With their quirky lyrics and over-the top theatrics, the duo Hot Breakfast! don't easily fit into any specific musical genre.
But the acoustic duo are okay with being labeled “dork rock.” In fact, they coined the term themselves.
Jill Knapp and Matt Casarino are Wilmington theater vets who met at an audition for the show, “Jesus Christ Superstar” in 2002. They formed Hot Breakfast! in 2009 and have since released three CD’s.
Singer Jill Knapp says the duo had a pretty clear vision about what they wanted to do when they formed Hot Breakfast!
“We knew that we wanted to be more than just musicians,” she says. “We wanted to put on a show, we wanted to entertain so when people left our show we wanted them to not only think, wow, they were really good musicians but wow, that was really fun, we should see them again.”
Hot Breakfast! are regulars on the Delaware music scene and often lend their talents to many of their peers’ projects, like the recent Billy Joel tribute show staged at City Theater Company.
Casarino is the duo’s guitarist. He says there’s a real sense of camaraderie among musicians in Wilmington.
“I feel like it’s supposed to be competitive and we’re supposed to be running each other down, and instead we’re doing things like, ‘Oh, hey! I know another great person who should come onto this gig,’ when we should be saying, no, don’t bring them on, they're so good we don’t want them to show up,” he says with a laugh. “There’s just no sense of anyone running each other down, or trash talking or anything like that.”
Hot Breakfast! recently released their latest CD, “The Big Reveal” and will play as part of "An Evening of Musical Comedy" at the Smyrna Opera House Saturday and at World Cafe Live at the Queen March 11.
You can learn more about the band and see some of their videos at their website.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIvejoeX1GI
This piece is made possible, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
