Live From Bad Racket: Founding Fathers

The four fathers: Founding Fathers
Photo by Reena Samaan

Music matters to John Kalman. For years, the bearded thirtysomething has worked at Cleveland Heights concert mecca the Grog Shop, and he recently took a job at Heights Guitars. He comes qualified for both gigs with a typically jocund disposition and multi-instrumentalist savvy. He plays guitar and bass, the latter in freshly reformed post-punk outfit roué, who previously released an LP and EP on Exit Stencil Recordings. He dutifully handles vocals in solo outings and in bands, and is a reluctant lyricist. He's also one quarter of the band Founding Fathers. 

Founding Fathers was born from the friendship of Kalman and John Neely, who both work at the Grog Shop. "It's cool playing with John, because we work together," says Kalman. "It's cool to hang out with your friends; not just fighting in the trenches together, so to speak." The venue has also provided endless lessons in performance. "I have a very long 'don't' list: Just because I have a wah pedal, doesn't mean I should use it – those kind of rules."

Kalman and Neely had long talked of forming a band, though it wasn't until they recruited Neely's former bandmate Stanton Thatcher to play drums that the group began to take shape. After seeing Carol Yachanin perform, Neely asked her to join the group on bass and vocals. That was two years ago, but Founding Fathers had already made multiple appearances. 

"John came up with that name a while ago," says Kalman. "When we started doing Compound Fest… [Neely] had these plans that we were going to have a band by the time the festival rolls around. He started putting the name on flyers about six years ago, so the name was around for three or four years before we actually played together." When Neely and Kalman formed their band, Founding Fathers was the obvious moniker of choice.

The band's dynamic is organic. There are no egos, no lead songwriter. It's a band in the literal sense. "The first time we got together, started writing together, it all kind of fell out of everybody at the same time," says Kalman. "John brings various riffs to practice, and then Stan [Thatcher] will give them some shape. John's playing is a little abstract. He's playing rhythms that aren't real obvious, so Stan translates them, figures them out." Neely's playing is frenetic, his energy often eclipsing the cool groove of his bandmates. And it works. His playing style, phrasing and 70s-era Epiphone Crestwood add a liberal splash of color to the band's sonic palette.

Kalman and Yachanin share vocal duties, creating harmonies while resisting the au courant interplay of dueling twee his-her arrangements. The latter lends a strong rhythmic backbone, channeled through a Rickenbacker bass, while Kalman's fluent strum and call work in unaffectedly clever synchronicity with the group's more blistering tempos. 

"Sailing Stones" is a  group effort. Like all Founding Father songs, it came together naturally, each member playing off the other's inputs. "It would sound more forced if somebody came to us with a full song idea," says Kalman.  "It's easier to play with them, than be taught what to do." 

Kalman writes most of the lyrics, if begrudgingly, including "Sailing Stones." The song features verse inspired by Blake's "The Tiger" and dialogue from The Ladies Man, starring Tim Meadows. It makes for inspired listening. Watch the band perform "Sailing Stones" on page two.