by Dan Dellechiaie | October 23, 2026
Photo Credit: Samantha Kim
The first time I met Mackenzie, the lead singer of Cellophane Kiss, he had blue hair. Blue hair is normal in New York, but not in the small vacation town in Rhode Island we were both stuck in. I was there because I couldn’t find a post-college job anywhere else. He was there by birth. Fate has a peculiar sense of humor, dumping people who belong elsewhere in places they need to escape from so they can become their true selves.
We both got the fuck out of there, both ended up in Brooklyn. But unlike me, who has left New England behind him like a moth-eaten fur coat that doesn’t fit anymore, Mackenzie has brought that haunted region’s dark, earthy energy to the Brooklyn punk scene.
It’s always fun seeing your friends make it out. It’s even better when they bring along the chilling snow and screeching wind.
I sat down with Cellophane Kiss in an abandoned cemetery—abandoned except for the ghosts—before the release of their debut album, The Litter Trail.
There have been two iterations of Cellophane Kiss. Mackenzie, can you please tell the story of the first band? Alec, Eric, and Toby, can you tell the story of the second band?
Mackenzie (vocals): Cellophane Kiss is a project that more or less owes its existence to a single song, “Roadside.” That’s the first Cellophane Kiss song, even though there are a few tracks on the album and in our setlist that predate it. As I was recording the original demo in 2019, I found myself thinking that this song feels like a band. I reached out to my friend, Jake Johannsen who I had known since middle school, to write a bass part for it. I released that demo on Bandcamp on October 30, 2019 and announced Cellophane Kiss as a band, even though it was just the two of us and one song.
After “Roadside” was out, Jake and I had a jam session with a coworker of mine at the bookstore where I worked. We played through “Roadside”, “Sybil”, and “Hidden Places.” Jake and I agreed we wanted to keep going, but my coworker had no interest so we recruited another friend of ours from high school, Seth Burger. Seth and Jake had been in a band in high school and worked together extremely well. Seth immediately understood the strangeness of the songs I was bringing to the table, I knew it would work when he was able to capture the cabaret vibe of “Sybil” on the first try.
Considering how long The Litter Trail took to come out, it’s amazing how fast the songs came together. The pandemic hit after our first practice as a band, but Jake and I kept writing the songs. I have a very strong memory of the two of us in my living room writing out “Wheresoever I Run” together. Eventually, we all got back in the basement to practice. By June 2020, we had all of the songs written except for “All The Fragile Creatures” and “His Shadow.” We played a gig in our friend’s backyard and spent the next year or so playing breweries and one local punk festival.
In 2021, I decided to move in with a friend in New York. That was the start of the end of the first phase of the band, but I felt strongly that we should record The Litter Trail together. Throughout 2023, the three of us recorded in what was essentially a garage. One of the sound guys at a local venue was building a studio from scratch so we began recording there while he was actively building it. We recruited our other good friend, Colby LaMarche, to join on lead guitar to write some parts that were outside of my capabilities at the time. We did record every track, but ultimately those recordings weren’t up to scratch. I was in the position of deciding whether to release what we had, scrap it entirely, or re-record the whole thing.
It was at this time that I met Matt Bray from Hear Hear, and he convinced me that I should start recording with session musicians at Feverdream Studios so that’s what I did. I needed a guitarist, though. That’s where Toby enters the story…
Toby (lead Guitar): I first met Mackenzie at the songwriters showcase at nook. It was mostly your usual open mic fare. Nothing particularly interesting. Then all of a sudden, this guy comes up with black lipstick and a My Chemical Romance shirt. He was having amp troubles for maybe fifteen minutes, but once it got working he started playing these really dark and cryptic songs that immediately stood out from the rest of the crowd. I linked up with him afterward, and he and I started going to shows together. At first, we were trying to do two separate projects. After the initial version of the Cellophane Kiss fell apart, I suggested starting over here in New York. Mackenzie agreed, so I reached out to Eric from my old project who agreed to join. Later, his friend Alec moved to New York to just so happened to play drums. We’ve been a band ever since.
Eric (bass): Well, Toby and I had tried doing the country thing, but it never got off the ground. The demos are fantastic tho! Awhile later I got a ring from Toby about his buddy’s goth project that he was recording. I was down to check it out, help record, see where it goes. The three of us had pretty good chemistry, lots of fun, so we decided to turn it into a live band. We needed a drummer, and I knew Al was on his way out to The City, so I told the guys a drummer’s being delivered. From there we just let ‘er rip.
Where does the name Cellophane Kiss come from? And what is each of your interpretations of your band’s name?
Mackenzie: Cellophane Kiss was actually an album title before it was a band name. I came up with the phrase in September 2015. I was singing the song “What Violet Says” by Suede to myself and jumbled the first and second verses. The first verse opens “The chocolate kiss that sealed her fate”, and the second opens with “the cellophane taped around her mouth.” I sang “The cellophane kiss that…” Immediately I thought it was a great title, evocative, memorable. I pictured a face covered in saran wrap. It seemed to have this great juxtaposition of beauty and violence held within it.
In 2018 when I was beginning to think about starting a band, I wasn’t happy with the placeholder name and then revisited the phrase. However you twist it, I always get an incredible response when I ask people what they think it means.
Toby: I don’t know man, I just play guitar. The name is cool, and I didn’t have to come up with it, which makes it even cooler.
Eric: It’s always been saran wrap between two lips. Sexual, but a little off. Beautiful, but a little gross.
Alec (drums): I always just think of that poster for the show Dexter where he’s got plastic wrap over his face. But instead Michael C. Hall, it’s Mackenzie’s lips doing a little smoochy smooch or something like that. I have no idea what it actually means haha.
Photo Credit: Anna Garceau
The Litter Trail is first and foremost a goth post-punk album, but one of the defining factors of post-punk is its merging of genres. Can you talk about the different genres of the songs?
Mackenzie: Funny enough, I’d say goth is one of the few influences that isn’t really there. Post-punk certainly, but goth isn’t as big an influence as you’d assume from all the blood and make-up. For a long time, I just called Cellophane Kiss a punk band, but with time I’ve come to agree with you that post-punk is a better descriptor for the project and the vast array of influences.
When I was originally bringing the songs to Jake and Seth, we said every track needed to be a different genre. For the most part, I think we managed to pull that off! “Woodbine” has a lot of metal and grunge influence, although admittedly most of the metal influence is secondhand, I’m no expert in the genre. I think it’s a great example of how we explore genre because even in that song we basically have a folk interlude. I built the song off of a piano motif that I wrote when I was fifteen. It was envisioned as a curtain raiser for both the band and the album. That’s why we always open with it and close with a reprise of it.
“Hidden Places” is basically a pop song, “Night Prowler” a straight punk track with a jazz bridge. We wanted to really hit you in the face with a vast array of sounds right off the bat. I’m particularly proud of “Sybil” and its cabaret feeling, but I was really just pulling from the music I love.
Toby: This album is a shape-shifter. You can tell it’s the same band, the same writer, but it takes a new form with every song, covering a vast sonic landscape. Almost aggressively post-punk in that regard. It would take too long for me to summarize every song, but it stretches as far as sludge metal, goth rock, cabaret. If you listen carefully, you can hear a little country and folk in a few songs!
Alec: I think The Litter Trail is wonderfully balanced between slow, introspective moments and hard rock jamming with everything in between and beyond. It’s such a treat musically to play all the different genres and types of sounds contained in the songs in the album.
What bands did you draw on for The Litter Trail? Who are each of your main musical inspirations and why?
Mackenzie: Obviously the My Chemical Romance influence is inescapable. I would also highlight Scott Walker, Suede, David Bowie, and Damon Albarn as the musicians that I most look at and think “I want to make that.”
Scott Walker’s voice and lyricism are something I strive to replicate. Damon Albarn’s eclecticism also has helped me branch into genres and artists I’d never have known otherwise. His solo work captures this beautiful melancholy that has always resonated with me deeply. I’d also encourage people who aren’t familiar to dive into Suede. They never really got their due, particularly in America. But they’ve written what I consider to be some of the greatest records of all time.
Toby: I always find it funny that I wound up in a post punk band, especially considering that my musical background is in country, folk, blues, and garage rock. Mackenzie says that I bring the knifes edge to these songs. He brings the melancholy, I bring the rock ’n’ roll. If I were to narrow this down into artists, I would say I’m channeling the White Stripes, Ziggy Stardust era David Bowie, the New York Dolls, and many, many more. There’s a viciousness to this music that has always spoken to me.
Eric: Eric Judy (Modest Mouse) is my #1. Big Thief, The Cure, Richard Swift, Galaxie 500, and THE BOSS.
Alec: I’ve always loved the drumming style of the 90s and 2000s pop punk and punk rock bands like Green Day. But I’m also inspired by bands like Tool and the craziness and technical nature of metal drumming. But I enjoy stripping back the sound and playing folksy stuff too. I’ve tried to bring a variety of sounds to my drumming, and The Litter Trail is a wonderful outlet to do that.
Photo Credit: Kayla Hogan
What is each of your favorite songs on The Litter Trail and why?
Mackenzie: My favorite song changes all the time. Obviously “Roadside” is so central to the band, and “High Rise” is one of my earliest songs. After hearing the record back, I’ve come to view “All The Fragile Creatures” as the strongest song on the album. It was the first lyric that made me delve into the world of The Litter Trail, but it was the last one I wrote the music for. For a long time, I didn’t think I was a strong enough musician to do it justice. It also has my favorite string composition from Tom Valerio that really captures the lush atmosphere of some of Scott Walker’s work.
That said, “Sybil” is the track that is closest to my original vision and the one song in my catalogue that feels completely mine. It distills a lot of the essence of Cellophane Kiss, so that would be my personal favorite.
Toby: “Wheresoever I Run” has and always will be my favorite. It’s the one guitar part that Mackenzie had zero notes for and easily my favorite to play.
Eric: “Evening Song” is a hit. It rips in a dozen different directions. I love that it’s high octane. The best rock songs are ones where it feels like the band can hardly contain the track, but somehow keep it all together, and this our take on that.
Alec: I like “The Litter Trail”! It’s such a delicious build up from the easy jamminess of the beginning to how hard it goes near the end. It’s a treat to play it with the guys every time!
The Litter Trail is a lyric-heavy album. The opening lines of the first track (“Woodbine”) are literally: “Part the forest roof to see / The winding snakemeadow beneath / The concrete slinking beast that feeds / Abandoned lanes and carcass meat.” Can you talk about its writing process?
Mackenzie: It’s an interesting record, lyrically. I have never decided whether it’s fully a concept album or not. I suppose it is in that there’s a unifying idea and setting, but a lot of the more conceptual elements were things I picked out after it was all written. Much in the same way I wanted every song to be a different genre, most of the songs on the record are written from different perspectives. After I wrote “Roadside”, I knew I wanted to tell that full story across three songs from three different perspectives, à la The Killers’ murder trilogy. But I didn’t really want to have a whole linear thirteen song narrative, more that those songs are the thematic centerpiece of the record, they discuss the cascading effects of self-destruction. I think “Hidden Places” is probably the most autobiographical song on there. I wrote it as almost a pastoral piece about abandoning the world and taking to the woods, but recently it’s morphed into being a song about playing live. Every time I sing “But I feel alive in this place” at a show it’s about that moment.
Toby: Bold of you to assume I write the lyrics.
Talk about the themes in The Litter Trail: climate change, the loss of the comfort of nature, leaving home, etc.
Mackenzie: The Litter Trail is mourning a world that’s gone. I was twenty-one when I wrote it, at one of those transitional periods of life, experiencing heartbreak, looking down the barrel of life after college and feeling like I had no prospects. It’s a very desperate album. I was in a deep depression when I wrote it. I was reflecting on my family’s past and had come back to my hometown in Connecticut after some time away. I felt caught between taking comfort in the natural beauty of the place but felt this clear awareness that the very nature that was giving me comfort now was disappearing, it was just another sensation of loss.
The IPCC report of 2018 had just come out that stated something to the effect of “The worst impacts of climate change could not be avoided without dramatic restructurings of our economic system at a scale never before seen in human history.” I remember a hopelessness around that. For a lot of people my age and younger, I think the future has always been full of fear, a place where you’ve lost much of what you loved. So a lot of The Litter Trail is grappling with the question of what you do when both the past and future are lost.
Toby: I can’t speak about the themes as eloquently as Mackenzie can, but I think these songs speak to a lot of rootlessness and lacking that many of us feel in the modern world as everything spins out of control. That said I think these songs represent a sort of beauty in the darkness, a small triumph even when everything is falling apart.
Photo Credit: Anna Garceau
What’s the official beer of Cellophane Kiss?
Mackenzie: Narragansett is from both New England and Rochester. It’s like our fifth member!
Toby: As the only teetotaler of Cellophane Kiss, I’m going to say black coffee.
Eric: Cheap beer.
Alec: Gotta be Narragansett, I’d never had it before Mackenzie told me about it! Really fits the New England vibe well.
Which Simpsons character are each of you?
Toby: I haven’t seen enough to answer this question, ask Mackenzie.
Mackenzie: Toby, Sideshow Bob has the curliest hair so that’s your answer. I’m Troy McClure. I’m just doing Cellophane Kiss to break into the daytime television circuit.
Eric: Milhouse. Everything’s coming up me.
Alec: Grampa Simpson. No questions, please.
What direction will your second album take Cellophane Kiss?
Mackenzie: I really want the second album to be both more experimental and more pop at once. It’s going to be completely different than The Litter Trail. I know the title and the themes. I’ve got a bunch of songs written, but I’m excited to get to write completely free of the first record and see how it turns out. I’m really excited by what bands like BIG SPECIAL and Fontaines D.C. are doing if that’s any indication of the direction we’re going.
Toby: I won’t say too much, but it’s very intense and out there, a massive evolution from The Litter Trail.
Photo Credit: Kelly McCready
Who are the favorite bands you’ve played with, your comrades, your day ones?
Mackenzie: Fallow Days’s EP, Expedition, was one of my favorite releases of 2026 hands down. They are an incredibly talented and driven band, and I’m very honoured to have gotten to play with them.
Dracula & His Band The Draculas are also such a powerhouse live and so prolific. We have never played a bad show with them!
Believe In Ghost! and PLEASURE DEATH are also some of our favorite acts to share the stage with.
Toby: I would say Dracula & His Band the Draculas (NYC’s finest horror punk band), Fallow Days (our comrades in sad), PLEASURE DEATH (kickass riotgrrrl/grunge), and LOST DOG (one of the best post-hardcore bands around).
Eric: Shoutout LOST DOG.
Alec: Cellophane Kiss has been the one true band project I’ve been involved with instead of just one-off things. So they take first place, of course!
Anything you’d like to add that I haven’t asked already?
Mackenzie: Just that I appreciate you and knifetwister giving us your time. I’m incredibly proud of this record and am really grateful to get to talk about these songs with you.
Toby: No.
Alec: Just because I’m always cheesin’ when I’m playing back there doesn’t mean I don’t fit in a goth band, right? Right?
Anyone you’d like to thank?
Mackenzie: I’d like to thank Jake, Seth, and Colby for starting this band with me, I’d like to thank Kyle, Val, Lauren, Ameer, and Campbell for coming to so many shows.
Toby: First, I want to think my parents, for cultivating my love of music as a young child and encouraging me every step along the way. I also want to thank my guitar teachers, Rick McKown and Ken Luk, for teaching me how to play this wonderful instrument. Then I want to thank Jackson Cavalier, for helping me get my start as a gigging musician. Last but not least, I want to thank all the friends who have helped us along the way as we try to get this project off the ground.
Eric: Thanks to the boys for bringing me along on this journey. I've had an absolute blast. Gonna miss it. CK4Eva
Alec: I’d just like to thank the guys for taking a chance on me and helping push me to be the best drumming version of myself. I’m definitely a better musician because of them!
Cellophane Kiss’s Linktree: https://linktr.ee/cellophanekiss
Cellophane Kiss’s Instagram: @cellophanekiss
Cellophane Kiss’s Bandcamp: https://cellophanekiss.bandcamp.com/?search_item_id%3D2975639954%26search_item_type%3Db%26search_match_part%3D%253F%26search_page_id%3D5882116132%26search_page_no%3D0%26search_rank%3D1=