Local band Prayer Breakfast to perform with national acts today

Local Bloomington band Prayer Breakfast will join Tara Jane O’Neil, No Kids and Phil Elverum, most commonly known as Mount Eerie, as they make a stop in Bloomington at 9:30 p.m. Friday on their coast-to-coast tour.

The performance will take place in the Banneker Community Center on West Seventh Street.

Elverum is on tour to promote his album “Wind’s Poem,” which he said has a central theme of destruction.

“I wanted to write about how everything is temporary and how we are all going to die because everything is falling apart, but being built and remade at the same time,” Elverum said. “It is a beautiful idea to me that is poetic.”

Elverum has been writing music for 15 years and said he finds inspiration depending on each song.

“It is just a feeling you are trying to capture at that time. It is music, and it just kind of happens,” he said.

On his record, Elverum is a one-man show, but on tour, Tara Jane O’Neil and No Kids join him on stage with other musicians to total two drummers, two keyboarders and two guitarists.

Jared Cheek of Prayer Breakfast said he and his band members are big fans of Elverum’s songwriting, production and overall approach to recording and releasing records.

“I didn’t start listening to his music until about 2001, but I’ve enjoyed pretty much everything he has done,” Cheek said. “The new album is great.”

Prayer Breakfast has been performing together for two years. Their band name originates from a trip they took to Shoney’s breakfast bar in Jasper, Ind.; they ran out of gas outside a church, and an elderly couple offered them a prayer breakfast inside the church.

“On the way home, we realized that we really enjoyed each other’s company and all liked the same music. The next week we wrote the songs that would become the ‘Small American 12’ EP,” Cheek said.

Cheek said he is glad to be a part of the Bloomington music scene, but the only problem he has is that there is a surplus of talented and creative folks in town.

“It is a wonderful scene,” Cheek said. “For example, John Mellencamp will be at the show on Friday right next to the dishwasher at Wee Willie’s, standing as equals who both love music and windbreaker pants.”

Cheek said Prayer Breakfast is eager to play at the Banneker Community Center.
“It is a cool old building that doesn’t really host shows ever,” Cheek said. “I think the show being there will make it even more special and awesome.”