Band Bio

The Sarah Mac Band officially formed in 2005 as a trio, when friends who already met regularly to jam were offered a paying job at a local coffee house in Tallahassee, Florida. The response to their original blends of blues, jazz and acoustic rock was so overwhelming that Claire, Charlie and Sarah decided to formalize their partnership and intentionally pursue music together.

While playing in support of their 2006 debut, Countdown to Silence, the band shared a bill with another Tallahassee band, the a_Udience and were introduced to drummer, Keli. Upon the dissolution of the a_Udience in 2007, Keli joined the Sarah Mac Band and began touring and recording for their upcoming April 2008 release, Awakening. The band continues to tour the Southeast, partnering well with a wide variety of acts ranging from Amy Steinberg to Robert Randolph and Marc Roberge of O.A.R. in an online concert for NBC.

Sarah Mac Sarah adds vocals to the band, as well as playing the guitar and piano. It was widely thought that she was an intuitive, natural musician until her recent acquisition of an accordian, which she has been unable to learn how to play so far (much to the relief of her band members). She has formal training in the mental health field and is the team leader in the quest for healthy band member relationships and emotional wholeness. The Real Story: She was raised in the back woods of Montana by a family of derelict Koala bears. At age 18 she relocated to Alabama where she soon became Miss Turkey Festival 1998. After graduating from Florida State University with a degree in...something...she learned of the recently formed Sarah Mac Band. Once she fully comprehended the serendipitousness of stumbling across a band already named after her, she lobbied for a few years and finally gained admittance to the band. In her spare time, Sarah likes to turn used milk carton jugs into hand puppets that look like the characters from TV's Cheers (her Norm is on display in the local museum of folk art).

Charlie Charlie, the oldest member of the Sarah Mac Band, lost his passport, which prevented the Sarah Mac Band from coheadlining U2's last world tour. He complains that his life is ruled by women-- Sarah, Keli and Claire in the context of the band, and his amazing wife Jaye, otherwise. He finds solace in practicing the guitar, which he has only been playing now for two weeks, and still finds the strength to ever remain "your hero and mine." The Real Story: Born a child prodigy, Charlie was an expert Cook by age 4, routinely dominating Iron Chef competitions even before they existed. He opened his own culinary school at age 13 and then traveled the globe teaching world renown chefs the finer points of sauce preparation. Statues honoring him were erected in various European locations such as Rome, Paris, and Brussels (he makes a mean Belgian Waffle). In between all the cooking, Charlie found time to get married and have two children, all of whom he immediately put to work in his kitchen. Four weeks ago, Charlie announced to his family and friends that he was sick of cooking and wanted to take up guitar, and since then has been teaching himself to play. After answering an ad he saw in the sunday classifieds, he became the third member of the Sarah Mac Band.

Claire Claire is the business and the brains behind the Sarah Mac Band franchise, sending out detailed weekly schedules to everyone first thing on Monday mornings to keep them all on track. She suffers from insomnia, which makes her the official driver for travel after late night gigs. She has years of formal training in piano and guitar, and then dabbled in hand percussion before deciding to learn to play the bass to fill out the SMB rhythm section. The Real Story: Not much is known about Claire's early childhood. There are rumors of her existence and whereabouts up to age 15, but the details are very sketchy. One theory involves a kidnapping and a traveling circus, and this somewhat disturbing photo might back that possibility up. After breezing through high school and college, Claire put her degrees in engineering, organic chemistry, physics, and economics to use by forming the Sarah Mac Band (even though at this point she was the only member of the band). Upon meeting the aforementioned Sarah Mac, she contemplated changing the band's name, but soon relented to Sarah's pleas to join. The band was growing!

Keli In Keli's free time she writes a dissertation from the comfort of her living room futon, greatly assisted by the fact that she figured out how to display her laptop on a ginormous television named Jimmy. Her claim to fame is that she is a touring, rock and rolling, kung-fu fighting, Pearl sponsored girl drummer, which only enhances the fact that she spent five adolescent summers as a carnie at the now defunct Miracle Strip Amusement Park in PCB, FL. The Real Story: Top Secret. No, seriously, they even did an X-Files episode about her one time.