Today we’d like to introduce you to the Baker’s Basement.
Hello the Baker’s Basement, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
Hi there – we’re Kate & Adam and our band is called “the Baker’s Basement” (tBB). The Baker’s Basement found its name in July of 2012, but the seeds were planted the year before when the two of us met at the Recording Workshop in Chillicothe, Ohio. It was a crash course in sound engineering, but part of that process involved composing songs. We quickly fell in love with the way we wrote lyrics and music, and so began this beautiful journey of ours.
The duo has gone through many changes over the years, but the most significant may have been the switch from a more traditional drum kit to an experimental setup that we call the “Tempeh Kit.” It’s played standing up and utilizes a multitude of 5-gallon paint buckets and drum pieces. This homemade approach came from the days when the two of us would often street perform using our two voices, an acoustic guitar, and a single bucket. We would set up in Ohio City or downtown or Little Italy and perform for hours at a time. Creating rhythm using a bucket nourished a certain flavor of rhythm, and made us love the idea of using found sounds in our performances and recordings. We feel it pushed us to be more inventive and creative while encouraging us to also be lighthearted and playful in the process. And from the single bucket came the “Tempeh Kit.” This style of the drum kit and performing has really come to define a lot of who we are as a band.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
We feel one of the hardest things for an artist to do is to trust their voice and to have patience with the process of finding that certain something that is all their own. We are no exception. Our course has been and continues to be, a great deal of trial and error, practice, experimentation, playful wanderings, adjustments, and honest self-review.
It’s taken a lot of time to build up confidence and to find a graceful approach with the twists and turns involved with navigating the creative process, be it the spark of a new idea or the steps of finalizing and sharing a piece of work. An artist’s path is lined with discouraging moments as well as incremental positive steps in discovering the voice; one of the greatest challenges is being fair to yourself, and so much of that is continuing to create through the ups and down.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We’ve been performing, recording, and producing a peculiar sort of music for the last 10 years. By genre, it often swings between or fuses indie rock and folk with hints of funk, jazz, and hip-hop. We sometimes describe it as “Indie folk hop.” We’ve created an EP and 4 full-length albums including our most recent release entitled Wild Wild Sheep.
We really love those songs, filled with adventure and fantastical places. We also have a raucous Halloween tune coming out later this month entitled Skeleton Party.
I would say we’re most proud of the songs themselves. We love creating sonic worlds filled with tangible and colorful lyrics, although some of our songs are built using no words at all. We also enjoy creating visual works to match the music, be it album art, music videos, or live performances that take on a specific aesthetic. And we of course love performing; we have a quirky way about us that can lighten a room, or at times bring the occasional tear or two.
Music is a matter of communication and has the ability to shake up someone’s day. We love that we get to do that for people, and it’s amazing to grow and share our music more and more.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
Having visited many of the bigger cities, we love the slower pace and friendly spirit of our town. The underdog spirit of Cleveland has always inspired us to push ourselves further as we develop our craft. Plus – we love living by that big old moody lake and enjoying stark differences between the seasons.
What do we like least? Perhaps the tail end of winter. Those years when winter seems to drag on and on have a way of eating at you physically and mentally. Cracked skin and a thirst for warmer days. Then again, it’s hard to complain when so many of these autumns are utterly beautiful.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thebakersbasement.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebakersbasement/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theBakersBasement
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE-IAhkLd7rDmK3vwuvFZOg
Image Credits
Frank Lanza & Jessica Klodt
