Kid Condor met as fellow jazz students at the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati. The band was hand-picked by vocalist/pianist Phillip Alexander, who used to lead garage pop band Plastic Inevitables. “I loved the catharsis and raw energy of playing more stripped-down music,” says the songwriter. “But I want to make music that is also dynamic and emotional.” Alexander, a guitarist by nature, began writing songs on piano that were influenced by the jazz harmony of the conservatory and artists like Todd Rundgren and the Zombies.

Bassist Kieran Cronley was the first to join the group. “We were playing music together for almost a year before we figured out what kind of band we wanted to be,” Cronley adds. For a while the pair considered forming a folk rock band (“Fleet Foxes with fuzz pedals”), but the sound of the group organically came into focus when they began to play Alexander’s piano songs. They then tried out a number of different drummers and guitarists to round out the group’s sound. They were particularly enamored by the playing of Tim Weigand, who added jazzy Motown-inspired grooves and whiz kid Jack Badgley (only 17), whose playing was both virtuosic and restrained. “We weren’t only impressed with their musicianship,” remarks Cronley. “It was a lot of fun being in the same room with these guys. Everything clicked.” Alexander and Cronley’s live energy rose to match the new members, and the result was a more raucous take on Alexander’s songs.

Before playing any shows, the group recorded a self-titled  EP. “These songs were literally keeping me up at night,” confesses Alexander. “I would go through the arrangements over and over, as if some part of me was afraid to lose them. I had to get them out of my head.” The group recorded the tracks at the College-Conservatory’s world-class studio, with Alexander producing. Unexpectedly, the four-day session was plagued by a snowstorm, and half of the time booked was cancelled. But the band completed all of the basic tracking at a whirlwind pace, and the result is an urgent and earnest record.

Now that the original arrangements of the songs are recorded, the band has the freedom to let the songs evolve organically for live shows. “The songs are beginning to breathe in a whole new way,” observes Alexander. It’s really exciting to see them come to life in a new way every night.”