Legendary musician and producer Mark Trombino has worked with a variety of gigantic alt rock bands, but before reading the rest of this story it’s safe to say most of you only know him from his work with Blink-182, Jimmy Eat World, and the like. So let’s say you were Mark and had spent the better part of two decades working with these bands when you suddenly realized you had passions outside of music. What would you do? If you were Mark, you’d take the road less traveled.

Several years ago, Mark Trombino realized he had a passion for donuts, and though it was a departure from the industry he made a name in, Trombino began working on developing what is now known as Donut Friend, the specialty donut shop he’s opening in LA’s Highland Park neighborhood. WhopperJaw had a chance to speak with Trombino about his new project, and during the discussion it was revealed that many of the products have taken their names from emo and punk bands. You can read an excerpt mentioning some of the names below. Click here to read the full interview.

A screenshot of the Donut Friend menu

I have to commend you on the Donut Friend menu, especially the Signature Combinations. That was a stroke of great wordplay. It reminds me of making up fictitious band names. But in this case, you already had band names and you just tweaked them a little bit.

Yeah, that was fun. That was me and a friend just kind of bullshitting in a bar. He came up with the first one, which was “Jimmy Eat Swirl.” That just led to this whole torrent of ridiculous names.

In addition to the ones that I have (on the menu), I have probably just as many names ready that I don’t actually have donuts for. That’s kind of fun – that’s going to give me an opportunity to have some specials or seasonal things. And I think some of the ones that I don’t have donuts for are even funnier than the ones that are actually there. I’m so lucky I stumbled upon that, and I was really nervous about it at first. It’s like a fine line – it could have been super cheesy or super fun – but people seem to like it. The response is pretty positive. I think it’s kind of flattering to have a donut named after your band.

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James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

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