Family Room Sessions
I think I need to shake things up.
This fall, I’m going to be taking some time away from performing. We’ve got a new baby arriving in November, and for a little while, my attention needs to be at home.
But I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want coming back to music to look like. And I think I want it to look a little more like your living room. Starting in February, I want to experiment with something I’m calling Reverend Doctor: The Family Room Series. The idea is simple: You provide the room + the people, I bring the songs. Together = we make the Family Room.
You + Me x We = Family
I’m looking for people who love what I do and can think of 15–30 friends, family members, neighbors, coworkers (or just good humans) who they genuinely believe would connect with this music. You invite them into your home. I show up with a guitar, maybe a looper, and play an intimate 45–60 minute set of Reverend Doctor originals and a few songs that belong alongside them. No required ticket price, no expectation that you feed everybody or turn your house into a venue, no giant production, none of it.
For these first shows, I want them to be community-supported experiments (we're pioneers!). There’ll be a place to tip if somebody wants to, as always, some free Reverend Doctor buttons and stickers to take home, and an easy way for people who want to stay connected to do so. I’d also like these to be phones-away shows. Not phones-confiscated. Maybe just for an hour, let’s actually be where we are. I’ll set up a stationary camera to capture the performance, share the full recording privately with everyone afterward, and (with everyone's blessing) occasionally use moments from these evenings to show other people what we’re building. Then the music ends, and we hang out.
That last part is really important. I’ve spent years trying to figure out how to make the connection I experience with people in a room translate through algorithms, streaming platforms and social media. Lately, I’ve been wondering whether I’ve been asking the wrong question. Maybe the room is the thing. So rather than trying to reach everybody at once, I want to see what happens if we start with one person saying: “I know some people who need to hear this.” And then we put those people in a room together.
I’m starting small (probably one Family Room a month) and I want the people who host these first gatherings to help me figure out what this can become. And you do not have to live in Southern California. If you’re in Long Beach, great! If you’re in Iowa, Minneapolis, Chicago, Atlanta, New York, or someplace I haven’t thought about yet, raise your hand anyway. I may not be able to come immediately, an application isn’t a promise of a show. But part of this experiment is discovering where the people are. Your raised hand might become the first seed of a future trip, a tour route, or a little Reverend Doctor enclave of big-hearted weirdos we build together.
I’m not looking for venues or promotion, I’m looking for hosts. Collaborators. People willing to open a room and introduce me to people they care about. A risky move (but I promise I'll make it worth it). If that sounds like you, I’d love to hear from you. Come help me build the Family Room. The sign-up form is here: