Biography
NEW BEARD is a real band from Brooklyn. A really good, rockin’ creative band, with beards and a tuba. This band cannot be put it into one specific box. It just wouldnt be right to do that to do that to a prog-master drummer, a mysterious blues guitar wizard, a junk-loving girl, and a hobbit with the voice of an angel. And a tuba.
Led and fronted by counter-tenor singer and composer Ben Wigler, this band is the sequel to his previous band Arizona which achieved significant success after relentless touring with bands like the Band of Horses, Derek Trucks, The Slip, Dead Confederate, and the Indigo Girls.
After Arizona, with a more focused lens, Wigler teamed up with his childhood friend and drummer phenom Tony Waldman to get his new project rolling. Some friends from an adjacent avant-garde group suggested they invite notorious tuba-rocker TubaJoe Exley to be the low end instead of a more predictable electric bass. At the band’s sold-out debut in Manhattan, the trio met the kind, hairy, soulful and single-named lefty guitar shredder Yazan and asked him to join them. This freaky Brooklyn-stew of bearded characters then took immediate refuge in a cellar under a dive bar in Williamsburg and tirelessly cooked up an epic LP called NEW BEARD CITY.
A sequel to their successful and radio-friendly EP “Moment of Peace”, “New Beard City” picks up where Arizona’s acclaimed “Welcome Back Children” left off. With influences from Elliot Smith to Megadeath, this massively orchestrated album was tailored by Gustav Ejstes of the Swedish band Dungen. Ejstes and New Beard crafted a beautiful and powerful record which delightfully rolls from Indie rock to prog metal to swing to Japanese folk music with joyous fluidity. After summoning the backing presence of an entire orchestra of the most diverse and creative instrumental voices from the Brooklyn scene (including New Beard’s newest member, the sax-blasting Maria Christina Eisen), Shoulder Tap records’ New Beard City now sets the scene for their live show as they hit the road and trip the heavy fantastic with this powerful and unique debut LP.
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