Look at you, following your curiosity!
WE ARE THE AMBER BUGS, COME ON OUR ADVENTURES!
The fact you're reading this proves something.. Whether you met us at a gig or found us in your social feed you were interested enough to look a little deeper and see what's going on over here. Serendipity doesn't happen to everybody all the time. It happens to curious cats like you who are open to discovery and new adventures.
This year we will be releasing our most ambitous body of work to date. It's not officially out until March 14th but we don't want you to have to wait. You've just discovered us, you're eager to hear more and we're eager to please!
So join our exclusive Deep Dive Series, you’ll get early streaming access to all 10 tracks, plus behind-the-scenes stories, alternate versions, and our Shot Ones podcast featuring artists we love from the London scene
WHO ARE THE AMBER BUGS?
Do you ever get that thing where someone asks you a deeply personal question like, "so... what do you do?" and you're supposed to answer with your job title or some other pithy one-liner that does little to describe the rich tapestry of what makes you, you?
We get that, you're a complex three-dimensional human being who can't be defined so easily and you're all the more interesting for it.
We're a bit like that too.. Is emo-indie-swing-ska-punk a genre? if it is then I guess we're that.. sometimes, except when we don't feel like it and want to do jazz or beat poetry or something.
The Industry... (ahem f them) wants bands to have an easily digestible identity so they can package them up with everyone else who fits the same label. We reject that. Thoroughly.. As Oscar Wilde wrote from prison, "to define is to limit". We're not here for limitations.
MEET THE BAND
BEN
Reluctant frontman, Shout-Singing nerd, Wannabe Racing Driver.
I’m writing this in the first person because, well, we do everything ourselves. We’re completely independent. No one tells us what to wear, what to play, or to stick to what we’re good at. I get bored easily and try to push the band onto new challenges.
I’ve never considered myself a singer. In primary school, I was in the choir for the nativity and got told to mime because I was so out of tune. Yet somehow, in a band full of really good singers, I’m the one doing most of the singing.
TERESA
Teresa... A.K.A Gran... A.K.A Super Hans
Mostly we call her Gran. Teresa Kelly just happens to be both the name of our 4-string low-end wonder and Ben’s real-life Gran. Last year, we played a festival alongside a Van Halen tribute called Gran Halen, which naturally led to a game where we invent gran-themed tribute bands. Grananarama, Grania Twain, Grandrew Lloyd Webber, Gran Funk Railroad… you get it.
She’s classically trained on piano, but picked up bass as we formed The Amber Bugs and got ridiculously good, ridiculously fast.
SAM
The Sensible one (who's also a musical genius)
We met Sam back in 2019 when he moved to London and wanted to jam with some people as an accordion player. We weren’t really looking to become a four-piece band, but Sam is a force of nature. Little did we know that he also played piano, guitar, trumpet, and basically anything with strings or keys attached.
He knows more about music theory than the rest of us combined, writes wicked songs, and has the best time on stage. If you listen to Bugs records before and after 2019, the difference is clear. Sam is amazing.
GEORGE
John Bonham meets Animal from The Muppets.
George's style is big, loud, and relentless. He loves groove-heavy, syncopated beats, but also puts up with ridiculous time signature and tempo changes when the band throws them at him. Like the rest of us, he's a multi-instrumentalist, comfortable with a bass or guitar in his hands as well as a pair of drumsticks.
George is a walking trivia machine. He claims that tomatoes are carnivorous, amongst many other random facts that often require fact-checking before repeating.
MEET THE BAND
BEN
TERESA
SAM
GEORGE
Reluctant frontman, Shout-Singing nerd, Wannabe Racing Driver.
Teresa... A.K.A Gran... A.K.A Super Hans
The Sensible one (who's also a musical genius)
John Bonham meets Animal from The Muppets.
I’m writing this in the first person because, well, we do everything ourselves. We’re completely independent. No one tells us what to wear, what to play, or to stick to what we’re good at. I get bored easily and try to push the band onto new challenges.
I’ve never considered myself a singer. In primary school, I was in the choir for the nativity and got told to mime because I was so out of tune. Yet somehow, in a band full of really good singers, I’m the one doing most of the singing.
Mostly we call her Gran. Teresa Kelly just happens to be both the name of our 4-string low-end wonder and Ben’s real-life Gran. Last year, we played a festival alongside a Van Halen tribute called Gran Halen—which naturally led to a game where we invent gran-themed tribute bands. Grananarama, Grania Twain, Grandrew Lloyd Webber, Gran Funk Railroad… you get it.
She’s classically trained on piano, but picked up bass as we formed The Amber Bugs and got ridiculously good, ridiculously fast.
We met Sam back in 2019 when he moved to London and wanted to jam with some people as an accordion player. We weren’t really looking to become a four-piece band, but Sam is a force of nature. Little did we know that he also played piano, guitar, trumpet, and basically anything with strings or keys attached.
He knows more about music theory than the rest of us combined, writes wicked songs, and has the best time on stage. If you listen to Bugs records before and after 2019, the difference is clear. Sam is amazing.
George's style is big, loud, and relentless. He loves groove-heavy, syncopated beats, but also puts up with ridiculous time signature and tempo changes when the band throws them at him. Like the rest of us, he's a multi-instrumentalist, comfortable with a bass or guitar in his hands as well as a pair of drumsticks.
George is a walking trivia machine. He claims that tomatoes are carnivorous, amongst many other random facts that often require fact-checking before repeating.
MORE IS MORE!
Vacuums suck, and we don’t operate in one. We’re incredibly lucky to have some crazy talented mates who say “hell yes” when we call them up and ask them to collaborate.
The Sculptures EP is a massive production, featuring full brass, woodwind, and string sections, orchestral percussion, a choir, a vibraphone, and more. That’s before you even count the ridiculous number of instruments the four core members of the band played across the record. Most independent bands don’t get the opportunity to bring ideas this big to life. We’ve had superb musicians, studio engineers, and artists pitch in to help us turn our vision into reality. It’s humbling. We’re insanely proud of what we’ve created, but we also know it wouldn’t have happened without these incredible people lifting us up and making us better. We love them all!
Sketches / Sculptures
Our Brand New 10 track Double EP - FOR FREE
This is the way in. Some people don’t go any further. They assume FREE comes with a catch or must be rubbish. Here’s the thing though: we’re a completely DIY band, we’ve made this concept double EP and we want it to be heard. So, while all our previous material is on Spotify, Apple Music et al, we’ve decided to release this project for free, exclusively to the people who sign up here. Why? Because this lets us give you more than just the songs.
Once you’ve signed up, we’ll send you a song each week, along with deep dives into the stories behind the music, alternate and acoustic versions, interviews (over shots) with other bands we love and want to introduce you to, studio diary footage, lyrics, and more. Full disclosure: we’ll also be offering signed physical copies of the EP inside, and you might feel like supporting us by buying one. But you’re not obligated at all; you’ll still get all 10 songs and deep dives whether you buy a copy or not. We’re honestly just happy to have you along for the ride.
Here's us banging on about it while getting steadily more incoherent
“Nods to the likes of Jack White”
Chris Bound
“Brasselicious”
The Zine
“alternative take on ska-
punk, incorporating
arabesque sonic swirls,
thunderous beats, deft
changes of pace”
Dave Franklin
Get it All - For FREE