The Frogman Experience

Every band has an origin story. Most involve a garage located in a metropolitan suburb, a group of childhood friends and that one gig where everything came together. Not so for Santa Cruz’s newest entree into the eclectic regional music scene, The Frogman Experience.

Hot off an electric set at the Santa Cruz Music Festival, The Frogman Experience, embraces the theatrical, performing, rather than playing, a mix of funk, folk, punk and rock opera while wearing vibrant costumes and masks. Led by frontman, The Frogman, the band’s cast of characters, Andrew the Wizard, Bushman, Birdman, Fishman, Papaya Pete, The Elephant King and The Bear Knight lead the audience on a trip down the great fantastic, incorporating dancing, acting and even play fighting into their live shows.

"If you love us you’re laughing, if you hate us, you’re laughing. Either way, laugh all you want, because you can’t see who I am."

Wearing a colorful, psychedelic frog mask adorned with feathers and beads, The Frogman got his start playing funk and folk jams on Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz. Back then he went by “Moses the Frog” and spent his days entertaining passersby with his acoustic bass guitar.

“I guess I just wanted to become The Frogman,” he says, chuckling. “People got a little worried that I was going off the deep end – wearing a sequin cape didn’t help.”

But, he says, all that started to change when he got his rock band together and started booking shows.

“People were like, ‘oh, this is really cool, maybe he isn’t losing his mind after all.’”

Within months of forming, the eight-piece were playing packed shows at The Blue Lagoon and The Catalyst and had snagged a coveted spot at the downtown music festival.

Their next local show on October 30 at The Blue Lagoon takes on a spooky, carnival theme, just in time for Halloween.

“We’re going to do a really dark and twisted haunted carnival, but not too scary, like our own [version of] ‘Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror,’” says The Frogman. “Wear a costume,” he adds.

Unlike most bands who play from a standard set list, The Frogman Experience puts in a lot of creativity and effort beforehand to make each show unique.

The Frogman says for each show they write a script, a general skeleton of what is going to take place on stage. Band members, in full character, then play and act out the scenes for the audience.

Intriguing right? Well, how about this. The stories or scenes acted out on stage are all based on Buddhist principles.

“No matter what the story is, we approach it from the mindset that everything you perceive outside of you is all within you. The colors you see aren’t out there. If you are seeing all this negativity and hatred in the world, it’s all something within you that you are not fixing. And once you fix and work through these things, you will be on a new path and disconnected from the patterns that brought you down in the past – it’s almost like self-help,” says The Frogman.

“We’ve done shows about struggling with alcohol, depression, drug abuse and other things you wouldn’t normally expect to confront during a concert,” he adds.

Approaching these weighty issues in character help open up the band and the audience to new avenues of thought, The Frogman explains.

Sometimes audience members come up to the band during a show and ask if they can be a character too. “Sure -what do you want to be,” is The Frogman’s typical response. But, there is a catch.

“Be honest with us – tell us what is going on in your life right now,” he says. “And how would you work through it – as a giraffe?” - SantaCruz.com

On a stage adorned with plants and giant magic mushrooms, a cowboy lays down a mean drum solo, which is followed by a funk-slapping bass lick dropped by what appears to be an Aztec frog in a psychedelic shirt. Soon, a wizard begins tearing it up on the guitar while more animals float on and off stage.

No, your drink wasn’t spiked. You’re just watching the Frogman Experience.

“I’m trying to push this message across that I saw in a vision,” explains bassist Justin Mosely (aka Moses the Frogman). “I was shown what would happen if I showed everyone the truth, and what would happen if I just covered it up.”

That vision was a six-hour, silent Ayahuasca ceremony in which Mosely participated with his friend Mario Guizer (aka Birdman), where they both saw the interconnection of life and humanity’s unconscious rejection of nature.

“During the ceremony, I was visited by a frog spirit,” he says, “who showed me myself, wearing this frog mask, and helping the people out of their struggles—showing them that the struggle was within themselves, not something external.”

Mosely didn’t miss the metaphor.

“I did the ceremony because I have a problem with alcoholism,” he admits. “That’s why the whole story behind the Frogman is helping people through the struggles within themselves.”

After his trip, the 27-year-old native Santa Cruzan spent the next three months constructing his elaborate mask. By January 2014, he was busking as the Frogman, rocking out on an acoustic bass.

“People on Pacific thought I was a little nuts,” he says with a laugh. “Even in Santa Cruz.”

Today, the Frogman Experience is a full-on “theatrical funkadellic” show complete with set design, a loosely designed script that leaves room for improv, and a cast of characters consisting of Cowboy Tim and Mugwort the Dragon (both played by drummer Tim Johnson), Andrew the Wizard (guitarist Andrew Marsh), Birdman, Fishman (Max Sommerville), the Elephant King (Kai Hornbeck), Papaya Pete (Anders Cochran), Bushman (Elijah Davis), Bear Knight (Bear Franklin) and a slew of others. Each character represents a human struggle and has its own costume, storyline and performance (e.g.Birdman represents the artist in everyone that wants to fly and create but is stuck in a 9 to 5 job working for The Man).

Yet, not everything is not sunshine and wizards for the Frogman. The Experience’s next episode, entitled “The Night Frog,” premieres at the Blue Lagoon on June 19, and is much darker than previous performances.

“The Bushman represents all the darkness within you,” says Mosely. “Depression, anxiety and all the negative aspects of the human psyche. Usually Frogman has control of the Bushman, but this time he loses it.” - Good Times Weekly

Gonna switch it up on all you Euphoric readers and drop something that’s NOT electronic, but just as jammy. Hailing from our very own, Santa Cruz, Ca. comes the funky fresh beats of the Frogman Experience. If you’re in the area and you HAVEN’T seen the Frogman, then pull yourself out from that lilipad you’ve been living under and give them a peep because it’s one of the most unique shows you’ll ever see. Led by Moses the Frogman on bass, each gig is a one-of-a-kind rock opera, written around a different theme and with an ever-changing cast of characters. Each venue they rock is transformed into nature sanctuary complete with eucalyptus plants and giant mushrooms. And you’re just in luck because the Frogman Experience will be rocking the Blue Lagoon on April 22nd with their latest installment, “Rise of Bushman.” - Euphoric.net

At the end of August 2015, Justin Mosley came into the KZSC Studio to talk about the first event of The Frogman Experience at the Tannery Arts Center. - Artist on Art