A rock band made up of well-known musicians from Chicago, Grand Rapids and Traverse City is out with its debut album. The band is called Public Access and it feature five guitars, layered on top of one another, along with synthesizers and a violin.
All of the band’s songs are instrumentals, and they all have one thing in common: they’re named after public radio personalities. There’s a song called “Ira Glass” and another called “Jack Speer.”
The band's chief songwriter, Steve Leaf, says the group is made up of long-time Michigan musicians from Grand Rapids and Traverse City.
“I’ve been playing in my own band – Steve Leaf and the Ex-Pats, for a few years now and writing my own songs, with lyrics, like a lot of other bands," says Leaf. "And I had all these melodies … in my head, where I would sit down with my guitar and use this thing call Loop Station, where you can make on melody and then put another harmony over the top of it, or a rhythm – and just make these layers.”
Dan Rickabus and Ben Zito are the rhythm section for a Grand Rapids band called The Crane Wives. They're joined by Seth Bernard, the founder of Earthwork Music in Traverse City.
Leaf says the public radio theme isn't just a gimmick; it stems from a genuine passion.
“The common denominator of our mornings is we’d arrive to the session in Grand Rapids at the studio, and we would’ve all been listening to NPR," says Leaf. "So … we started using the names as placeholders because the songs are instrumental and we really didn’t know what to call them. NialaBoodhoo is one of my favorite broadcasters in Chicago (and) these guys brought on Jennifer Guerra from Michigan Radio. Regardless of whether the name is tied to the song in an emotional way, or just because we think they have a cool, phonetic-sounding name, we just thought it was something fun to name the songs.”
Leaf says it's a challenge for musicians from three different cities to get together for rehearsal but the arrangement also keeps things fresh.
"With emails and Dropbox and being able to send each other melodic ideas over the phone, it is kind of cool to keep the momentum up,' says Leaf. "It doesn’t really get stagnant because we don’t necessarily have to see each other all the time.”
Public Access’s self-titled debut album was released last month. The band plans to play the Michigan festival circuit this summer.