Diet Lite Offers Fat New Album

Imagine a sitcom where a Milwaukee band finds themselves in the strangest circumstances.

In one episode, the band has their gear stolen. They never get their instruments back, but in the end, they make a bizarre and hilarious short film based on the incident. In another, the band half-jokingly strives for the attention of Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo on TikTok over the course of several years, only to actually receive a video response from the “Say It Ain’t So” superstar himself.

In the season finale, the band celebrates the release of its debut album by playing a sold-out show at The Back Room. Afterwards, they receive a congratulatory letter from Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson.

Sounds pretty entertaining right? Well, these events all actually happened to indie-rock band Diet Lite over the course of a single year. The charismatic trio’s short career as a band has been so much fun to follow, it really would make for a great television series.

Diet Lite formed in 2018 while members Max Niemann, Evan Marsalli and Kelson Kuzdas were all attending school at UW-Oshkosh. The band was originally just Marsalli and Kuzdas – who recorded a demo together called Osh Vegas. This early iteration of Diet Lite is a funkier, more psyche-rock influenced version of how the band sounds today – some of the vocal melodies and delivery can be likened to Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Niemann, who was desperate to be a part of a band, joined the duo, and they recorded a self-titled album in 2019. On that album, Diet Lite’s indie-punk sound starts to take form, while still carrying over some of the funk on Osh Vegas. The track “Funky Ass Gritz” feels like it could be ripped straight from a Cake record, whereas tracks like “Stuck” culminate in the noisy rock-and-roll solos that fans have come to expect from the band.

After graduating in 2019, Diet Lite made its way to Milwaukee. Due to the pandemic, it wouldn’t be until 2021 that the band could play its first show on their new home turf, but its members kept busy writing songs that would eventually appear on Seems To Be The Way It Tends To Go. This is where the Diet Lite that Milwaukee has come to love truly begins.

Much happens with Diet Lite after this point – the band plays over 100 shows, and goes viral on the internet multiple times. The band begins releasing singles and EPs in 2022 that will eventually be compiled into Diet Lite’s debut, Mayor-Johnson approved, full-length album – Into the Pudding.

Clocking in at almost 52 minutes, Into the Pudding is a colossal debut album for a DIY band. In today’s streaming climate, most bands take the route of shorter, smaller releases – having more content to share is crucial. Which, in a way, Diet Lite has done – eight of the tracks on Into the Pudding have been released either as singles or as part of an EP. But listening to the album doesn’t feel like a hodgepodge of randomly written music – it’s separated by five instrumental tracks that compartmentalize the album in a way where it feels like each grouping of songs is part of its own chapter in Diet Lite’s story.

When asked about the album title, Niemann says that he was inspired by Tom Wolfe’s 1968 book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – where the slang “in the pudding” means that you’re on board with a theory or concept. In that book, it’s used in conjunction with folks who listen to the Grateful Dead.

“I bastardized it and turned it into this mantra for being a local musician in Milwaukee,” says Niemann. “If you’re looking from the outside (of Milwaukee) in, we’ve got a thing going on here. Tune in.”

Into the Pudding kicks off with the first of five instrumental tracks (named Into The Pudding I, II, etc.)  a somewhat chill segue into the first full song, titled “Debora.” The song was inspired by a line from the 2017 film Baby Driver, where Lily James’ character comments on the lack of songs about people named “Debora.” Right out of the gates, we’re introduced to Diet Lite’s knack for mixing old-school rock-and-roll charm with gritty indie-garage rock ala The Strokes or The White Stripes. Niemann’s vocals manage to cram an absurd amount of syllables into the verses before opening up into a sing-songy chorus that’s easy to imagine a packed room chiming in on. Combine that with the song’s finale – an easy-going guitar solo trading blows with runs on an organ – and you get the perfect introduction to Diet Lite as a band.

Next up is “Harbour A Hand,” which immediately picks up the pace. The track fires off with punk-rock energy, speeding towards the chorus. Here, the band slams on the breaks – an almost country-rock lamentation takes place as Niemann sings, “Well she told me coldly/Not to harbour a hand/But I could tell by the wayside glance that she had other plans.” Before long, the band launches back into the verse.

“Harbour A Hand” is followed by “Into the Pudding II,” the second instrumental track on the album. Those who have been listening from the start will notice a change in feel on this track from the first instrumental – it’s a little bit faster, a little bit more of a build-up. It becomes clear that these instrumental tracks serve as turning points on the album.

“Flying Cars & New Fonts” is another example of Diet Lite’s knack for writing extremely catchy choruses. However, what will arguably stick with listeners even more than the chorus is Marsalli’s use of the jam block – a plastic version of the woodblock. The band trains you to listen for those rhythmic hits right from the get go, but as the song comes to a close and the section with the jam block returns one last time, the hits aren’t there, and the band leaves the listener hanging and wanting more.

“Into the Pudding III” ushers in the three longest songs on the album – “Tom Tom Club,” a track named so because Marsalli’s holds down the rhythm section mostly on his tom drums, “Madison City Parking Ticket Groove” and “An Iron + The Sun.” These are some of the more jam-heavy tracks on the album – “Tom Tom Club” was actually just a fun jam session that the band worked into a song. “Madison City Parking Ticket Groove” descends into a raucous rock-and-roll number as Niemann spits vocals about a slow start to a Friday that results in a parking ticket. Kuzdas holds down some of his most fun bass lines on the album – pulling off frantic runs up and down the fretboard while still holding down the rhythm section so Niemann can riff on his own.

“Into the Pudding IV” introduces a groovier section of the album. “K.O.,” which stands for “Kelso’s One,” where Kuzdas takes over vocal duties on a dancey number that explodes into one of the heaviest choruses on the entire album. “Jump To It/Jump Thru It” is a bouncy number that puts emphasis more on the chemistry of the band than it does on the vocal melodies, showcasing the various fun ways that Diet Lite are able to veer off course and jam it out without feeling overwhelmingly excessive.

The album closes out with “Stuck Again,” a track that opens up with Niemann and Kuzdas trading riffs before the whole band kicks in. It’s a fitting track to wrap up this colossal 18-track debut – there’s a little bit of everything you’ve come to expect from Diet Lite across the journey that is digesting Into the Pudding. Even more fitting is the fact that this song is a reworking of the track “Stuck” from the band’s 2019 self-titled album. It’s evidence of how much progress the band has made in a matter of three years, leaving listeners with a reminder that Diet Lite are not the same band that lost a Battle of the Bands contest in 2019.

Into The Pudding isn’t just a glimpse into the exciting life of one local Milwaukee band – it’s a welcoming invitation into the Milwaukee music scene – one that has risen stronger than ever from the ashes left behind by the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s an album that establishes Diet Lite as torchbearers of Milwaukee’s music scene – they’re one of the hardest working bands in the scene, and the payoff is evidenced in the trio’s internet virality and sold-out shows. With each “Into the Pudding” instrumental track, the listener is invited deeper and deeper into the “pudding” of the Milwaukee music scene. And by the end of the album, the listener finds themselves feeling at home with new friends.

Which was part of the band’s goal with this album anyway – making friends and having a good time doing it.

“We are the pudding,” Niemann says of the Milwaukee music scene. “I just want everyone to get into it.”