The Family Crest

Led by frontman Liam McCormick, the orchestral indie rock group the Family Crest formed in San Francisco as an initial experiment aimed at building a broader music community. McCormick and co-founder John Seeterlin distributed calls for participation via flyers, personal networks, and online platforms, inviting any interested musicians to contribute recordings that were then assembled into the outfit’s first release, the 2010 EP Songs from the Valley Below. As interest grew, the pair chose to convert the open-ended project into a permanent ensemble. Although hundreds of players have joined them for various performances, a stable lineup of seven musicians now anchors the band: McCormick and Seeterlin, together with flutist Laura Bergmann, drummer Charlie Giesige, tenor trombone player George Samaa, violinist Owen Sutter, and cellist Charly Akert. With this configuration established, the Family Crest issued its second album, The Village, in 2012. The crowd-funded follow-up, Beneath the Brine, appeared in 2014 and entered the Billboard Heatseekers chart at number 16. The 2017 Prelude to War EP paved the way for the 2018 concept album War: Act I. Originally conceived during sessions for The Village, the project drew from personal strife instead of actual political rifts.