INTERVIEW: Between School Bells with Big Radio
Photo by Bianca Anastasio
“What you're going to hear is also surprising… a cover band that plays songs that aren’t typically what you would expect to be covered.”
When you were in grade school, did you ever give much thought to where the teachers went on weekends? Did it dawn on you that they even had a life outside their job? Perhaps you’ve only seen them at a school football game or two. Maybe you’ve had to awkwardly dip into the cereal aisle to avoid eye contact with them in the grocery store. But what if, years later, you saw them, of all places, in a bar, on stage, playing in a band?
Between school bells, Big Radio and I found ourselves in a Shaker High School classroom chatting about their upcoming performance at Brown’s Brewing Company in Troy, NY this Friday, the 21st. The band consists of Jim Bell on guitar, Mike Bruni on drums, Joe Hallahan on keyboard, Marc Jackson on lead vocals and guitar, and Russ Moore on bass. All members of the band, barring Hallahan, who calls himself the IT guy, are North Colonie Schools faculty: teachers, a counselor, and a retired principal.
Each member of the band has been playing their respective instruments for years, though only a few sought out more professional performances. Hallahan and Bruni were in and out of bands throughout their lives, but Bruni got the performance itch pretty early on. He recalls a time when he was playing drums for a school band and they were sent to Miami to play the Orange Bowl Parade, when he noticed a camera approaching him while playing. “This was primetime on Saturday night. I thought to myself, ‘Alright, this is it. Don’t mess up!’” He fondly remembers the moment that seems to have been the catalyst for his passion for performance.
Jackson, despite being the singer, only started performing after being volunteered to sing by a friend at another band’s rehearsal. The band members argued with each other, the singer pleading his case that “Communication Breakdown” by Led Zeppelin was just an impossible song to sing. That is, until Jackson inadvertently proved him wrong. “My friend said ‘this guy can sing it,’ and lo and behold, it started then,” he laughs.
Bell, on the other hand, never pictured himself playing live. “I never played with a band, I never played in front of people before. I only sang to my kid, so I didn't think that was going to be in my future. Then Marc [Jackson] made a comment that they had just lost a guitarist and now it’s been about three years with Big Radio.”
Jackson, as the only founding member of Big Radio who still plays with the band, seems to be a driving force in continuing their legacy. “When I started at Shaker I realized there was and remains a lot of talent here. I started asking some of the faculty that I knew could play and wanted to start a band. And that's how Big Radio got started.
“I wanted to cover a little bit of everything. The name comes from constantly scrolling through the radio to find the next song that I like. And the radio is infinite, it's big. It's massive. What you're going to hear is also surprising. So I've always mentioned to the other guys in the band, let's find stuff that people are going to know, but something that they may not have heard in a while, something where people react by saying, ‘oh, yeah, that's right. I've heard that song on the radio,’ but it’s not the same 20 songs on a typical radio rotation. So that's the idea of the name. To be a cover band that plays songs that aren’t typically what you would expect to be covered.”
He recalls a time when, while playing at Siena college, they played one song that caused a college student to eagerly approach them and express how happy he was that they had played a particular Led Zeppelin song that no one ever covers. “To get someone of that age group who knows the band excited to hear a song that’s not exactly obscure, but not their most popular, was very affirming of what we’re doing.”
The band enjoys taking notice of their audience and curating the playlist to fit the personality of the room, which is part of the joy of being in a cover band. By having a large repertoire, they can allow people to dance, or remain more mellow, depending on the crowd.
“No two audiences are ever the same,” Hallahan explains. “It’s the collective energy of the venue space, what music preferences the audience has, how everyone is feeling that day, and how each Big Radio band member is feeling that day that all contribute to the vibe and the performance.”
All of the members separately mention their sound engineer, Doug Marx, as a key part in their ability to tailor their sound to the space they’re playing in. It’s not only important to sound clear, but they want their volume to be as appropriate as possible for the venue space, so patrons will be able to continue to have conversations without yelling over the music.
When asked about the student reaction to the band, Bell says, “I don't hide it. It sometimes comes up in conversation. Sometimes one kid will ask me about it and then that informs the kid next to him. But if they ask about my weekend, I’ll tell them we had a show. One time I had a bunch of students show up and they sat to my immediate right, which was a lot — it was my first show! But I heard one of them say, ‘oh, he’s actually good!’ which was hilarious.”
“That reminds me of a show we played at Ice House in Saratoga,” Brumi adds. “There was a group of maybe 15 Shaker graduates in their early 20s. At one point in the night they started the chant ‘Shaker! Shaker! Shaker!’” The band laughs and shakes their heads at the memory.
Bell continues, “I think it’s kind of fun that they know we do things outside of school. Otherwise, to them, we don’t exist outside of this building.”
As Jackson alluded to, he’s the only original member of Big Radio left. “Life happens. People get married, they have kids, they retire…” but perhaps that’s the charm of Big Radio. The enduring members have gotten married, have had kids, one has retired. Still, they make time for their passions.
Ultimately, this is one of the best lessons to be learned from the members of Big Radio, inside of the classroom or out. Life happens, but you’re never so deep in your career that you have to give up on your inner child — the one that played air guitar in the mirror or sang into a hairbrush with friends.
Big Radio is playing a show at Brown’s Brewing Company in Troy on Friday the 21st, 6-9. You can keep up with them on their instagram, big_radio_ny and their Facebook page, Big Radio. If you miss them this week, they have upcoming shows in January, March, and August at The Bunker in Saratoga.