Brooklyn-based Two-Man Giant Squid started off as an anonymous, experimental bedroom project by multi-instrumentalist Mitchell Vinokur three years ago. “I had no plans to play it out or be a band or anything,” says Vinokur over a video call. But he sent the album titled Abyssal Gigantism to some publications for coverage, which led to a few invitations for live shows. “I texted Rob right away and I said, ‘Hey, do you want to play guitar in this project? If he had said no, I would’ve just been like, yeah, this isn’t happening. But he said yes.”
Rob is Robbie Sawyer. He and Vinokur are childhood best friends who spent many days jamming together in Sawyer’s bedroom playing Neil Young covers. Since then, the band has evolved into a five-piece group, with the addition of bassist Yan Kogan, Sam Borges—who is also Vinokur’s fiancée—on synth, and drummer Brendan Jones, who is also currently playing with another Brooklyn-based band Nara’s Room.
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Two-Man Giant Squid is a blend of two band names Vinokur was considering: Two-Man Bobsled and Giant Squid. “I really wish there was a cooler story… I’m going to start telling people that I was on acid and I just thought of it. I think I was watching the Olympics or something and the other option was Giant Squid. And I had a deadline of when this album [Abyssal Gigantism] was going to be released and I just knocked them together. And it was Two Men Giant Squid.”
The band has released two other albums, 2023’s Intro to Basement and its most recent, the eponymous Two-Man Giant Squid, which came out in March. Throughout the group’s discography, its sound has evolved.
Vinokur says that the band’s latest effort is a combination of their first two records, which is why they chose to make it self-titled; it’s a commitment to who Two-Man Giant Squid is as a band and the sound they’ve developed since they’ve been together.
“We’re looking for high-energy art-punk,” says Vinokur. We want to imagine you listening to this in a sweating basement, but also, there’s a lot of introspective and tongue-in-cheek writing that has always been a part of our band.”
While Two-Man Giant Squid generally plays around the New York City area, they made their debut appearance at SXSW in March, playing five shows. “To see people on the street stopping and coming in to see what’s going on when we’re playing, which I think is the best thing about SXSW…there are people there who genuinely want to see music,” says Jones, who was playing there with his other band as well. “The room can be empty when you start playing and it can fill up within two minutes because people generally want to go to the rooms that music’s playing out of, and they’ll give a shot to bands that are there.”
As they continue to promote their new album, Vinokur has already written two new songs for the band’s next project and hopes to expand their tour regionally and eventually, nationally.
Here’s a day in the life of Mitchell Vinokur, Robbie Sawyer, and Brendan Jones of Two-Man Giant Squid.
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Date March 28, 2025
Time I woke up
I woke up at 7:50 because there’s construction right next to my apartment. — Mitchell
I woke up around 7:30 because I had to go to work. And I’m at the office right now. — Robbie
I woke up at 7:00 and was on my phone for an hour. No need to wake up that early, but I did. — Brendan
Bunch of early risers. — Robbie
Every day starts with
Coffee. — Mitchell
Coffee for me, always. That’s the first thing. — Robbie
Me getting anxious about what the day entails. — Mitchell
Egg sandwich, green tea, coffee. — Brendan
Sounds like a healthier thing than I’m doing. — Mitchell
Breakfast consists of
I don’t usually do breakfast. — Mitchell
I’m actually not really a breakfast guy either. I usually hold off until around noon. But I’m a big sandwich guy. — Robbie
When we go on tour, I’m going to need my breakfast. I can’t start the day without any of those things. — Brendan
To get going I always listen to
“The Boys Are Back in Town.” — Mitchell
I will truly listen to “Brianstorm” by Article Monkeys before a show to really get myself in a good drumming kind of mindset. — Brendan
I’m kind of late to the party, but I’ve really started getting into Amyl and the Sniffers and they just rock so hard and just make me want to run through a wall. — Robbie
I don’t feel dressed without
My long black pants that I have worn to every single show that we’ve ever played. — Mitchell
I’m usually a hat guy. I’m usually wearing a ball cap or something. — Robbie
Nike Cortezes for me are like my ultimate drumming shoe, so I need to wear them for a show. — Brendan
Before I start working I must
I spend way too much time on my phone procrastinating. — Mitchell
Coffee. — Robbie
Not give myself enough time to let my computer turn on and then I’m late to some meeting. — Brendan
Currently working on
Two new singles and the rollout for this new album and thinking of some covers we can throw in on this tour because if we’re going to go on a tour we like to plan a cover or two for the fun of it. — Mitchell
But I’d really love to be
On vacation. — Mitchell
I would really love to play some West Coast shows at some point. I feel like that would be really cool if we could extend the journey out to the L.A. area. — Robbie
For me, it would be on a festival bill, one of those three-day-kind-of-weekend-in-a-single-location festivals. — Brendan
Book I’m reading
I just finished a book called Rant by Chuck Palahniuk. I’ve read a few of his. I like the satirical writing. Sam, our synth player, is reading a Brian Eno book. She is currently obsessed with Brian Eno. — Mitchell
I’m reading a book called Mindfulness Meditation — Brendan
I can’t read, but I’m trying really hard. No, I’m a big sci-fi-fantasy guy, so I like Game of Thrones and stuff like that. So I just recently read the book that House of the Dragon is based on. — Robbie
I don’t know how anyone ever
Does nothing. I need something to do at all times. I can’t sit and not do anything. — Mitchell
Goes to work at a job they don’t like. — Brendan
Goes through a live set without turning up their volume mid-set. — Robbie
If I had to play one album on repeat, it would be
The Wall. I feel like I’ve never listened to The Wall and not enjoyed it. — Mitchell
I absolutely love At Fillmore East by the Allman Brothers Band. And when me and Mitch used to live together, I would just play that album on repeat all the time. And Mitch was probably just like, can you please shut this off? — Robbie
Get these Southern rockers off. — Mitchell
I think a live album is a sneaky good pick for repeat. Why don’t we go with Springsteen’s Born to Run? One of my favorite albums that has a journey in it. — Brendan
The perfect midday consists of
Midday beer is great if you don’t have anything to do after that. Midday beer hits like no other. — Mitchell
A nap in the park, laying down in the grass. — Brendan
It’s good to get out of the apartment if you have a work-from-home situation. So it’s always good to take a little stroll and get a breather, to break up the routine a little bit. — Robbie
To help get through the day
I need to listen to music at some point every day, especially if I’m working. I’m a person who, if I have music in my headphones, I could just be much more productive. — Robbie
Lately, I need a to-do list. I’ve been keeping one in the Notes app on my phone. — Mitchell
I’ve got to go with a nap again. I use that answer for a lot of stuff. — Brendan
Not a day goes by without speaking to
Sam. We live together…my fiancée. — Mitchell
Yeah, same here. I live with my fiance and we’re pretty much attached to the hip. — Robbie
I live with my girlfriend as well, so yeah, I have to go with that. — Brendan
My daydreams consist of
Imagining whatever the next show is and making sure it’s going well. — Mitchell
Yeah, I would say that’s actually the same thing for me. The daydream is always…you fantasize about the next show and how good it could go. But the actual dream is it’s always something going wrong. It’s like I’m back in college and I haven’t been to this class once all semester and I’ve got to get a certain grade to pass the class and then I wake up and I’m 30 years old. — Robbie
Maybe it’s not the next show for me. It’s when we are headlining Madison Square Garden or a big festival stage or something like that. — Brendan
I’ll always fight for
People being able to just be themselves, do what they love, be with who they love. — Mitchell
Alone time. No matter how late the day ends, I always need those two to three hours to do whatever I want to do, even if it means staying up a little later. — Robbie
People doing what they’re interested in or passionate about or just want to do and fighting against the idea that you have to do a certain thing in life or be on a certain path. — Brendan
Currently in love with
I’m going to say Sam because she’s going to read this. — Mitchell
Well, besides my fiancée obviously, I’ve really gotten into Wunderhorse lately. I’ve been listening to them a ton. I actually just got tickets for their show at Warsaw in August. So yeah, looking forward to that. — Robbie
I’ll say my girlfriend too, of course. But there’s this Caroline Rose album that just came out and it was made, I think, on an iPhone and it was only available on physical copies and in Bandcamp. And also the tour, they’re only doing DIY venues and venues that aren’t attached to certain big companies. And I’m really inspired by that model of fighting against a little bit of the big system in music. — Brendan
Hoping to make time to watch
I’ve got to watch Severance. Everybody’s on the train and I feel very left out. — Robbie
Yeah, everybody needs to watch Severance. I never thought of myself as someone who would be watching every show that’s on and I feel like I am. I just started White Lotus and I’m hate-watching it, but I’m watching it and I need to stop. — Mitchell
White Lotus is great, though. — Brendan
I didn’t like this season. The other ones are good. — Mitchell
I’m just going to say more Survivor. I watch a lot of Survivor, but there’s always room for more. — Brendan
By my bedside I always have
A glass of water and for some reason, my checkbook is there. — Mitchell
I always have four glasses of water at my bedside table just accumulating from the last several days and I’m probably at the point where I need to clean that up now. — Robbie
Yeah, a glass of water, a mask, and three books I’m not reading and haven’t read for six months. — Brendan
To help get through the night
I need some noise to fall asleep to. I was always the opposite of that, but I’m getting a little touch of tinnitus from a lot of the shows we’ve been playing. So, I need some noise to drown out the humming. — Mitchell
Unfortunately, I’m just a social media scroller and I just do that until I fall asleep basically. And I usually go down YouTube rabbit holes, too. — Robbie
For me it’s the mask again. I want to go on a campaign of how much it’s improved my sleep and I just discovered it about a year ago. — Brendan
When I think about tomorrow
Well, I think about our show at Market Hotel because it literally is tomorrow. That’s our big New York release show. We’re expecting a big turnout and we’re really excited. We will have physical copies of our vinyl for sale. So it’s a nice big celebration here in the Brooklyn area. — Mitchell
Yeah, amen to that one. — Robbie
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