The Big Payback (CD release), Steez

press release: The Big Payback will celebrate the release of their long-awaited second album, Animal Brain, after seven years of playing live all over the Midwest. This album marks the jazz-rock outfit’s triumph over the many hardships that face a band comprised of nine busy professional musicians: months of unavailability due to members’ tours across the U.S. and in Europe, unexpected lineup changes, and even sudden hospitalizations.  

“Animal Brain strips away the layers of our humanness to reveal the raw animal instincts that drive our emotions,” guitarist and principal songwriter Kyle Rightley said. “The title originally came from a track I wrote for our 2014 performance at Jazz at Five. Watching my cat prowl around the house, I was reminded that we are all animals, no matter how advanced we believe we are.”   

“This release contains some of Kyle’s best writing from the last six years,” says trombonist and band leader Jamie Kember. “In addition to his original tunes, he’s made a blistering arrangement of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Crosstown Traffic.’ The band is sounding better than ever, and Landon Arkens at Blast House Studios was able to capture our energy on this album.”