While he was in Hawaii for college, Justin Reckamp said he kept in touch with his best friend from high school, Sean Carolan, by sharing musical ideas that they wrote during their time apart.
In March 2015, Reckamp and Carolan reconvened to form a band called Mungion. With Reckamp on guitar and Carolan on bass, they found Joe Re to play keys and David Collum to play drums a few months later.
After acquiring a large fan base over their short career, Chicago-based Mungion is playing a show in Indiana for the first time on Thursday at the Bluebird Nightclub.
Because each member of the band comes from eclectic musical backgrounds, Reckamp said they’ve started to describe themselves as progressive jam-rock and dance.
“At the end of the day, we want to play music that makes us feel good and that makes other people feel good,” he said. “That’s really important to us.”
Despite band members’ varied interests, Reckamp said some of their strongest influences include Phish, Primus and Frank Zappa.
Reckamp said they try to improvise as much as possible when they perform live.
Because each crowd is different, he said they challenge themselves to cater their music to whoever is watching them.
“If there’s a good crowd and they’re really receptive, we’ll just go for it,” he said. “Nothing is preconceived, and we’re just flying by the seats of our pants and throwing caution to the wind.”
Although the improvisation is not always successful, Reckamp said when it does work, there’s nothing quite like it.
It takes a certain level of chemistry for a band to improvise, he said. Even though Mungion is coming up on its one-year anniversary, Reckamp said everyone has quickly grown together as musicians and friends.
“We just like to have a good time,” he said. “We take the music seriously, but we definitely don’t take ourselves seriously.”
Reckamp said he was 14 years old and was learning to play guitar when he met Carolan. The two went to Prairie Ridge High School and played in several bands together.
After graduating, he said the two were separated as he went to Hawaii for college and Carolan went to Elmhurst College in Illinois. Reckamp said his time in Hawaii didn’t last long.
“I found that Hawaii is a great vacation spot, but it’s not a great place to go to school for me,” he said. “I didn’t get much done, if you could imagine.”
Almost a year after the band formed, Reckamp said they are finishing up recording their debut album, “Scary Blankets,” which is scheduled for release in late April.
Although the band has never been to Bloomington before, Reckamp said he has heard good things about the town’s music scene and is excited to play the Bluebird.
“We hope that when people come out to our shows, they’re able to shake their booty,” he said. “Because if they’re not, then we’re doing something wrong. We will leave Bloomington, Indiana, extremely happy if there’s just a few people there dancing their asses off and having a good time.”
