A Children's Crusade
They’re all adults now, but the members of A Children’s Crusade all grew up in West Michigan’s music scene.
Made up of former members of the bands Moorland, The Tide, Comlag, and Grounder, A Children’s Crusade have a history here that goes back the better part of a decade. The Muskegon-based indie-rock outfit began when Jason Bryant (formerly of Grand Rapids’ The Tide and Grounder) joined Eric Grinwis and Wayne Hacker in Comlag and they renamed the group A Children’s Crusade after Kurt Vonnegut’s original title for his landmark novel Slaughterhouse Five. Guitarist Anthony Timlin (formerly of Moorland) came in later, along with Nate Donahue, from The Skies Revolt, who played keys, but has since left the band. Most recently Nick Bunda (formerly of The Tide and Fenn) has unofficially joined the band as their new keyboardist.
“We’re all married, have full-time jobs, and Wayne has three kids,” Anthony Timlin told Recoil about why the band has focused more on making music than touring. “That doesn’t leave very much availability for us to be away from home, but we are all still very passionate about creating and playing music. So we’re all pretty much in the same boat, which really works out well.”
Coming up, Timlin used to throw a lot of shows around Muskegon, and now that he’s older he’s enjoyed seeing the progression of younger musicians growing up and taking ownership of that music scene.
“A new generation of people, like Danny Brueck, has come up to keep it going,” Timlin said. “Also Nate Dorough and the crew at Fusion [Shows] have really helped our band out – not to mention the fact that they have been doing an amazing job of throwing killer shows all over Michigan.”
Timlin said that while fans of his previous band, Moorland, might find the indie-rock of A Children’s Crusade quite different from the heavy sound of his previous project, fans of The Tide in the local music scene will probably dig what they’re doing.
“When it comes to our sound, product and performance though, our goals are the same as they have been in all of our previous bands: put out the best we are capable [of] and perform it with passion,” he added.
Several of A Children’s Crusade’s songs, like “Salt,” directly address getting older and growing up, bringing both a lyrically and musically maturity to the band’s sound reflective of their years. The group takes influence from alt-rock/indie bands like Radiohead, Arcade Fire, Fleet Foxes, and many others, as well as legendary artists like The Beatles, with Grinwis writing all the band’s songs acoustically before taking them to rest of the band.
“Eric is a phenomenal songwriting machine, so the biggest job for the rest of the band is to make sure that we are complementing the existing elements of the song,” Timlin explained. “Then again, we do have a few songs that were written on the spot in moments where we were all on the same creative wavelength. When that happens, it’s just like opening a birthday card full of cash.”
A Children’s Crusade’s debut full-length album, Til We Have Faces, has been almost as long in the making as the band itself. Only half-jokingly referred to as the band’s “baby,” the album was first conceived nine months ago, and will be released Jan. 13 at Lemonjello’s in Holland, and Jan. 14 at the 180 Room in Ravenna, Mich.
“It will just be a relief to get this record out, honestly,” Timlin said. “We’ve been dying for people to hear it for so long now. We’ve been playing the songs live so it’s not like we’ve been keeping the songs under wraps or anything. We just can’t wait to get this record into the hands of the people that preordered it almost a year ago.”
The band recorded the 12-song set at The Foxboro in Grand Rapids with Mike Cervantes, who Timlin called “a wizard” and said he would highly recommend him to any bands looking to record.
“Mike probably wanted to kill us at some point in that process,” Timlin said, describing the many revisions the band worked back and forth on with Cervantes. “Then summer hit and everyone was all over the place with anniversaries, birthdays, weddings... Then we had an October/November goal [for the album], which got moved back to December, which got moved back to January because of finances.”
Finally getting the artwork and other finishing touches squared away, A Children’s Crusade will finally release their debut this month as they march into the new year.
“We have some momentum behind this project, but I think our band is still pretty unknown in Michigan,” Timlin said. “We hope to change that this year.”
Even before the album’s release, people around Grand Rapids may have heard A Children’s Crusade’s song “Frozen Winter Cars” this past fall, as it was featured in the ArtPrize entry from local artist Anna Donahue (former keyboard player Nate Donahue’s mother).
“That song was the first song we wrote as a band with Nate, so I think that might have been the primary reason why she ended up using that song,” Timlin said. “It was a little humbling for us knowing that an awesome artist wanted to incorporate something we just kind of jammed out in her project. It was really a privilege.”