Spirits Having Fun: improvisation and fresh ideas

Spirits Having Fun is an experimental music project that takes influences from progressive rock and post-punk and implements improvisational techniques found in genres like free jazz to create colorful performances with lots of personality. Based out of Chicago, the band is comprised of Drummer Phil Sudderberg, Guitarist Andrew Clinkman, Bassist Jesse Heasly and Guitarist and Vocalist Katie McShane. With two of the members living in New York, the band has learned to go months at a time without meeting up. But this doesn’t stop them from touring, writing and recording.

In an interview after their performance at Satellite Records on September 21st, Andrew Clinkman described the improvisational elements of their sets.

“I think an important part of it is being able to remain open to coming up with fun tricks and musical jokes that we can play on each other,” said Clinkman. “Things that can make it fresh all the time and kind of surprise each other with things and never having everything so set that it’s the same every night.”

The band has recently come together again to do a run of shows along with some writing. “Our friends, Guerilla Toss, were going on tour currently and they were playing in Cleveland and it seemed like a good opportunity to grab a midwest show, hook up with them, hangout, play a fun show and put a couple other dates together and try to workshop as much new music as we can in the process,” Clinkman said.

The band also has touring plans for the future to promote their upcoming record.

“Just look out for our full length because that’s going to be the next big thing. Once that’s on it’s way out into the world we’re going to be touring that record,” McShane said. “So hopefully we can come to Kalamazoo and play at the college. That would be really fun.”

The new album is expected to be released Fall of 2019.