The creator and songwriter of Austin’s self-proclaimed “third best emo puppet band,” Brently Heilbron, has his work cut out for him managing the group’s larger-than-felt personalities. An on-retainer therapist helps the group manage a near-constant cycle of onstage breakups and meltdowns often sparked by their frontman, Milo S., whom Heilbron describes as a “big-ego, little-self-esteem lead singer.” 

“It’s not playing with other puppet bands that bothers me, it’s the audacity of a venue booking any other band besides us!” the long-faced puppet reports when asked about their upcoming performance. “You wouldn’t do that to auteurs like Morrissey or 311.”

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Now celebrating ten years in existence and its first-ever vinyl LP release, Fragile Rock was never supposed to actually be a real thing. Before it went into the studio to record the album Microfamous, before it was a touring rock band, before it was a comedic stage show with puppets, Fragile Rock was just a joke on Facebook.

“Ten years ago, I was going through a breakup and I put out a Facebook post that said, I'm going to start an emo puppet band called Fragile Rock, thinking a good pun is its own reward,” says creator Brently Heilbron. “And in the comments, people started to say, ‘I'll play guitar for that. I'll be in that band.’ And the band formed and so by the end of that post, I was in fact in an emo puppet band called Fragile Rock. So. That was 10 years ago and it's been a wild ride.”

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For those who wish Muppets moped more, meet Fragile Rock, which — while it's best not to make definitive statements that can't be proven — is almost certainly the world's first puppet-led emo band. Based in Austin, Fragile Rock is a sort of rock/performance-art troupe that fuses a love of puppeteering with an appreciation for depressing music (plus its very own band motto, "Stay Felt").