The locally-based band Chet Vincent and The Music Industry celebrated the release of their new record, “Static on the Radio,” with a performance of the album at The Sanctuary at Mr. Smalls. The venue, located inside an 18th-century Methodist church in Millvale, is also home to the Mr. Smalls Recording Studio, allowing for a high-fidelity recording of the performance.
Vincent, who is originally from Pittsburgh, is fully immersed in the local music scene. When he isn’t writing or performing, he works as the daytime manager at Mr. Smalls, helping to facilitate performances by other musicians.
“Basically, it’s my entire life,” said Vincent. “You know, like nine to five doing music stuff, and then I go home and do more music stuff.”
The band was organically assembled through a series of pandemic-era recordings.
For about 10 years, Vincent played in a heavy blues band called The Big Bend.
“That project kind of evolved over the years, and then it kind of wrapped up due to people moving right around the start of the pandemic. We had plans to make a final record before one of our members moved to the West Coast, and it didn’t happen,” said Vincent. “So I had all these songs, I was sitting around, and during the pandemic I just got really involved in working on the songs as just a studio project without a band.”
Vincent collaborated with a variety of musicians from throughout Pittsburgh’s music industry — a fitting origin for the band’s name.
These pandemic-era sessions resulted in the 2023 release of the band’s first album, “Young Leaves.”
“Since then, I’ve kind of put together a mostly set lineup,” said Vincent. “This will be the second album. It’s kind of a continuation of that last one and some of the in-studio practices we developed.”
Vincent says the new album demonstrates a transformation of the band’s sound. “We’ve definitely moved into a psych-pop, indie-rock direction from the heavy blues rock kind of stuff, but it feels like a natural progression from my point of view.”
The band takes an intuitive approach to recording. Rather than trying to plan out every little thing, Vincent prefers to go into the studio with an idea and let it evolve during the session.
On the experience of creating intuitively, Vincent said, “It felt to me more like listening to what the song wants to be more than people writing parts and then trying to capture the different parts that people are excited to be playing. The song is kind of secondary, you know. This approach, the song is really primary. It’s like, what kind of song is this? What is it trying to be?”
The live album recording at The Sanctuary allowed for further evolution of the songs. The band fed off the crowd’s energy, providing a new spin to much of the material.
As Pittsburgh’s music scene continues to evolve, so does Chet Vincent and The Music Industry — a band shaped as much by the city’s collaborative spirit as the sound coming out of its studios and stages.
