In the midst of Phoenix’s underground musicians and gritty punk tracks, one folk pop band has garnered mainstream attention that contends with the success of many local entertainers. They opened for American Music Award nominee Phillip Phillips. They were noticed by Billboard.
Now, The Senators are set to perform on McDowell Mountain Music Festival’s main stage on March 13, preceding performances by a handful of nationally acclaimed artists, including The Avett Brothers and Gary Clark Jr.
“They’re two of my favorite groups,” said Jesse Teer, vocalist and guitarist of The Senators. “I’m just going to be wide-eyed the entire time.”
On Saturday, The Senators will be giving fans a sneak peek of what fans can anticipate at the large-scale music festival performance — which Teer said will include a horn section — at Valley Bar. With an opening performance by Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold, the band will feature numerous new songs.
“We’re going to play some of them this Saturday and again at McDowell Mountain,” Teer said. “We’re going to showcase some of the newer stuff we’re doing. It’s not so porchy. We’ve done a lot of folk, porch music in the past, and it still has that vibe, but it’s different.”
This week’s show will serve as a fundraiser for the Valley of the Sun United Way. The Senators have previously aided the nonprofit by performing at numerous concerts and donating proceeds from their single “Hummingbird.”
“It’s nice to be active and not just a band that plays and says ‘that’s it,’ but see how we can get involved,” Teer said. “We’re lucky that we have more of a community downtown, too.”
The band’s relationship with United Way began as a partnership with United Food Bank, when the musicians witnessed the need to end hunger while living in downtown Phoenix, which is considered a food desert.
“We thought that if we got to do something cool like this, it better be a part of the community,” Teer said. “It better be a part of giving back. This benefit show that’s coming up is with United Way. We’re really happy McDowell Mountain does it too, because they support children’s programs around the valley.”
Despite the band’s rising influence on Phoenix’s music scene and community, Teer said his band will not be calling The Senators a success until their work is self-sustaining. This means that there will be no major, long-term tours for the time being.
“For a long time, we were trying to do the whole independent band touring thing,” the vocalist said. “It didn’t really work. We played major markets. We got to San Francisco, L.A. and New York City, and that’s what took a lot of time and a lot of energy. It’s not sustainable, especially at this stage.”
The stage the musicians are in involves balancing their personal lives with their music.
“We took away the things that aren’t really constructive and just stuck up all our time,” Teer said. “I know bands that go out on the road, and they’re crazy. They work all the time, and the payoff isn’t enough to say, ‘I want to do this for the rest of my life.’ I think we’re just trying to be smart about it. That’s how we have time for our wives and families.”
Teer said he hopes the band’s strategic decisions will build audiences in major cities, allowing that payoff to increase.
“We’re trying to innovate and trying to figure out a business plan that allows us to have real lives and get the music out there, so we don’t go play for 100 people in San Francisco,” Teer said. “When we go to San Francisco, we need to have 500 people there.”
The vocalist said a performance in New York built his understanding of how The Senators could take their music to the next level. After several meetings with management companies and minor record labels in the area, the band began focusing on refining their music and gathering content. They began pitching rather than releasing.
While the band currently runs their own public relations, Teer said he hopes to combine management with a good PR team so the band doesn’t have to rely on solely luck and loved ones to bring large groups to an out-of-state venue.
“Bands in the past did that, but I think the model worked a little better then,” Teer said. “Nowadays, there’s so much out there. You need to have a lot of great content first, so we’re starting with that.”
The Senators are steadily getting through the complex doors of the music industry. The band recently filmed a music video for upcoming single “Coyotes,” with help from people that have worked with MTV.
With pitching this video to management groups as a priority, Teer said it won’t be released quite yet, much like the band’s latest music. However, fans can get a taste of their music at upcoming performances.
“We’ve been playing with a new sound, and we haven’t released any of it, but someone said it’s like Paul Simon with a little bit of synth behind it,” Teer said. “I think it still sounds like something that you can feel, that you can get, musically, but it pushes boundaries of what folk might be right now, or what pop can be right now.”
Although The Senators are taking their music career one step at a time, the musicians have come far since their first show: a summer performance at The Trunk Space, without air conditioning. Back then, Teer was on a pre-med track at Arizona State University, aiming for the Crescent Ballroom at the highest.
Now, The Senators have played at nationally recognized venues, such as San Diego’s House of Blues, and built a strong relationship with Stateside Presents, furthering their music career beyond what they imagined. They even played at music festivals that featured The Neighbourhood, Passion Pit and more.
“We were able to play Marquee Theatre, and then we opened for Phillip Phillips at Salt River Fields, where we had a whole stadium,” Teer said. “That just blew me away. We never really had that in mind when we started writing, and music is just something we’ve always loved. Now, I’m looking at it as a career.”
Contact the columnist at Emily.Liu@asu.edu
