Biography
-
Members
- Ben Graham
Singing Lungs is what you get when a board game publisher, a touring punk rock veteran, and a zookeeper are united by their love of music and a history of growing up in the Michigan DIY music scene. Together they are crafting their own brand of 90’s influenced pop-punk with nods to the alternative/grunge scene of their youth.
In fits and starts, Singing Lungs was formed in Flint, Michigan sometime towards the end of 2015. Singer/guitarist, Jason Kotarski, wrote some songs and asked a couple friends from other local bands he loved to join him to play a couple shows. Fun while it lasted, Jason’s life soon whisked him away across Michigan to find a new home in Grand Rapids.
Being in a new city, Jason was itching to play music again but quickly realized it’s hard to make friends in a new city (especially when you’re and adult and work at home making board games). So he called his friend, Ben Graham from Lansing who he’d known for 20 years from playing shows around Michigan but had never actually gotten to play music with. In 2017, Jason and Ben started writing songs and connected with Sean Murphy, a friend from years past that had just moved back to town and played bass when he wasn’t being a zookeeper.
Within months, the band began playing shows around Michigan and decided to head into Cold War Studios to record an album with Rick Johnson (Mustard Plug bassist, Jeff Rosenstock collaborator, and fellow Michigan music scene veteran). “Groan”, the band’s debut album is a 10 song study of what it means to grow up in the music scene, settle into a more domestic kind of life, and finally start to feel comfortable in your own skin.
The song “Conscience Rocks” serves as a thematic centerpiece for the album. Inspired by an episode of the Criminal Podcast (Episode 23, Triassic Park) that explores the phenomenon of the theft of petrified rocks in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park by compulsive park patrons. These visitors often mailed stolen rocks back to the park, blaming their indiscretions of rock thievery as a source of their cursed lives. It’s such a common story to the park that Ryan Thompson (who contributed the photos for the “Groan” album art) compiled a book (Bad Luck, Hot Rocks) of pictures of the rocks and their accompanying letters that were sent back to the park. The story illustrates the tendency of everyday people desiring the things they don’t have while missing out on the beauty all around them.
The line in the song “Conscience Rocks” says “We can’t always get what we want” but through this band, Singing Lungs is digging into the goodness already in their midst; domesticated life, filled with creativity, and rooted in community.
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