Ambient Toad

Raised on the shores of the Atlantic and the back roads of Minnesota’s lake country, Ambient Toad is the band you’ve been waiting for. At the heart of the project is lead singer Taylor Benson and lyricist Madeline Benson, who met while studying at Berklee College of Music and soon discovered that they were more than just life partners. Like Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Taylor and Maddie write all of their music together, and they’ve been splashing around the Twin Cities music scene as Ambient Toad since the summer of 2024. Their skillful yet devastating songwriting pairs romantic piano riffs and striking hooks with the tenderness, earnestness, and clarity of the best soft rock of the 70s and 90s. In November of 2025, guitarist Joe Kelly, bassist Jared Sorensen, and drummer Prince J joined the Ambient Toad lineup. In just one year’s time, Ambient Toad went from showcasing new songs at weekly open mic performances to impressing venues like Green Room for drawing over 75 people on a chilly Tuesday night in December, quickly establishing themselves as a band to watch in the Minneapolis folk and rock scenes. While everyone else breaks themselves to fit the algorithm-driven mold of the modern music industry, Ambient Toad leans further into everything that made them fall in love with music in the first place, and the result sounds like coming home to a long-lost friend.