Philly Plain Dealer

Ceramic Animal is “a couple a nasty boys, from Doylestown, PA. Voted greatest band of all time,” at least that’s what their official Facebook page reads. Since 2016 Ceramic Animal has released an album every two years, amassing millions of streams and a healthy amount of notoriety. Most recently, they released an album titled Cosmic Eraser on November 22, 2024. 

Cosmic Eraser is an incredibly fun and approachable indie psych-rock album that will at the very least make your toe tap while you listen along. The title Cosmic Eraser along with its space-inspired cover art provides an accurate glimpse into the sound of the album.

Unlike many indie rock albums or songs, Cosmic Eraser has an approachability to it that makes it viable music to play in mixed company on a Bluetooth speaker. Specifically the albums third track Maybe Tomorrow, which is a song so digestible and catchy that it could be on ALT 104.5 but also wouldn’t be out of place on national pop radio like Z100. 

The music feels good and when the Philly Plain Dealer sat down to interview Ceramic Animal bandmates and childhood best friends Chris Regan and Anthony Marchione, the music made much more sense. “Chris” and “Ant” as their names appeared on Zoom joked back and forth consistently and sarcastically contradicted one another throughout the interview in a way that was familiar between close friends. 

That tone can be read in the following transcript:

Philly Plain Dealer (Jason N. Peters): I found the album to be light and easy to dance to, which is not easy for an indie rock album. Is that something you guys had in mind when putting it together?

Ant: Uh, I don’t know, man. You dance. Do you like to dance?

PPD: I dance all the time.

Ant: Do you?

PPD: Yeah, I enjoy myself.

Ant: What’s your favorite music to dance to?

PPD: Well, I’m a hip hop guy, but, uh,

Ant: Oh, so you bop you bop around to some hip hop.

PPD: I bop around. I’ll dance, I’ll dance to anything. I also like old school R&B pretty much anything. Oh yeah, I like rock music too. I’m not interviewing you guys for no reason, but yeah, what I typically dance to is hip hop, but I found this (album) You can move a little bit. I had it blasted on the TV earlier, so I moved around while I was cooking.

Chris: That’s good, man. Yeah, I wasn’t, it wasn’t intentional per se, but I definitely, I try, I like the concept of making music that people can move to a little bit more. Um, but no, I don’t think we went in trying to do that unless Anthony had some secret plans. 

Ant: I went into this album saying, I want everyone to dance nonstop from start to finish <laugh>. So I was writing stuff kind of under the table, sneaking little things into the songs that got into people’s subconscious and triggered some movement. So what you’re feeling when you dance, that is a secret subconscious, um, plan that I did have going into this album. I actually didn’t tell Chris until now. Um, it’s kinda like a Zoolander thing. It’s kinda like a Zoolander meets Josie and the pussycat subliminal vibe. 

Chris: See I was, I was wondering where, <laughs> why you’re recording those, those really quiet vocal takes of ‘I wanna see it jiggle, jiggle’ and you had that on every track.

Ant: Yeah. I’m like, just keep it in. Just keep it in. 

Their chemistry is infectious and shines through. Both Ant and Chris, who have been playing music together since fifth grade and attended music camp together in sixth grade, wrote on and sang songs on Cosmic Eraser. Chris explained “we wrote one song together and then Anthony wrote two songs and sang two songs in this one… they’re great.” 

At this point five albums into their discography, Ceramic Animal is a veteran rock band and their new project Cosmic Eraser is a culmination of all the sounds they’ve used baked into one new sound. “We’ve covered a lot of different sounds over the years. I think we (have been) brushing up on other genres and twisting and coming up with amalgams of sorts. And I think this album, that was kind of an intention, like taking more of the sounds of everything that we’ve done so far and kind of, you know, fitting them in together, right? So kind of referencing what we’ve done already, and fitting that at least tonally, fitting those sounds and kind of meshing them together.”

Whereas Ant expressed that the goal in making an album was to simply “make something real.” 

Alongside the five albums in their discography sits a holiday EP titled “Tinkertown: A Christmas Tale” which dropped in 2023. “We Love Christmas,” Ant implored. 

Tinkertown is a one of a kind psychedelic alternative Christmas record. The tone of this Christmas album is very similar to the tone of the Philly Plain Dealer’s interview with Ceramic Animal, half sincere and half sarcastic. The song Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) is essentially a traditional holiday tune painted with the Ceramic Animal brush, whereas the next track on the album is Santa Please (Spare My Wife). 

“The Santa Please Spare My Wife Track,” Chris Regan started. “That came out of when I was younger. When I was very young, I was just a little boy, a little Christmas Loving boy. The song I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, it always stuck with me and I was like, ‘man that mom, you know, I don’t know about her morals. I don’t know what she’s thinking’ because I didn’t realize that it was just the dad dressed up as Santa Claus. So this little kid just goes through his whole life thinking that his mom was cheating on his father with Santa Claus. And I thought it would be funny if the guy just never realized that. And so it’s the message we all kind of came up with together, but it’s the message of, you know, him being a full grown adult and still believing that there’s a chance that Santa Claus might now go after his wife.”

December 21st and 22nd, Ceramic Animal will be performing a special Tinkertown performance in their hometown of Doylestown, PA. Also, Cosmic Eraser is now available on Vinyl. 

Ceramic Animal is a local band with national recognition, who are making fun, interesting music and spreading Christmas cheer.