Unstable Shapes: Their Musical Process and Growing Up
Unstable Shapes is a punk band out of Minneapolis that formed in 2019. The band has a killer sound that resembles early 90s punk like Fugazi and Sonic Youth. They released their first full length album Delicate Machinery in early April 2025. The band consists of:
Andrew Cahak - Vocals
Mitch Gustafson - Guitar
Kevin Hurley - Bass
Ryan Jaroscak - Guitar
James Taylor - Drums
One thing that sets Unstable Shapes apart from other bands is that they don’t use punk as an aesthetic choice. They go out of their way to support their community and to fight for their principles. They recently released a “For Want Of” where all proceeds went to Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC). They have also donated funds in the past to programs that support women in music.
I got the opportunity to speak with lead singer Andrew Cahak. He had some really interesting things to say about the band’s musical development process and their future!
Kaitlyn: “I noticed you said a lot of your music is like 90s inspired so as a band or even as a musician who are your biggest musical influences specifically?”
Andrew: “I listen to stuff from the 80s and 90s so like you know the Cure and Radiohead and uh…Prince...But I like you know DJ Shadow and I mean our band sort of started because of Massive Attack like we're kind of all over the place, um. I think more direct influences like that you can actually hear are going to be some of those like, you know, like Jesus Lizard, Unwound, Fugazi, but if I'm being honest with you I never really listen to those a lot. I think the other guys in the band probably do. I think Mitch listens to that stuff a lot. I think James listens to that stuff a lot.”
He further elaborated that:
“I grew up in Suburban Iowa and kids in my high school like we would listen to Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana and Master P and Jay-Z, you know, and Ja Rule. Like we were kind of all over the place.”
When it comes to his band members, Andrew said that their musical tastes were quite varied.
Andrew: “James is into…Jay Jazz and like you know…hip-hop and um like he's all over the place. Like James probably has the best taste of anyone in the band. Um, Kevin’s into some really esoteric stuff…Kevin listens to a lot of stuff. I mean Ryan loves like the Afghan Wigs and that sort of thing…I think Mitch is probably the most myopic…I think the stuff that Mitch likes is the most like what we actually do…a lot of what he listens to is more in line with what Unstable Shapes ends up sounding like.”
Kaitlyn: “How did you guys meet?”
Andrew: “Mitch and Ryan and I had been friends for a long time…Mitch and Ryan and I went to see Massive Attack at the Palace Theatre in St. Paul and after this, would have been I think it was September 11th of 2019,…after the show we went and got a beer at a bar and I was just like ‘I think we should start a band.’”
This was especially interesting given the background of some of the band members. Andrew went on to say that: “Mitch had never been in a band before…The real proper first time he was ever on stage was our first show.” Whereas the guitarist of Unstable Shapes, Ryan, had been in a ska band back in high school.
“And so it took some pushing and prodding. Um so, this would have been like end of 2019 for me to just be like, ‘Guys, we should do this.’ Not knowing who we were to get for bass or drums or whatever…”
“Mitch had never written a song before, you know. Um so, we were like really kind of like not sure what to do because like I was sort of in this band like 20 years before but I never written a song myself and I don't play guitar. I mean I have guitars but I don't really play guitar. And we just weren't kind of like getting anywhere and then I met Kevin.”
Andrew goes on to say that due to Kevin being in an active band for so long when he was added they were able to almost immediately start writing music.
“And then Covid happened and so we were just like oh man and we were taking Covid pretty seriously…A friend of mine was like you should talk to my friend James Taylor. Um and so James was a guest on my podcast and we just immediately hit it off…I was like, ‘Hey this gonna sound weird but do you know any drummers because we can't find a drummer?’ and he said ‘Oh, actually I'm a drummer.’”
“We started practicing I think it was like July or August of 2021 um as a five piece and we were masked up and everything and it was…kind of slow going at first...”
Kaitlyn: “How do you balance being a band in today’s culture?”
Andrew: “When we first started I mean I was in a relationship. Kevin was married - [now] Kevin's divorced. That relationship that I was in is was over and now I'm in a new one…I broke up with my ex-girlfriend the week of our first show so which I mean it's sad whatever but what I'm getting at here [is] all of a sudden I now have all this free time. Because like I was putting so much of myself into this relationship and I don't have that anymore so I was lucky enough that like right as…things were starting to actually take off…I have this…huge void of time that I can actually dedicate to this.”
He went on to talk about how it is to balance being in a band with everyday life.
Andrew: “It is a juggle like it is it is difficult like right now we're dealing with some family stuff…so it's been a little bit difficult the last six months or so but you know it is one of those things that I mean for one thing our lyrically the record is…sort of an adult record. It's about like realizing that like you know life doesn't always turn out the way you want it to be and like how do you how do you reconcile with that you know, um. And that I don't think that…Delicate Machinery would have been like that if we hadn't gone through all this stuff…”
Kaitlyn: “What's the goal for the future of the band?”
Andrew: “We have a song that we're trying to find a place for, like a recorded song, that we're trying to find a place for and I think we have a place for but you never know with this stuff…We're continuing to write, um. We have like two and three quarters new songs…We'll probably do another album like…I can only speak for myself…”
He goes on to assert that: “I personally don't really love EPs. I think they're kind of a waste of time and I know…that's a hot take but I'm like nah give me…a chunk of things…like I want to sink my teeth into it.”
“I'm willing to give you an hour of my time; you should be willing to give me an hour of something to entertain myself.”
When talking about a potential new full album, he says: “I would love just to get back in the studio sooner rather than later but I want it to be like I think Delicate Machinery is a whole piece and…I want our next thing to also be like that…I think we're probably bidding our time on that…so we have enough stuff to actually do another proper full [album]. Like that's just me...”
“Hopefully we'll have another full length recorded by next summer. I don't know, we'll see what happens.”
Kaitlyn: “What's your writing process like?”
Andrew: “Mitch writes most of the riffs…Ryan pretty much wrote ‘Flesh of Blood and Stars’ and that song is really interesting…we wrote that song from zero to basically finished song in about 45 minutes.”
“Generally Mitch [will] have a couple of riffs and so our process is very iterative…Mitch will come in with some riffs and then we have a Dropbox that we share across the band and so he'll put some riffs in a Dropbox or he'll bring it into practice and then we'll create a little folder just for that song and every time we are in practice we'll work on it. We'll demo it and we'll put that in there and we'll date it so we can kind of track the progress of this song as we go…”
When talking about how he writes lyrics, Andrew explained that his process is a bit unique.
Andrew: “But the way I write lyrics is kind of, I don't know if it's interesting because that makes me sound like vain, but it might be different than most people…What I do, I use a software called Evernote. It's just a note-taking app but…I can really organize it really well.”
In the app, he will keep a list of lyrics that he thinks of at all times.
“Last night I just thought of a line like I was in bed with my girlfriend and…I was like cuddling and I'm like hang on I need my arm back. I gotta grab my phone and…type this line into my phone…”
“When we're…in the practice space writing…I'll create a distinct note for that song and then I'll just kind of grab copy and paste chunks of those lines and see what kind of fits…Then eventually I'll start building like a theme that I can see connecting everything together and then I'll kind of refine that so that's kind of how the lyrical process works.”
Kaitlyn: “What song that you've written is your personal favorite?”
Andrew: “You know it changes on a daily basis. Um, I think ‘Glass Ladder’ is probably the easiest one to get into…I think ‘Feral Joy’ and the ‘Local Sphinx’ are probably the ones that maybe mean the most to me….But I think, uh, ‘Jaguar Jaws’ really is sort of culminating like it kind of culminates the whole record and I don't know like from a from like you know 100 feet up I kind of feel like I don't know that that's the best song but I kind of feel like I I really like what that does for the record it just kind of pulls it all together…I don't know like if you ask me like put one song in a time capsule I think I would probably pick ‘Local Sphinx.’”
Kaitlyn: “If you could do a mini tour in Minneapolis what kind of bands would you really like to work with?”
Andrew: “We're lucky like this scene has so many killer bands.”
He goes on to list local bands Battery Eyes, Lovely Dark, Christy Costello, and Laura Larson of Scrunchies.
“There's a million cool venues in this town, there's a million cool bands in this town so like we don't need to go out on the road to connect with people.”
He goes on to speculate though what bands he’d like to play with if they went on a tour crossing state lines.
“Um if we were [to leave Minneapolis] I mean like there's a band in Milwaukee that I'm friends with called Brief Candles that are super cool. I've known them for 25 years from my old band. We played with them at the first show on our first tour with my old band.”
“You know there's a million cool bands out of Chicago. There's a band called Slow Mass out of Chicago that like I would love to play with [them]. I don't think they give a shit about us at all but I'm like I think they're…super cool.”
Andrew points out though that touring isn’t necessarily all that important to them. He just wants to have fun with the band.
“I don't think we have any interest in being famous…I just want to keep making cool stuff like that's really all I want to do. I want to make cool records. I want to play cool shows. Um and we've been lucky to play some great shows. We got to open for Quicksand at like, a you know, 200 cap venue. I mean that's pretty cool.”
“We play[ed] with FACS the other day…They're fantastic…Like I've been listening to Brian Case's music for you know a quarter of a century.”
Kaitlyn: “My last question kind of veers off from what I've been talking about but what inspired you to donate money and get involved with helping underprivileged communities?”
Andrew: “It's a couple of things. So we've done a couple of different things to benefit, uh, different organizations.”
He starts out talking about what the band did for She Rock She Rock.
“The first thing we did is we did a remix EP and…then Ryan was like I think we should take whatever money we make off of this, and we haven't made much, but like whatever money we make we should donate [to She Rock She Rock].”
“It's kind of like a summer camp for girls called She Rock She Rock and the idea is that these girls get to come to camp and they basically the first day they kind of create a band..Then they learn some instrument, they write a song, and at the end of the week they have a concert.”
“[S]ome of my favorite musicians are female musicians and I feel like they're underserved…I want to make sure that like especially in the kind of music we make it's kind of bro-ey and I want to make sure…they get every opportunity they can to be a part of this club that we're all in.”
The next project they did was a Deftones cover. The money they made off this went to benefitting Avenues for Youth. This is a program that is dedicated to helping youth who are at risk of becoming homeless.
“We’ve raised like…3 or 4 thousand dollars. That was super cool.”
The most recent project was their cover of “For Want Of” by Rites of Spring. This cover was on a compilation that donated money to MIRAC. This was a very personal topic for Andrew.
“Then this stuff started happening here in Minneapolis and Saint Paul and our label was like ‘hey uh….we want to put out some kind of compilation you know do you have anything?’”
“…I was like let me just dig through and see what I can find..We found this song that was recorded at Ice House, which is a really cool venue.”
“And the other thing about Ice House is…Alex Pretti was killed a block and a half away from myself on the same street…I live on the street that Alex Pretti was killed…so it felt like a really appropriate thing to release this song by this band that is so passionate and passionately loved um in light of what happened, where it happened, and all that so it felt really appropriate…”
“And so we're just like yeah like what can we do to help our neighbors like to bring some attention to it.”
“I always tell people like when you would see helicopter footage…those helicopters were above my apartment. I could hear the rotors spinning. Like that's real, you know yeah. Um and so part of it was just to like get the song out there but also to like bring attention back to this thing that happened and like a lot of the media had moved on from.”
Unstable Shapes is a testament to being punk in today’s day and age and being true to themselves while also having an amazing sound. If you haven’t listened to them before, you should definitely make them a staple in your rotation!
Check them out here!
