JUSTIN PAYNE & CO.

With a musical home starting in Ohio, and stretching to Nashville, TN, Justin Payne & Co. is the long-evolving musical brainchild of singer-songwriter Justin Payne. Invoking the emotional roller-coaster of his living with Bipolar II disorder, Justin's songs range from intimate stories about  love lost and won, and life's harder lessons, to heavy critiques of social injustice and authoritarianism. He pulls from sonic influences spanning from ragtime, the protest music of the Great Depression, to the electric guitar heroics of contemporary indie and experimental rock. A typical show can range from intimate and sparse acoustic tunes to bombastic reveries and anarchic feedback-riding waves of exultant energy, all usually within about an hour. Conservatory-trained in composition and performance, Justin has been growing and honing his craft and his sound, on his own, for over a decade, leading a rotating cast of top-flight musicians in varying incarnations of the group.