Today we’d like to introduce you to Benny Rothschild
Hi Benny, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I’d just moved back to Florida from a 2 year stint in Philadelphia with my old band Thoughts. I sorta knew Carolyn from high school and wanted to try something different start a band with a female vocalist, she seemed like a no brainer and was interested in starting one too. I found Eric our drummer because he was my neighbor at the time. My dog stopped during our walk and I heard drums so I hit him up and we began rehearsing several nights a week together to figure out what the heck we wanted to do. “Female fronted” isn’t a genre or style of music so there was lots to explore. Eventually we decided we needed more people and brought in Dylan (guitar, keyboards) and Nick (saxophone) in the fall of 2022 and released our first EP “Craving” a year later. Since then we bought on Michael as our manager and we consider him a full member of our unit, he’s at every show and is just as important as the rest of us. Our debut album is 93% done I’d say, almost there and I’m so excited for the world to hear it. We’ve been playing the songs from it long enough live now that I’ve seen some people singing along (even though they can only hear it at shows to remember) and as a songwriter that’s such a beautiful feeling. Depending on the song it’s a co-write between myself and Carolyn or either of us brought it in individually for the band to then mangle into something that sounds like “us”. I think the album defines that in a really big way. The combination of live shows and word of mouth so far has been huge for getting us to this point and we’re all so excited for the long journey ahead.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
In many ways yes, we have a sound that just works off the bat a lot. Some tweaks here and there have been helpful. I’d say our biggest challenge is just consistently seeing each other as much as we’d like to, adulting is hard. Work/life balance can be difficult and the way we wanna treat it this band is a job so that can be difficult as well. Overall we all care a lot about making the band a success and are very passionate about the sound we’re lucky enough to make.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I think what sets us apart from others is our musicianship, our songwriting and our dynamics. In this band I play bass and sing primarily. I like to compare is to the Jackson 5 in the sense that Carolyn is the “Michael”, she sings the majority of the leads, I’m the “Jermaine”, shredding bass and getting my lines in there every now and then to play counter. It’s a really fun relationship vocally together, and Nick will harmonize with both of us on his sax a lot too, that always sounds beautiful to my ears. I’m most proud of the catalog of songs we’ve built up together so far, 14 songs with whole worlds within them.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
If you asked me this 5-10 years ago at any point I would’ve had a different answer. Covid completely made me rethink everything in terms of what was possible in terms of making a living as a musician. My whole life I’ve been told “there’s no money in records anymore you gotta play live” but there’s so many ways to promote yourself in addition to live shows. Don’t get me wrong I love playing live so much, I’m just glad there’s other ways to exist if a covid type event ever happens again.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Thehotseatband.com
- Instagram: Thehotseatband
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@thehotseat-band?si=W7KNZvelukeFB6S3
