The Circle City Bandit

The Indianapolis native discovered the wonders of music during family sing alongs as a young boy where he was introduced to the music of John Prine, Grateful Dead, Jim Croce and Tom T. Hall.  He recalls, “We’d gather in the kitchen and the guitars would come out. Everybody would sing along. It was a magical indoctrination to music. You couldn’t participate without feeling it.” He picked up his father’s guitar at age 10 and began playing. His love for all music would find him in a punk band, hip hop group, R&B group and currently as, The Circle City Bandit.

He would come to know music as medicine while he experienced the roller coaster of change life provides. “Music is powerful. Sometimes a song can hold you in the palm of it’s hand while everything else seems to be failing. I’ll never forget the soundtrack that played through my darkest hours, as though the songs were written for me, to carry me through the most challenging parts of my journey. When you create from your soul, that’s the potential.” He found that music and storytelling are his most natural form of self expression to understand and share the realities of the human experience.

In 2019, Bandit “relocated” to Baton Rouge. With ample time to play and write, he began to compose the body of work that would become his first EP(Dragging The Horse, 2021).  “Dragging The Horse changed my life; not in terms of success but in terms of my relationship to myself. I was able to tell a story that I vowed never to tell. And I found great freedom and connection sharing that in a live setting,” he says.

Bandit just released his self-titled, sophomore album and is ready to bring this body of work on the road and to the stage while he prepares to begin the production of his third record. He reflects, “I didn’t necessarily set out to create the record we did. I became curious about more instrumentation and happen to meet the right folks. I invited everyone involved to play what they heard in the moment, with no rules or composed parts,  And that model of possibility seemed to unfold really well for us.”says Bandit. The record showcases the magic of possibility; Bandit’s way of shaking hands with the world as he takes you on a soul driven excursion spotlighting all the bumps, turns, twists and dead ends. The eleven track LP reveals a lucid illustration of the internal shared humanism we all possess, by way of  Bandit’s piercing and mystical storytelling nature, leaving no stone untouched.