Communist Daughter

Communist Daughter
Place of origin	Saint Paul
Genres	alternative rock

For the Neutral Milk Hotel song, see In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.

Communist Daughter
The band performing live in January 2017
Background information
Origin	Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States
Genres	Indie rock, indie folk
Years active	2009–present
Labels	Grain Belt
Members	Johnny Solomon Adam Switlick Molly Moore Al Weiers Dillon Marchus Steven Yasgar
Past members	Jonathan Blaseg Christopher McGuire Lee VanLith Ian Prince Dan DeMuth
Website	www.communistdaughter.com

Communist Daughter is an indie rock band from Saint Paul, Minnesota, founded by Johnny Solomon in 2009. They have released three albums and three EPs.

History

2009-2010: Soundtrack to the End

Communist Daughter was founded in 2009 by singer and songwriter Johnny Solomon in Prescott, Wisconsin. Solomon moved from Saint Paul to Prescott in 2007 after addiction, mental health issues, and a spell in jail caused the breakup of his marriage and of his band, Friends Like These. There he took over the Boxcar restaurant and began writing and recording as Communist Daughter, taking the name from a Neutral Milk Hotel song. Steve Yasgar returned to the band, bringing along keyboardist Lee VanLith, who played with Yasgar in A Whisper in the Noise. Soundtrack to the End was released in April 2010 on Grain Belt Records. The critic for the Star Tribune placed it as third on his top ten list for the year. Five years later that same critic rated the album as the second best to have come from Minnesota in the first half of the 2010s. Two songs from Soundtrack To The End ("Speed of Sound" and "Soundtrack to the End") were featured in Season 7 Episode 14 (P.Y.T.) of the ABC show Grey's Anatomy. The band ended the year with a shambolic Golden Slumbers cover at First Avenue's annual John Lennon tribute, after which Solomon checked himself into the Hazelden treatment center. They remixed Soundtrack to the End for vinyl, rerecording some of the drum tracks with Prince because the original tapes had been lost. In July they released Lions & Lambs and toured nationally, including the CMJ Music Festival and several dates with Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit.

The band toured throughout 2013, 2014, and 2015, as they worked on their second album with Kevin Bowe. The band was featured in Paste Magazine's Best of What's Next 20 issue (#105) in August 2013. In September, 2013, singers Molly Moore and Johnny Solomon married. In March, 2014, the band played the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. In 2015 they toured as both a full band and as an acoustic duo, and they finished the year with an EP of sad Christmas tunes, Sing Sad Christmas, featuring covers of various depressing holiday tunes, including the Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" and The Boy Least Likely To's "Blue Spruce Needles".

2016-2017: The Cracks That Built the Wall

2016 saw the release of the band's second full-length album, The Cracks That Built the Wall. The first single, “Roll a Stone,” was featured in USA Today’s “10 best songs of the week” and on NPR Music’s "10 Songs Public Radio Can’t Stop Playing.” The album finished the year as number three on the Star Tribune's Minnesota top ten. The song "Keep Moving" was used on an episode of the Showtime series Shameless and on an episode of The Blacklist.

Solomon also became active in speaking out about his mental illness and addiction, and about artists' need to care for themselves. In August he joined the board of Dissonance, a nonprofit organization that works on these issues. In September he wrote an article for Talkhouse that frankly detailed his struggles with undiagnosed bipolar disorder and addiction during the band's first years.

The band toured again in 2017, playing dates with The Dig, Jason Isbell, Balto, and Seratones, and returning to SXSW. Cuepoint named their SXSW performance the 11th freshest that they saw. During SXSW the band played a live session for Paste Magazine. In May, Twin Cities PBS broadcast a short documentary about the band, including footage from a show that had been taped live in their studio.

2020: Unknown Caller and Alaska

On March 12, 2020 the band announced a Indiegogo project to raise funds to release its third album, Unknown Caller. The Indiegogo project states that Moore and Solomon gave up a relentless touring schedule and moved first to San Diego to care for aging family, and then to their new home in a remote village in the Alaskan tundra.

Musical style

The band's music has been described as folk rock, folk pop, and indie pop. Solomon's vocals have been compared with Andrew Bird.

Band members

Members of Communist Daughter are:

• Johnny Solomon – guitar, lead vocals
• Molly Moore Solomon – lead vocals
• Steven Yasgar – drums
• Adam Switlick – bass guitar, vocals
• Dillon Marchus – keyboards, guitar
• Al Weiers - guitar

Former members

• Christopher McGuire (2009) – drums
• Jonathan Blaseg (2009–2012) – keyboards
• Lee VanLith (2010–2011) – keyboards
• Ian Prince (2011) – drums
• Dan DeMuth (2012-2014) – drums

Discography

Albums

• Soundtrack to the End (2010)
• The Cracks That Built the Wall (2016)
• Unknown Caller (2020)

EPs

• Something Wicked This Way Comes (2011)
• Lions & Lambs (2012)
• Sing Sad Christmas (2015)