Artist Spotlight: Shake the Baron

Having met on the first day of college in the fall of 2007, guitarist/vocalist Andrew Oedel, drummer Matt Addison, and bassist Max Currier bonded over their common love of good music and bad beer. Acoustic jam sessions and impromptu sing-alongs soon became collaborative songwriting sit-downs and electrified noisefests. When second guitarist Jon Markson joined the band in 2010, Shake the Baron refined their sound palette and pooled resources to produce a full-length album in their college’s small recording studio. After building local hype in the burgeoning music scene of New London, Connecticut, Shake the Baron signed with NYC-based Super Duper Records. Their album’s 10 overdriven, propulsive tracks were taken to the venerable Avatar Studios in New York and mixed by engineer extraordinaire Justin Gerrish (Vampire Weekend, Weezer). This collaboration yielded the sound of the band’s self-titled debut: rabblerousing guitar pop that pins soaring vocal hooks atop a wash of chorus-infused guitars and enormous rock beats.

Combining the driving riffage of post-millennial Sonic Youth and the jangling simplicity of Pavement’s Brighten the Corners with a brash barroom rambunctiousness, Shake the Baron’s take on guitar rock feels both fresh and familiar. Oedel’s lyrics lightheartedly spin narrative from his struggles with romance and adulthood, conveyed with a pure yet colorful delivery akin to Ezra Koenig or Ben Bridwell. Shake the Baron‘s rhythmic acrobatics trick its listeners into dancing– a side effect unique to the feel-good energy of its creators. Currently based in Brooklyn, New York, the band is continuing to write and record new music.