By Nick J. Buckley / For Black Squirrel News
Everybody loves a fat animal.
Alvin Lautzenheiser’s youngest daughter was about 11 when she said it during a family conversation about possible band names.
Lautzenheiser heard it and knew.
“Yep,” he said. “That’s it.”
Fat Animals has carried the name ever since, a fittingly unserious label for a Battle Creek-area band of serious musicians who know a good hang matters as much as good music.
The band traces its roots to 2018, after guitarist Phil Wiswell and vocalist Don Daniel’s previous band, Big Love, dissolved. Wiswell posted a Craigslist ad looking for musicians and connected with bassist Shawn Kelly. Lautzenheiser, a guitarist, joined after crossing paths with Daniel through other local music projects, and drummer Oz Rinckey completed the lineup in 2021 after reconnecting with Daniel.
By then, each member had played in enough bands to know talent alone was not enough.
“If they’re a good hang and they’re good people,” Rinckey said, “we clicked.”
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The group rehearses most weeks around work and family commitments.
“If I lost this band today, I would still be playing guitar,” Wiswell said. “I’d be completely happy playing guitar by myself, but there’s so much more fun when you’re doing it with other people… We just generally like each other’s company.”
When the power went out before a recent rehearsal at Wiswell’s Bedford Township home, the five musicians gathered around a backyard table instead of plugging in. A steel fire ring bearing the Fat Animals logo, a gift from fellow bandmates, sat nearby. Wiswell drank from a matching band mug.
“We generally row in the same direction,” Daniel said. “A lot of bands, you’ve got a lot of captains on the boat, and they’re trying to plot different courses. We don’t have that.”
Fat Animals mixes original music with deep cuts and jam-band improvisation, giving songs room to stretch instead of reproducing them note for note.
“We take kind of a Dead approach,” Kelly said. “We try to make the live show experience exciting.”
For Lautzenheiser, the best moments come when the band stops feeling like five separate musicians.
“I cannot imagine the unbearable human being that I would be if I didn’t do this,” Lautzenheiser said. “You get to this spot where all of a sudden it’s hive mind. It’s playing as an ensemble.”
How to hear them
Fat Animals will perform in the second semifinal round of Battle Creek Battle of the Bands, 6 p.m. July 9 at Squirrel Hollow Golf Course.
How we reported this
This article is based on an interview with members of Fat Animals.
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