Chris DeLine

“You really only have to look at our song titles or the outfits we wear on stage to see that we don’t take ourselves too seriously,” says keyboardist Zack Moscow. “We have great fun writing and playing music together and that’s what [Hide Your Mamas] is all about.”

The three-piece instrumental group delivers a sound self-described as packing “the punch of rock and roll with the nuances of jazz improv,” leaving the band at a crossroads between electro-jam and intergalactic space funk. “I hope that when people come to our shows or listen to our music that they can feed off of our energy and creativity and irreverence!”

Moscow grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, later spending a few years in Philadelphia before heading to Nashville in 2008 to “give things a shot in the music business.” Despite growing up on the Rolling Stones, Los Lobos, and Elvis Costello through his parents’ record collection, developing as a classical/concert pianist in his youth, then taking an interest in playing funk and jazz, once in Nashville he found himself playing with the “country-fried rock and roll band” Williamson Black.

The band didn’t really go anywhere, but it did introduce Moscow to bassist Tyler Boone. “During breaks Tyler and I would stay in the jam room and fool around with riffs and song ideas that were a little, umm, outside of the country rock box.” As Williamson Black came to an end the duo formally gave birth to this direction by starting Hide Your Mamas, eventually landing drummer Jared Rauso to fill out the trio. “The first time the three of us jammed together I knew we had the right guy on the drums.”

Last year Hide Your Mamas issued its first release, a seven-song self-titled EP that the group intends on building off of with its forthcoming debut LP. The music is nothing if not playful — a tone that carries through a track list which features titles such as “Don’t Menstruate Me” and “Drunk Monk.” That isn’t to say that the songs aren’t the product of hard work though. “We wanted songs that found complex arrangements and inspired complex emotions from an initial (relatively simple) riff or two,” says Moscow. “Most importantly, we wanted songs that left us room to think on the fly and express ourselves in a different way each time we played them.”

The as-yet-untitled full-length is set to incorporate a few tracks from the EP, though the focus is definitely on exploring new sounds and a new direction. “I think the demo captured the spirit of our music but didn’t have the polish (and more importantly from my perspective, the continuity and energy and feel of our live show) that we really wanted.”

[This article was originally published by the Nashville Fringe Festival.]