In a music town as discerning as Ann Arbor, launching a new band takes both nerve and vision. For Hard Candy, the mission is clear: dig deep, unearth overlooked songs, and deliver them with grit, heart and joy.
Fronted by Robin Grant, Hard Candy officially launched in January 2025, but the roots of the band stretch further back into the local scene. Grant’s journey to the front of the stage was anything but predictable.
“No one is more shocked than me that I front a band,” Grant said. “I’m naturally very introverted, and did not grow up in a musical household. I never sang in choir at school or in church growing up. I only started singing publicly – karaoke, on a dare – about 20 years ago.”
She added, “I first started singing in bands about 15 years ago, when longtime Ann Arbor musician Mr. Largebeat asked me to join his band,” Grant said.
From spark to Hard Candy
Hard Candy emerged following the winding down of Grant’s previous band, spark. While spark thrived as a dance-friendly pop/rock cover band, Grant felt pulled in a different direction.
“While I enjoyed the material spark was doing, I also wanted to do some songs that didn’t quite fit spark’s ‘mission statement’ of playing a lot of chart-topping songs that people already know and love,” Grant said. “In the fall of 2024, spark bassist Jerry Hancock and I began talking about starting another band to explore some lesser-known musical terrain, and in January 2025, we officially launched Hard Candy.”
What began as a side project quickly became the primary focus.
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“I had assumed that both bands would be playing for awhile, but as John Lennon said, ‘Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans,’” Grant said. “A couple of spark’s members had been playing in bands since they were teenagers, and in the summer of 2025, let me know that they wanted to take a break. I thought briefly about replacing them with other people, but I really couldn’t imagine spark continuing on without them.”
A sound that lingers
The name Hard Candy captures the duality Grant envisions for the group.
“To me, it has a lot to do with capturing the spirit of the band, and what we hope you feel when you see/hear us,” Grand said. “I believe Hard Candy implies a female-fronted band that plays music that can be really high energy, rocking and sometimes gritty, but can also be slow and deep and sweet. It can give you ‘all the feels.’”
The band consciously steers away from predictable rock-cover territory, especially in a town known for musical literacy.
“Hard Candy is intentionally pivoting away from a lot of the standard rock cover band choices,” Grant said. “Since so many of the songs and bands we’re drawing from are unfamiliar to a lot of people, from an audience’s perspective we’re often effectively playing originals. But we’re finding that audiences are responding quite enthusiastically to what we’re playing – expect to be surprised at how good the song selections are even though you may not be familiar with them.”
Digging for hidden gems
Grant describes the band’s approach as musical archaeology.
“We are consciously aiming to find some buried treasure and hidden musical gems,” Grant said. “There are so many great bands —including local bands — who’ve been playing for years, often decades, and have numerous albums, yet most people have never heard of them. Much of our material is drawn from that pool.”
The set lists blend deeper cuts, B-sides, Celtic influences, female-fronted bands, and—because they love them—some big hits. But above all, the goal is emotional lift.
“As has been my goal with any band I’ve been in, I hope you can forget your troubles for 2-3 hours and leave our show feeling better than when you arrived,” Grant said.
Built by music nerds
Hard Candy’s lineup includes Robin Grant (lead vocals), Jerry Hancock (bass), Chris Mueller (drums and backing vocals), Scott Marlowe (guitar and backing vocals), and Ian Perry (keyboard and backing vocals).
Their chemistry is fueled by shared passion.
“All Hard Candy members are ‘music nerds’ and can speak passionately and at great length about their favorite bands and music-related topics,” Grant said. “We have a great time bouncing ideas and music stories off each other. We love it that a lot of our followers are also passionate about music, and seem to be responding very favorably to our concept and the material that we’re playing.”
And in a region dense with talent, they feel right at home.
“We feel that the Ann Arbor music scene is the perfect setting for our more off-the-beaten-path, musically challenging set lists,” Grant said.
The reality of local music
Behind the energy and applause lies the practical reality of being a working local band. Grant is candid about the challenges.
“I think the two major concerns for most local musicians I know are the lack of places to play, and the inadequate payment for playing,” Grant said. “In many cases, bands at our level are effectively volunteering to play. Much like the minimum wage in this country, the needle on payment for bands has not really moved for years.”
She continues: “If you love live music, please get out and support those venues that are still offering it,” Grant said. “And while showing up is good, supporting a venue that’s offering live music means actually buying drinks or food from them, not just filling a chair.”
Catch Hard Candy live
Upcoming shows include:
- March 7 – Moonwinks Cafe, Ann Arbor
- March 20 – The Crazy Diamond Club, Chelsea
- May 2 – Moonwinks Cafe, Ann Arbor
For Hard Candy, growth means more songs, more rooms, and more shared moments. As Grant puts it simply:
“We have a long and always growing list of songs we think would be fun to play, so we’re always adding new material,” Grant said. “More shows and different venues, for sure.”
In a city that listens closely, Hard Candy is betting that audiences are ready to discover something new—or perhaps something that was there all along, just waiting to be heard again.
Donna Marie Iadipaolo is a writer, journalist, and State of Michigan certified teacher, since 1990. She has written for national publications like The Village Voice, Ear Magazine of New Music, Insurance & Technology, and TheStreet.
She is now writing locally for many publications, including Current Magazine, Ann Arbor Family, and the Ann Arbor Independent. Her undergraduate degree is from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she graduated with an honors bachelor’s degree and three teacher certificate majors: mathematics, social sciences, English. She also earned three graduate degrees in Master of Science, Master of Arts, and Education Specialist Degree.
