Break-ups, media addiction, twirling in circles, the night-life—what do these things have in common?
They’re all premises to our songs. We are a psychedelic rock outfit hailing from New Hampshire. We derive our sound from grunge, punk, psychedelic rock, and alternative music. The lineup features Rainor “Flood” Vigneault on guitar and vocals, Edward McPherson on Drums and backup vocals, and Lukas Labrie on bass.
The band formed in high-school during 2014. They covered songs from their favorite artists, like any other high-school band. Emily Donovan was the lead singer, Reilly Webb played bass, Peter Dubois played keys, and Rainor Flood was the drummer. Check out their cover of “Hang Me Up to Dry” by The Cold War Kids, which is the oldest known recording of the band, circa May 2014. Bailey Weakley joined the band on drums later in 2014, moving Rainor to guitar and vocals. In 2015 the band starting playing more original songs, and Emily left the band. She leads her own band now called Plain Jane.
Then the band recorded and aired their first single “Nocturnal Life” on the popular Boston radio station 92.5 FM “The River”. Their song placed in the top ten of a high-school songwriting contest hosted by the “The River”. Around the same time, the band won some studio time in the “Teens Rock!” event at the Rochester Opera House. They worked with Christopher Chase at 1130ft Studios in Rollinsford for a year recording and mixing their original music. This led to the release of Marvel Prone’s debut album Moonlightning on August 23rd, 2016.
Shortly after that, the band performed at The Stone Church. At the time Peter Dubois was studying communications at Keene State (soon to become a news-anchor). However, the rest of the band lived near University of New Hampshire in Durham, so it became difficult to continue playing with him. Nick Rolser was inducted into the band as keyboardist and guitarist. Nick Rolser would later leave the band to start his solo project Amor Fati. This trend would lead the band into a number of transformations. For one show at The Stone Church, they had six members, including the guitarist Keith Perry, who is well-known for playing in the funk band known as Clandestine. Keith and Rainor were both Music Performance majors at UNH. Rainor would soon take a year off from school, and switch majors to Physics—as if that would be better!
In 2017, Emily Donovan rejoined the band for a little while to play with Marvel Prone at UNH Solarfest, and some house parties. Sophia Kurzius also performed with the band for that fun-filled solar-powered festival. Sophia would later form a band known as Daylo (Fun Fact: she wrote a song in high-school called “High”, and played it at one of Marvel Prone’s rehearsals a year before Daylo formed). This was another peak in Marvel Prone’s ever-changing line-up.
The most drastic changes came next. By 2018, Bailey Weakley was no longer a part of the band. Now, Bailey Weakley plays with The Green Bullets. At this point, the band was scrambling for drummers to play shows with. Two great friends: Jake Smith of Slack Tide and Timothy Graff of Plains were a great help to the band.
Then Rainor became well-acquainted with young drummer Edward McPherson. Marvel Prone played one house show with him, and it was decided (by the gods) that he would be the new—and eternal—drummer for Marvel Prone. Shortly thereafter, his sister Meghan McPherson joined the band on keys, and she continued to play with the band until she got to know Rainor a little more.
Around the time Meghan left the band, so did Reilly Webb. This left Rainor as the only original member of Marvel Prone. “Is it Marvel Prone anymore?”
If it weren’t for Lukas Labrie, Rainor and Ed would have said yes. However, when Lukas joined the band, the new trio recorded the songs that had been written over the past few years for Marvel Prone’s upcoming full-length album: She Hits Me. This is a new chapter for Marvel Prone, despite what DAVE says or thinks. What is Marvel Prone “will always be Marvel Prone”.
All these artists, to some degree or another, are drawn to the beauty in their world, the darkness in their imagination, and the mysteries of existence. Any of them would, as Nietzsche wrote: “turn over the hourglass of existence over and over” spending many a lifetime in awe. However, there are drawbacks to the spirit of being “Marvel Prone”. It means to chase a shooting star, even if it requires diving into dark waters…
If you want to swim in the dark water, then go ahead and jump in
If you miss that special feeling, you can feel it once again
I would go with you but it’s too cold, too cold for my skin
Or maybe I’m not bold enough to explore the wonder within.
Marvel Prone 