The Band

Jared’s love for music began in the family van with Pinball Wizard on the radio, pantomiming the guitar parts and singing as loud as any six year old could. Jared joined band and choir in middle school and began singing with the Men of Orpheus at 11 years old. In high school Jared was lead alto sax in the Jazz Band and Wind Ensemble and a member of the award-winning Haslett High School choirs, taking several perfect scores home in both instrumental and vocal Solo & Ensemble competitions, as well as performing at the Michigan Youth Arts showcase with a select men’s ensemble.

After high school Jared took up the guitar and spent a year and a half busking through the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv before returning to Michigan. Having served as a the music director for Phantom’s Feast and guitarist/singer for the Madd Hatters Guild and Greenleaf, Jared is now seeking to bring a more personally charged project to life with Wakefire.

Russ began his musical training with piano lessons sometime during the Cretaceous period, back when the Earth was young and dinosaurs roamed the land. Shortly after the last Tyrannosaur collapsed, Russ started playing guitar, having found one that slipped through a time anomaly and appeared back in the stone age. Finding it much more to his liking, and a lot less heavy to carry, he switched his musical focus and the rest, as they say, is history. Through many, many, many years of lackadaisical study, intermittent practice and sheer accumulation of experience (seriously, 10,000 years will give you such a crick in the neck!) he developed sufficient skill to begin playing for others without sparking outrage, tomato throwing or inter-kingdom wars. In the modern era, Russ has become a self-styled “musical whore” and has played with a number of groups. These include Reality Drift, an original 4 piece rock ensemble based in Metro Detroit, the Bawdy Boys and the Village Idiots.

Asked if he could play bass, and figuring that it couldn’t be THAT much different from guitar, Russ joined the Irish band McSpillin in 2010 as their full-time bass player. In early 2017, Russ decided it was time to seek new opportunities to drop the bass (figuratively, not literally! These things are expensive!) and parted ways with McSpillin. Now the full time bassist and backup vocalist for Wakefire, he is looking forward to bringing the thunder to new audiences around Metro-Detroit and beyond.

Bubba has been performing music since he was 17 across a vast array of genres, from blues and rock to folk and bluegrass. Hailing from Dundee, Michigan, Bubba has been a performer from day one. While he may seem a ball of energy on stage with his Wakefire kindred, in his free time, Bubba enjoys simple pleasures like good whiskey and quiet company. But be careful, however. Pluck this Hobbit from his Hole and set him loose on the world and you never know what trouble he may get into. Don’t ask us about the buttercup incident. We beg you.

Michael Padlo – more commonly known as “Padlo” brings a depth of experience to the band. Previously he’s played with metal, punk, and jazz ensembles. Joining Wakefire gives him the opportunity to incorporate these styles into his own brand of drums and percussion. 

Nessa has been performing since she was 6 years old, when she first sang the national anthem at a baseball game. She is best known as a singer-songwriter and member of the vocal band Pandora Celtica, a nationally-touring, award-winning band of singing fae. She has also been a member of Arbor Consort and previously directed and performed with Foxglove, an all-women’s madrigal group featured at the Colorado Renaissance Festival. 

She has appeared in music videos with Not Literally, a fan-film comedy music group, and she has traveled to the Lincoln Center with the Odyssey Chamber Singers, and performed as far afield as South Korea with the CSU Chamber Choir. She is (always, generally, and particularly) excited to rock out with Wakefire and all our friends and fans. 

Sarah has been a musician ever since they handed her a recorder in elementary school. Part of an Irish-American family, she’s had that Celtic sound in her blood from the beginning. Around age twelve she picked up the flute, studying under Holly Clemans for a number of years. As a high school student she sat principle flute and sang with the choir, played in EMU’s Honors Band, and earned a boxful of medals at regional and state MSBOA festivals. 

She went on to study music at Western Michigan University. Her time there was spent in theatre pit orchestras, small ensembles, KLOrk, and eventually as principal flutist for the University Symphonic Band. A few sidesteps and time hops later, she left the classical concert hall behind and added tinwhistle to her repertoire. A quick shift from classical to folk saw her join the Kindling at the Michigan Renaissance Festival. It turns out that audiences that stomp, clap, and dance are REALLY fun to play for, and she’s thrilled to get to do so with Wakefire!