Mint Green

In a city as large as Boston, it takes hard work and determination to break into the music scene. For the four-piece, female-fronted group Mint Green, that means performing multiple times a month, doing interviews on Friday nights and recording an album: all at the same time.

Mint Green began to carve out a space in Boston’s punk world with debut album Growth, which was featured on the app Bandcamp in November 2016. Lead singer and guitarist Ronnica is joined by guitarist Frank Prile, drummer Daniel Huang and bassist Brandon Geeslin for the six-track record, which Ronnica wrote herself.

The group came together in a way that might be called typical of today: Craigslist and Reddit. Ronnica noted the band’s continued usage of the Internet for networking through email, YouTube videos and posts on the band’s Facebook page.

“I kind of already had the songs and stuff written, and I basically wanted to do all that I could to get musicians to make my dreams come true,” Ronnica said in a phone interview. “I went on Craigslist and Reddit and just different music Facebook groups.”

She found Huang on Craigslist and added Prile when he attended a live show and wanted to join the group. Geeslin joined last, after finding the band on a Reddit thread.

“We can joke about meeting on the Internet because none of us have killed each other yet,” said Geeslin.

Mint Green released their debut EP Growth on Bandcamp in November 2016, because the group wanted to get the songs out quickly once they had solidified.

“I knew that I wanted the album to be completed within the same year and I didn’t want anything too wintery because I had been sitting on the songs since the previous summer,” she said. “So they all have a summery overtone to them, very nature and things like that.”

Before the band met, Ronnica spent time with her father on Anguilla, his home island in the Caribbean. The family visited ever year until Ronnica entered high school, and this was her first time there without her mother or brother. This time to reflect and be alone resulted in the creation of an abundance of songs.

“I was feeling a lot of growth,” she said. “I wrote a lot of songs about leaving a city and escaping to this so-called paradise, you know.”

She remarked on tourists spending large sums of money to visit an island she’d naturally always had as a part of her life, sometimes taking that paradise for granted.

The artwork for Growth tried to reflect an appreciation for that place. Ronnica took a picture of a swing set in her grandmother’s backyard and had artist Katy Stringer do an interpretation of it.

“I thought that swing set kind of meant a lot of to me because that’s where my brother and my cousins would play when the adults were doing whatever, or after lunch and we would just explore back there,” she said. “Growth is not just about physical growth but emotional growth and thought patterns and relationships and how they grow over time.”

The EP itself is six tracks: “Pinky Swear,” “Wildflower,” “Timestamped,” “Curtains,” “Callie” and “u”. True to Ronnica’s word, each song is undoubtedly summery. Each band member also has a favorite track, a testament to the sound variety.

“I like ‘Callie’ because it’s a very dancy kind of song,” said Geeslin. “I love ‘u’ just because it’s like the opposite, it’s very mellow and I really connect with Ronnica’s lyrics.”

Prile’s favorite is “Timestamped,” a combination of heavy and mellow, showing off the band’s technical talent.

Huang, meanwhile, likes “Pinky Swear,” as he is able to show off his drum skills and just have a good time.

The process leading up to the release was anything but easy, despite putting all of it together in just a few months.

Before the album was created, even after finding the other three members and actually becoming Mint Green, there was a still lot of work to do. Ronnica contacted someone who could help them record, and the band completed the album while doing shows at the same time.

Like many so-called “up and coming” bands, Mint Green struggled to gain momentum, in part because they are not completely local. Prile is from Wakefield, MA, Huang from New York, Geeslin from Florida and Ronnica from Boston.

Despite this challenge, the unique composition makes the group stand out, and their comradery is evident in the mix of backgrounds and personal styles. The band’s Bandcamp description reads: “Summery, angsty, alt-rock with punk influence and catchy choruses. Capturing the things that everyone thinks and feels but never says.”

Individually, Huang grew up playing rock, then jazz, then pep band in college. Mint Green is his first punk project, and despite being a bit shy, he enjoys it, according to Ronnica.

Ronnica is self-taught, listening to artists like Paramore and Mitski to challenge her own playing and lyricism. As for Geeslin, his punk rock days started the day he heard Green Day for the first time.

“We’re two self-taught and two jazz musicians doing punk rock,” said Prile. Having local agency has helped when booking shows, but lacking a local background sometimes feels like a setback.

“A lot of the local bands are formed here, like they went to high school together, or college,” said Ronnica.

“Or they’ve know each other their whole lives,” added Geeslin.

Still, a band led by a female person of color is a standout, though Ronnica would rather see it become a standard.

“There’s been a bit of a rise of POC musicians, definitely not as much as I want, but I can see them popping up,” she said. “And female musicians as well, I know quite a few female bands, female-fronted bands that are killing the game right now.”

“I try to stay in a community that is pretty inclusive and fights for causes that have to do with diversity,” she said.

Even though she wants to see more frontwomen like herself, it’s not a role Ronnica ever coveted.

“This is my first project where I am the frontwoman, and everything else in high school I wanted to be strictly guitar and background vocals,” she said. “I write the songs, and I’m front and center, and it’s weird because when you see the audience reacting to you and dancing and singing along it’s like, ‘whoa they like me—they really like me.’”

Live performances showcase that feeling for the entire band.

“It’s one of those moments and it’s still kind of hard to believe that people actually like and listen to our stuff,” said Ronnica. Geeslin feels the same way. “My favorite part about performing is I feel like that’s the time when I feel 100 percent happiness,” he said. “It’s when you can express yourself, and it sounds kind of silly, but I think any performer can attest that it’s the one time when you don’t really care about anything but doing your music.”

“We’re all about audience participation. If you want to jump around, if you want to have a good time, come to a Mint Green show,” added Prile.

With countless shows and an EP under their belt, Mint Green has a bright future ahead of them, even though it means more hard work. Moving on to a new project can even be a bit bittersweet, according to Ronnica.

“We have a lot of fun shows lined up which is great,” she said. “It’s like we are starting over, you know? Now we have to fill the months again.”

BY EMMA PARKINSON | PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF MINT GREEN | DESIGN BY SAMANTHA WEST