Today we’d like to introduce you to Marsoupial
Hi Marsoupial, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Marsoupial’s story hasn’t been linear at all. Alex Carter, our drummer, and J.T. Sparks, our bassist and one of our vocalists, have been playing in bands together for nearly twenty years. Both went to Pace for high school and played together there. After high school, J.T. actually followed Alex to Dallas to play in a band that had decent success around Texas. That eventually ran its course, and they moved back to Atlanta and started other careers.
Michael Arwood, our guitar player and another one of our vocalists, was in bands all throughout middle and high school and had a serious band in college. He was fortunate enough to play all over the country with his college band and cut his teeth playing around the Nashville scene. He moved to Atlanta over a decade ago, and he met Alex through his wife when they were classmates in grad school. They had similar musical interests and jammed a few times. Alex moved out of state for a few years, and they vowed to start a band when he got back.
Roy Xiao, our keyboard player and another one of our vocalists, played keys in a band in law school in North Carolina, where they had moderate success around Chapel Hill. Roy’s wife and Michael went to law school together at Emory, and Roy and Michael quickly found a shared musical interest and became concert buddies. Once Alex moved back, the four guys quickly set up a jam and found that the chemistry was good. Marsoupial has been grooving steadily for over the past year and began playing shows regularly in Fall 2024.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
One of the biggest challenges is that none of us had played in a group that heavily featured unstructured improvisation. Michael and Alex both have a bit of a jazz background, but most of their prior experience still existed within structured music. Each of us are fans of jam bands like the Grateful Dead, Phish, and the Allman Brothers, and we all had played along to records over the years. That being said, this is the first time the rubber has met the road for each of us. It took some intense listening when we were first playing together, but we have locked in and are finding new ways to compose together in real time. We have lot of fun getting adventurous with our playing, and we believe there is still a lot of headroom for our growth.
Michael here: Booking gigs is another challenge. When I was a kid, I almost felt it was a right to get booked for a show – “I have a guitar, I can play it, and I have something to say, so give me a stage and hear me roar!” As an adult, I realize that someone giving you a chance isn’t just a risk on your part – they’re putting a lot of faith in you, that you’ll actually show up, that you’ll actually play the way you said you would, that you won’t go off the rails or ruin their event. We’re really grateful for folks who have taken a chance on us thus far into our career, like the Virginia Highland District and Wild Heaven Beer.
Our very first gig should have been an absolute disaster. We were booked for a primetime set on Saturday night at Nerdi Gras, a local Mardi-Gras themed cosplay convention. On Wednesday, J.T. texted all of us that he was vomiting blood and was heading to the hospital. We are all super freaked out (rightfully so) – turns out he had an esophageal rupture, and he was super lucky that he got to the ER when he did! He underwent a quick emergency surgery and was going to be cleared to leave the hospital by Saturday but obviously couldn’t sing. He insisted on showing up and sitting while playing bass. In the meantime, Roy, Alex, and I had a long practice session on Thursday night to make sure we could hit everything without J.T. – his voice and bass playing are vital parts of our band, and we wanted to make sure we could even play without him! We thought we would be in decent shape (hoping he could still hold down the low end) and we packed up. I woke up at 4am, evidently having caught the stomach bug my daughter brought home from daycare. By Saturday evening, I was worn ragged but was obviously the member of the band in the second-worse condition! We still had fun, played a decent set, and knew that our gigs could only get better – and they have.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We see ourselves as a cover band that exclusively plays original music. We may not write the lyrics or underlying parts for the songs that we play, but our take on the music is entirely our own. Our performances feature long-form improvisation between songs, often consisting of genre and stylistic jumps and key changes, decorating space and time while contemporaneously composing and steering a jam into a different song. Sometimes our jams will move into a different song entirely, and other times they take on a life of their own.
A good example of what we do is on our YouTube page from our last show at Wild Heaven. We started out with Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter and drove the disco beat into Shakedown Street by the Grateful Dead. We let that jam get a little loose and jumped into Bathtub Gin by Phish. That broke into a reggae-heavy jam that led into Jammin’ by Bob Marley, and we finished up with Dua Lipa’s Cold Heart. We love moving across musical eras and genres and just seeing where the music takes us.
We all bring different influences to our music. J.T. is steeped in the musical traditions of the South (think the blues, the Allman Brothers, American rock’n’roll from the 60s and 70s) – he actually played in New Orleans for a couple of years. He also has a deep understanding of British rock from that era like the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and Black Sabbath. Roy brings pop to us. He actually was in a dj duo called White on Rice that played the Imagine festival a few years back, so it’s easy to see how his electronic and pop influences push the band in that direction. He’s great at breaking into a pop jam that may start with a Drake or a Gorillaz track and take that into pop punk or even pop country territory. He’s also just a phenomenal keys player. Alex’s influences are all across the board. He has played in metal bands, rock bands, jazz groups, and more. He’s the member of the band who encourages the rest of us to seek out new artists based upon their musicianship, and he has the most experience playing in different genres and with different time signatures. Michael is pretty firmly rooted in Americana and jam bands. He grew up going to bluegrass jams in East Tennessee and sitting in with his dad’s classic rock cover bands and learned how to listen to how others shape music in real time. Playing in Nashville gave him some experience with classic country styling and chicken pickin’ licks, and he’s been heavily influenced by the Dead, Phish, Dave Matthews Band, and John Mayer over the years.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
Being a good listener, which is actually be rooted in being open minded. As an improvisational band, it’s imperative that we all take turns driving the ship when we’re in a jam. Each member has a say in the direction our music goes, and that can only be realized when everyone else is intently listening while simultaneously playing. That also allows our music travel in directions that none of us expect, and that creates opportunities to call on all of our individual influences and determine what to play next.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.marsoupialofficial.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marsoupialofficial/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@marsoupialofficial?themeRefresh=1
