Need a new band to listen to? Meet Adam Baczkowski, a student at Rutgers and guitar player in Modern Crowds, a local New Jersey band. Modern Crowds’ first record “Go” came out earlier this year. The band members are Adam himself, Joseph Pellegrinelli, Charles Kupilik, and Michael McGowan.
Why Rutgers?
Well my sister Amy went here. I visited her when she was moving in and throughout the year, and I really liked it a lot. It’s a cool school, the whole area of New Brunswick has a really popular music scene so that kinda played into my decision.
What are you studying at Rutgers?
My major is in economics and I’m double minoring in music and geography. What I’d really like to do is audio engineering, record bands, mix music, but it’s not something you necessarily need to go to school for. It’s just something you have to keep practicing at. And as far as economics goes, if I wanted to own my own studio or business that would really help. I also would like to become more involved in environmental and wildlife conservation, so I’ve been looking at job opportunities that my major would apply to in that field.
How did you meet the other members of Modern Crowds?
So our drummer Charlie, I went to high school with him and I kinda hung out with him during high school but not too much. And then last semester I saw he posted on Facebook that he was jamming with his friend Joe on guitar and that they were looking for other people to join their band. I wasn’t actually trying to join a band, but I was bored and I decided to jam with them and play music. We all ended up getting along really well and everything flowed together really nicely so we were like, “hey let’s be a band.”
How has the music scene been in New Brunswick?
New Brunswick’s been really great! We’ve done a couple different shows here. Our first show in New Brunswick was a house party on Cook/Douglass. It was really fun! And then we played Court Tavern a couple times, and that’s a really cool venue! However it’s 21 and over, so not so many college students have been able to come see us. That’s why I think the house party scene has flourished so much in New Brunswick.
Where else have you played outside of New Brunswick?
We’ve only played in New Jersey we haven’t gone out of state yet. But we played up in Montclair at the Meatlocker. We’ve also played Asbury Park a lot, on the boardwalk at a couple venues. We played the Langosta Lounge, Asbury Yacht club, and other house parties in between. We also played at a bar called the Chubby Pickle, that was a good time.
Who’s your musical inspiration?
Well the first person who really got me to want to play guitar is Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day. I was really into them when I was in middle school. But than after I started playing guitar more and more I got influenced a lot by Dave Gilmour from Pink Floyd and Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin, that was my whole Classic Rock phase. But in terms of Modern Crowds, my guitar playing is influenced by Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead and Graham Coxon from Blur.
When will your next LP drop?
We are currently recording it, actually. We wrote about 15 songs total, and now we are narrowing it down to somewhere between 8 to 10 songs. We are being very particular with the track listing because we want to release it on vinyl. So you have to be careful, I believe you can only have a maximum of 22 minutes on each side, which means we have to plan our track list accordingly. It should be done by spring time, we only record once a week so it takes awhile.
Where can we find you on social media and where can we listen to your music?
We have Facebook, BandCamp, and Instagram. We are also on Spotify and Youtube. We’ll soon have stickers and t-shirts!
Who’s your celebrity crush?
Anna Kendrick
When’s your next show?
It’s at Court Tavern on November 4th at 8pm!