Pit Stop

"You can’t really pigeon hole them, they are just a kick ass rock band at their core."

Vito Ingerto, Twin Cities Media

Hailing from the musical Mecca that is Minneapolis, Pit Stop is Jake Balistrieri (vocals/guitar), Sarah Mevissen (vocals/guitar), Patrick Horigan (guitar), Zack Warpinski (bass), and Gage Webster (drums).

Their self-titled, debut album, recorded at The Pearl in NE Minneapolis by Zachary Hollander, was met with enthusiasm from the Twin Cities music community upon its release, noted by The Current as one of the “Best Local Albums of 2022.” Since then, the band has played many shows across the Midwest. One of their biggest accomplishments, thus far, was opening up for Niger’s world-famous Tuareg rock band, Mdou Moctar, and NYC’s living punk-rock legends, Parquet Courts, to a sold-out First Avenue. Parquet Courts’ co-frontman, Andrew Savage, encouraged the audience that night to support these “hometown heroes,” telling the crowd: “If I were you, I’d go to all their shows, so you could say you were there from the beginning.”

Pit Stop is currently working on their sophomore album that they plan to release in 2024, recorded by Holly Hansen at her riverside studio, Salon Sonics. Deviating from the country-influenced tracks of their first record, the new material finds the band wandering down and wildly oscillating between beaten-up paths of rock eras past, in search of a trail all their own.