Bus to Brooklyn

All four members of Austin’s Bus to Brooklyn hail from unique backgrounds in Texas, but they all have one thing in common. They all saw magic in the songs of Jesse Felder.

“I was at a party with Jesse one of the first times I met him,” says drummer Matt Reynolds, who moved to Austin from Waco in 2006. “Everyone’s doing their own thing, carrying on and getting drunk. Jesse pulls out his guitar while I’m having a cigarette, and I hear the music stop and all the conversation stop. I look inside and everyone in the room is just paying attention to Jesse for an hour. And I thought, ‘I gotta be playing with this guy.’”

“We’re all from very different backgrounds,” offers Felder, “different musical backgrounds, social backgrounds, everything. But that really brings our own creative sides to each song project. It allows us to be more productive.”

Which is exactly what Bus to Brooklyn has been since forming in February 2009. The Bus to Brooklyn foursome has stormed through Austin, playing clubs and venues like Momo's and Trophy's. They’ve also put together a self-titled EP of six songs originally written by Felder. The Austin native has been writing songs since he was 17 but finds that he’s gotten the most out of them since putting together Bus to Brooklyn.

“I’ll have my own ideas,” says Felder, “but we’re a band, so we all have a hand in the song creation process and an opinion about what we want to be doing. Because of that, we’re getting tighter, more cohesive. And our songs are getting better.”

Felder’s passion for music and songwriting can be traced back to early in his childhood. Raised on the music of James Taylor and other country folk-singers, he moved to Nashville at 19 to pursue a singing career before enlisting in the Army and heading to the west coast and Hawaii. It was during that five-year stint in the Army that he realized his love for playing in bands, and he made it his mission to start one when he returned to Austin.

His first move was to bring in Matt Reynolds, who he’d been in touch with through a mutual friend. Reynolds, versed in progressive/psychedelic rock but trained on the deep pocket grooves of Stewart Copeland and JJ Johnson, knew right away that he was in the band he’d long been looking for.

Houston guitarist Spence Hughes joined shortly after, with the hopes of finding a good fit in Austin. “I came over to jam and knew this was exactly where I wanted to be,” says Hughes. "This brand of music fits my playing style really well, and when we're live, everything clicks."

The band was complete with Alabama native Westley Price on bass. Influences such as Barry Oakley and Andy Fraser led West to join bands such as Barnhill, Bleu Lane, and Davis Lane. "I immediately saw something different in Bus To Brooklyn though," says West. "These guys are more like a family and the music we make is stronger cause of it."

With their EP in circulation and plans to dig deeper into Austin’s legendary live music scene, Bus to Brooklyn is keeping their focus on the road. “We love gigging. We love playing live for people and we're all looking forward to getting out music out to more and more people."