Magnolia Sideshow

Formerly known as The Other Brothers, Magnolia Side Show currently has three full time members: Marshal Schmid - lead vocalist, banjo, kick drum, guitar, drums, tambourine kick; Caleb Wrenn - vocalist, guitar, banjo, high-hat kick/foot tambourine, harmonica; Zach Amason - vocals, bass. Marshal and Caleb are childhood best friends--they are actually more like brothers than they are friends--and with growing up together they have been playing music with each other from the time they were 12. Marshal and Caleb’s individual styles of music have driven them to play
together as much as they can because of the chemistry that they have formed over the years. It was their Sophomore year of college when they finally had the opportunity to live together and that's where music started to
become more than just a thing to do for fun. They decided that if they have that much fun playing music in their house, they might as well go ahead and have that much fun playing music in front of a live audience. So, for the first time they took their music and their passion to perform two songs at an open mic night. The response from the audience encouraged the two to keep pursuing more opportunities to play
in front of a live audience. This excitement from performing in front of live audiences led Caleb and Marshal to submit to perform in the Fall of 2013 Battle of the Bands put on by Auburn University. It was on a Thursday night that they called a few others to form the band to perform with. In pursuit of forming a
band, Marshal called Chad Oliver (former mandolin player) and Zach Amason (current bass player). Marshal
called Zach because he had randomly played bass for Marshal while he was leading worship at his Church in Opelika, AL. Not only did Marshal and Caleb for a band that Thursday night, they recorded record a demo that Thursday night as well; because, it was due the next day. Marshal was able to find a place to record and called one of his good friends, Joe Loft with Joe Loft Studios, to do the actual recording. They would have been utterly helpless without the gracious help of Joe Loft in their recording process. In one sitting, and through a live recording, they
recorded a two song demo in order to submit it to the Battle of the Bands committee the following morning. That next Monday the band finds out that they had been selected to compete in the Battle of the Bands, along
with seven other bands. There was only one major obstacle, the Battle of the Bands required that each band must perform at least one original song – they had no original songs. So, Monday night at 11:30 p.m. Marshal wrote the bands first original song entitled, “High Hills and High Roads.” The band had from Tuesday until Friday morning to practice because the Battle of the Bands was that Friday evening. With a serious amount of diligence and persistence they practiced as much as much as possible. Friday evening comes and they performed for the first time on a giant stage in front of a large audience. In addition to Marshal, Caleb and Zach—who are the three full time members of the band—they had guests players perform with them on various songs: Jake Repash – drums; Chad Oliver – mandolin; Jim Flaniken – trumpet; Joe Loft – keys. The band gets prepared, takes the stage and plays two covers and their first original song, “High Hills and High Roads.” It turned out that the time and diligence that they put into their four days of practice to get prepared for the Battle of the Bands paid off because they went home that night not only winning Fan Favorite, but also winning the First Place Prize. To say the least, that was a huge milestone for a band that has been performing together for, roughly, one week. They took the excitement and the momentum from that great achievement and used it to continue to pursue their musical enterprises. Along with live shows, one of the most foundational and developing places the band began to appear and perform was on the side walk of the intersection of Magnolia Street and College Street in downtown Auburn, Alabama. Performing out on the street has been one of the most shaping places of performing for Magnolia Sideshow. It is off of Magnolia Street where the band not only formed their name, but where they learned to play their music with the kind of passion and excitement that can draw a crowd. Throughout the year they were continually asked to perform live shows for various venues and to headline for various music festivals. They begin their career with playing in front of a hundred people at the Battle of the Bands and ended the spring semester of 2014 playing their biggest show yet in front of a couple thousand people by being hired by Auburn University to open for the well known singer/songwriter, Andy Grammer, at the Tiger Nights event. Magnolia Side Show is putting forth the effort to make their passion of playing music to become their full time career.