Biography

‘Analog with all the grime’ is THUNDER BODY’s answer to the timeless question of how to electrify songs.  Lead by singing drummer Matt O’Brian, THUNDER BODY is a family affair that drips with soul, stacked with a fluid cast of as many as 12 members.  THUNDER BODY employs the magic of Rachel Orke through her voltage based, electromechanical keyboards, a full time horn section (The Great Blue Herons) consisting of Benton Sillick (tpt), Abe Nouri (bone) and Luke Norris (ts), the guitar and song stylings of Dennis Mariano, and the irreplicable bass thrust of Miah Pacheco.  Complete with vocal harmonies, a stewing slew of science in boxes, and a full time front of house engineer, very few stones are left unturned.  THUNDER BODY has proven prolific in creating artisan quality, original music, made the way that their favorite music was – with now-old-fashioned analog instruments, utterly in service of the songs.  Songs about the earth, songs about love, songs about music.  From nature to culture, cosmic concepts thread their way through THUNDER BODY’s lyrics in an almost occultist manner.  Listen closely.  Your eyes and your ears might not tell the same story.  Music is a prayer, see you when we get there.

Formed in Rochester, NY in 2010, THUNDER BODY made an EP and two full length records before a second wave took shape.  By 2015, the additions of horns to the band and an organ and Leslie to Rachel’s rig, accompanied a burst of new, Soul leaning material.  These explorations, as well as the application of a new sound to their older songs, define what has become the second wave of THUNDER BODY.  Evidence of these waves will be starkly on display with THUNDER BODY’s two forthcoming albums.  The first, entitled Solstice represents a mastery of the band’s first wave style.  Similar in tone to their previous works, Solstice embraces the warmest of the band’s songs and sounds – songs about kids and family, life and death.  Solstice is the breaking of the first wave, and caps an era.  The second forthcoming record, Like A Monster is a new batch of overt love songs and psychedelic epics which jump into the stratosphere of THUNDER BODY’s established sound.  Like A Monster is a clear mark of the band’s fresh trajectory.