Science Fiction Double Feature: The Strange Case of Ziggy and Bite the Bullet
Photo by JOE NELSON
Ziggy Gnardust’s two EPs, Ziggy and Bite the Bullet, may confuse first-time listeners. The records sound like they belong to two different bands: one is a mellow collection of garage rock tracks, while the other is a screaming alt/punk testimonial. The shift between styles hits like the metamorphosis of a mild-mannered doctor into a ravenous lunatic. While it may be common for artists to experiment with genres, it’s a rare treat to see someone pull off stylistic shifts this well. It’s tempting to convince yourself that Gnardust is merely a front, a mask concealing the identity of several musicians combining their backgrounds into a charcuterie of auditory delights. He is, however, one man with an unparalleled musical backbone, capable of veering between genres with ease. These EPs are proof that the mad engineering of a musician can’t be constrained by a single defining sound.
Before the release of his debut EP, Ziggy, Gnardust was known in Rhode Island for his work drumming in local bands. In 2020, he decided to step out from behind the kit and take on a new challenge: producing a solo record. The result is a heartfelt tribute to the 2010s garage rock movement. You could pick any song off the tracklist, stick it in a dramedy coming-of-age movie, and it would fit right in. It’s almost a shame that Ziggy came out when it did, because if it had been kicking around in 2014, it would have netted Gnardust a contract with a major alt label. How fitting it was, though, that such a masterwork of the genre came out right as we were saying goodbye to the decade it represented. Poetically bittersweet, the timing of its release is one more layer that melds the EP into an emotionally jerking time capsule of the 2010s. Though at times it can be repetitive, this release epitomizes a genre with weeping grunge guitars and upbeat rhythms that come together to make a melancholy treasure. It all comes to a head with “Change in the Weather,” a track that is somewhere between The Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979” and Beck’s “Girl” but entirely Gnardust. Ziggy is the kind of record you put on to watch the boiling sun slick into dusk on a muggy July evening while you sip chilled wine straight from the bottle and reminisce on forgotten teenage love. It stings in a way that raises bumps on the skin, like a tragedy you saw from a mile away but couldn’t bring yourself to avoid.
Gnardust would give us another EP in December of the following year after nine months of silence. Dubbed Bite the Bullet, this release traded angst for anger, kicking the tempo up several notches. It opens on an explosive note with “When I’m Gone,” a near-perfect example of modern pop-punk that has somehow flown under the artist’s Spotify top five. Gnardust doesn’t let up from there; the next track, “Nothing Left,” drops the pop in favor of rock and shows us that Gnardust isn’t just a pretty voice, with layered screamo vocals seeping in near the end. The EP catapults between variations of hard rock and punk, never showing even a brief flash of mediocrity throughout. With proper marketing, this release could easily crack the Billboard 200, with tracks like “Already Gone” being built for radio play. This six-track release could have been a jumbled mess; it’s no simple task to make so many sounds work together. However, Gnardust pulls it off seamlessly, due in part to his use of guitar effects, which weave the EP together even when it threatens to come apart. Bite the Bullet solves the issue of repetitiveness that Ziggy suffered from while still maintaining a comprehensive sound. It explores genres without wandering so far as to lose sight of its core—something that lesser musicians would have failed to achieve. What would normally take an entire ensemble to sloppily pull off, Gnardust can do on his own flawlessly. This is the product of a musician who understands songwriting not just as an art form but as a science, someone who can manipulate the very building blocks of music to force a song to work no matter what wild experiments he carries out.
Ziggy Gnardust is one of those examples of a solo career that blows prior collaborative work out of the water. He may be jamming around the Newport area for now, but there’s no doubt in my mind that with another exceptional release and an industry-wise agent, Gnardust could be selling out venues across the country in no time. He is a musical frontiersman who just can’t be tamed, an innovator in a field of artists afraid to step outside their established niche. Every once in a while, we are blessed with a single Ziggy—an outlier among the mass-produced legions of one-hit wonders. His EPs are remarkable entries in genres overloaded with uninspired copies of each other. He has managed to create two pieces that are wholly different yet completely Ziggy. He is like a living machine from a pulp science fiction novel, genetically engineered to crank out hit after hit—an artisan who knows no equal.