The Man, The Legend, The EE with a heart of Glass

As a treat this week in following up with the Glass Halo review from last week, I’d like to present a view into one of the group’s founding members and current bassist, John Baughman. To those that know John by day, he is a senior electrical engineer originally from the class of 2007. He currently is about to graduate at the end of this quarter and, better yet, he has a job to look forward to. By night however, this mild mannered circuit monkey is actually the rocking bassist of Glass Halo.

While originally interviewing John, I hadn’t been exposed to the band yet except through casual conversation with John talking about several of his gigs in Indianapolis, where their band frequently plays in bars. Upon handing me the album and beginning to explain it, he said it was very dark in theme. During the band’s early history, when this album was being written, there were several deaths and suicides surrounding the band and specifically around John. In hearing that, I was amazed by John’s fortitude in sticking through with both a career as a musician and as an electrical engineer, arguably one of the most time consuming and generally hardcore majors here at Rose. John pretty much is a rock though, a fact made apparent as he sat there through the interview, grinning and answering my questions.

In more relevant information, John’s weapon of choice in his variety of funk is a Carvin bass. (He told me he would never play any other bass again after the Carvin line.) His musical style, he says, comes from some of the great bassists: John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), Tim Commerford (Rage Against the Machine/ Audioslave), Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers) and Victor Wooten. John’s primary role in Glass Halo is writing the bass line for each song, leaving the song writing to the lead singer and guitarists of the group. He is, however, pursuing an interest in learning various instruments outside of the bass; he is an active trombone player for the Rose Pep Band and had said he wants to re-establish playing on the double bass, and learning piano and drums. Even with all this, there was the question of an aspiring writer suddenly coming out. However he said that while he enjoys songwriting, he doesn’t have a specific interest in doing any writing for Glass Halo at this time.

As some last remarks, John wanted to encourage people to visit the band’s website, http://www.glasshalo.net, where the band posts lyrics, pictures, biographies and especially wicked some of the band’s music free on the site; also, keep an eye out for Glass Halo’s new EP to be released soon, “Streets of Fortune.” In a brief description of this new album, the band is showing off its new feel and is leaving behind the dark roots of “Written in the Margins.” In an initial listen to some of the rough recordings, the general feel was that this isn’t a new band but it is a lot different than what was presented previously. As a closer, I’d like to wish John the best of luck in his final quarter at Rose and wish to express my best wishes for the band and will be waiting expectantly to listen and review the next album.