MunQs (aka Corey W. Lawson) has written music his entire life. A native of Minneapolis, his Mother was the Lead Singer/ Rhythm Guitarist in an all-girl Punk band and his Father was the general manager of a well-known Minneapolis night club.

In elementary school, Lawson partnered with classmates for a short-lived RnB group, performing Boyz II Men covers during recess and talent shows. In middle school he discovered punk rock and in high school he interned at the local college radio station and continued through a gauntlet of musical phases; Metal, Hip-hop/spoken word, acoustic singer-songwriter, ambient pop, etc.

Always drawn to music, but never completely comfortable with any specific project to fully pursue it, he began to focus more on writing and film.

In the early winter of 2010, Lawson was attending film school and finishing up his degree in Screenwriting. In the midst of attempting to finish his first feature-length script, he received word that one of his closest friends had been killed in a car accident.

The following months were a haze. He slept little and wrote a lot, but for the life of him, could not separate the reality from the fiction. His script became less the story he set out to write, and more a disjointed collection of thoughts regarding death and loss.

Becoming more and more disconnected with the script, he found himself spending his time writing and recording music in his bedroom. He began to look back on the songs he had recorded over the previous years and decided instead of wasting anymore time, he would just release them for free on the internet.

Trial&Era (available on iTunes and Bandcamp) is exactly what the title alludes to, a collection of demos covering various periods of artistic development. Some ballads, some tripped-out ambient pop, some hip-hop. The acoustic song “Weighs on the Mind” was featured on the blog SexMusic and garnered a ridiculous number of plays and downloads of Trial&Era.

Shortly after the release, Lawson was recruited by Rapper/Producer and childhood friend, Xavier Marquis, to sing in his live band.

Through playing with the Xavier Marquis band, Lawson was able to utilize the skills of drummer and bassist, David Sellner and Josh Ackerly to begin forming the MunQs live band.

Over the following months, Lawson filled out the roster of the band with keyboardist, Efren “E-Sharp” Maldonado, auxiliary musician Jeff Henry and guitarist, Mike Salow.

In early 2012, MunQs began playing shows in it’s current form around the Twin Cities. Not having the immediate resources or funds to record a proper studio release, Lawson devoted six months to writing and recording more self-produced material.

The Thoughts EP (available on Bandcamp) is a more cohesive release of tripped-out indie/soul/pop, described by one fan as ‘music you can f*** to.’

The third track off the The Thoughts EP, Motions, was entered in a song-writing contest held by the recording studio Humans Win, and was chosen among two other artists, to receive time towards the recording of a full-length album.

Currently, Lawson is writing material for the MunQs full-length and the band is playing around Minnesota with plans to tour after the album’s release.