Instrumentation Transformation

Honestly, I was going through a major crisis involving my desire to play saxophone, and came to the painful realization that ultimately what I wanted to do had little to do with playing the saxophone and almost entirely to do with singing and playing songs. Simultaneously, Syd realized that she didn’t want to hold a front-and-center role as she always had when performing, whether with her group, The S Band, or as a solo singer-songwriter. We decided that we would change things up and I would play guitar, she would play bass, and we’d both sing.

We knew it was going to take plenty of time and motivation to make this transition work so we got to planning. We heard a friend of ours (the very friend who coined the name “The Pizza Bats”) was planning their 30th birthday party, and, with this knowledge, pounced on the opportunity to host a house show/shindig at our apartment.

We immediately went to work drafting a list of tunes we [always] wanted to learn, and set to the painstaking-yet-fun task of learning them, using a YouTube channel as a means for documenting our development and keeping ourselves moving forward. We soon settled into an effective practice, rehearsal, and recording routine that got us familiar with our instruments and helped The ‘Bats lay our repertory foundation.

Nothin' but love,
Jake