes. “My Dad was a guitarist and he played in a lot of cover bands,” says Hunter. “When I was a kid, my basement was a music studio, so we had lots of musicians over all the time I was growing up. My Dad kind of taught me the basics and I played up until I went away to college, then stopped playing for a year-and-a-half, then picked it back up again after my Dad sent me a guitar,” he recalls. For Sergei, a variety of trying out different musical instruments until one stuck worked for him. “I did violin for a little while, but I didn’t ever want to practice and actually really learn how to use it. I dropped that, tried moving on to trumpet, dropped that. I tried choir and, truth be told, probably didn’t take it as seriously as I could have, but always had a guitar alongside that.  Learned patterns, not music theory. Recently, I’ve done lessons for finger-style guitar playing. That is what I really want to do. Mark Knopfler is a huge inspiration.”

With their local popularity surging, in what direction will Puddle flow next? A plan for a mini tour of live performances is being floated around for sometime after their album release. Sergei explains, “With the rise of social media, there are a lot of famous and well-known artists that are only products because of their social media. It is the consensus among us that we don’t want to, as a band, reflect what we are about with corny Instagram videos and meaningless social media content. We really want Puddle to be about the live events and the live performance of our music.”

“I think sometimes it’s good to be a little delusional, extra ambitious. I would love to see us headlining some big venues,” says McKenna. “It is hard to land a big show until our album is out. We are going to do a mini tour once we release our music. That will be really fun. I am not exactly sure where Puddle is going to go. We all have very different lives, and we are all at different stages of our lives. I do believe that we can get somewhere; I do believe that we could be something big, even if it isn’t with this band. I believe we will each continue on with music, even as individuals, and do something profound.”    

Soak up some Puddle at an upcoming show or event this month:
March 8th at Bozeman’s Rialto, opening for Cosmic Sans
March 30th Level 1 Rail Jam at the Gallatin County Fairgrounds