school. A group of precocious misfits come together in some quirky way, and it feels like destiny. The Boston emo-punk bandhas a few origin stories that fit the bill. In one version, they started out as a Red Hot Chili Peppers cover band that for some reason also played Beastie Boys songs. Another fun fact: the group’s founding members played in the pit band for a production of “Rent” at Newton South High School. And then there was the day Mena Lemos met Nic Adams in jazz class freshman year.
There was pain, too, and loss. Punk music is great for excavating teen angst, and Trash Rabbit does it better than most. With Lemos on guitar, Adams on bass, Mobarak on drums and the recent addition of Gia Flores on guitar, they’ve honed a visceral, riff-laden sound, the kind that you can mosh to even as you belt along, Taylor Swift-style. All four musicians sing, but Lemos usually takes the lead, exuding hyped-up frontwoman energy.
"The same things I love about punk are the things that I love about jazz. The creativity and the exploration and the willingness to go outside of what is expected."Lemos put it more bluntly: “We grew up in a hella elitist town – shout out Newton – but we didn't like school, we didn't like sports, so instead we got really good at music.”
Flores has taken over the band’s social media accounts and built up a personable social media presence that functions as a portal into Trash Rabbit’s scrappy, exuberant performances. “The stuff that we post, even though they're not going viral, they're reaching different people every time somehow,” she said.
The day he died still felt vivid, a memory the band turned over in painful detail. Lemos got a call from Berklee and collapsed in the street. Mobarak’s phone rang while he was in class and he ignored it, fearing the worst. Adams remembered seeing Cable’s mom standing outside his dorm, crying. All the members of the band have graduated from college and are working on songs for their next project.