Vinyl Theatre

Formation (2012–2014)

Singer and guitarist Keegan Calmes first met keyboardist Chris Senner at a cross-country meet in high school. They decided after getting to know each other that they would meet up again, this time to begin writing and practicing songs. Calmes left Wisconsin to attend college at Adams State University in Colorado while Senner attended college at University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. The two wrote songs and shared ideas over Skype and email and eventually recorded a demo CD together. Senner emailed one of his friends from college, Nick Cesarz, and asked him to record drums over their tracks. Cesarz was brought into the band once Calmes and Senner have their approval of his recording. Keegan returned home from Colorado, having dropped out to be able to pursue music as a career. The band was in need of a bass player, so Chris contacted a high school friend, Josh Pothier, and asked him to join. With his parents' blessing, Pothier dropped out of college, where he was close to finishing a degree in psychology, to join the band.

The group first called themselves "Alchemy", but after searching on the internet, they found other bands either with the same or similar names, making it difficult for themselves to stand out. They dropped the name when they had new management and replaced it with "Vinyl Theatre", stating that the vinyl aspect meant "When you buy a record on vinyl, it’s often for a band you’re truly dedicated to..." and "theatre" represented the theatrics of music.

With their name, members, and management being settled, the band began collaboratively writing songs and began putting them on social music sharing site, SoundCloud. There, they released their first song, "Breaking Up My Bones", which received large amounts of feedback from around the world. Looking back, the band realized that the combination of the site's only weeks-old "trending" feature and self-promotion on other social media networks was what provided them with so much feedback.

Fueled by Ramen and touring (2014–2016)

In March 2014, the band was put on Billboard's Next Big Sound Chart and was also announced to the setlist of Summerfest's Emerging Artist Series to take place in July of that year. New York City-based record label Fueled by Ramen, which has bands such as Paramore and Twenty One Pilots on their roster, picked up on the attention that Vinyl Theatre was receiving and contacted the band to ask for a performance. People from the label flew out to Milwaukee and watched the band perform in their practice space, which was also Nick Cesarz's bathroom. On August 19, 2014, Vinyl Theatre announced via their Facebook page that they had just been signed to Fueled by Ramen and that their first album, Electrogram would be released on September 23, 2014.

On the same day of their signing announcement, Vinyl Theatre announced that in the fall of 2014 they would be the opening band for their labelmates Twenty One Pilots along with indie-pop band Misterwives. After the tour finished, the band embarked on their first ever headlining tour across six states.

Recently Vinyl Theatre announced that they would be touring with Magic Man and Smallpools. They also announced that they would tour with The Mowgli's, following with their Alter the Sound tour.

In February 2016, it was announced that bassist Josh Pothier parted ways with the band due to ongoing health issues.

Origami (2016-present)

Vinyl Theatre had been in the studio recording new material for a sophomore record as early as early-mid 2016. Throughout the following year, they continued to tease new material via each of their respective social medias. In December 2016, they announced that they would support rock band Dashboard Confessional on their dates for their early 2017 U.S. tour. On January 13, 2017, they performed at a headlining show in their hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin at local concert venue The Rave / Eagles Club and premiered their new record in its entirety live. On February 9, 2017, the band released the tracks "30 Seconds", "New Machines", "My Fault", and "The Island" as a preview for their upcoming album, with 30 Seconds being the lead single. The album was announced to be titled "Origami" and will be released on May 12, 2017.

Members

Current Members

Past Members

Albums

EPs