Windowvine

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Windowvine is comprised of musical talent from the White Bear Lake area. They strive for complicated but not convoluted songs. Although the music of Windowvine has been a group effort, the main influences come from the founding member Jared Epstein. "When starting Windowvine, I wanted to create music that wasn't on a simple scale and put more effort into complication and diversity while still following the guidelines of rock." The group started in 2005 with original and current drummer Marco Leon. In 2007, Andy Larranaga joined as the 2nd guitarist but left shortly thereafter and was replaced by Mario Leon, brother of Marco. They were then joined by bassist Josh Olson for a high school battle of the bands. After the battle of the bands, the band took a year off due to busy schedules and lack of commitment. Josh left the band and they were back to the original two members, Jared and Marco. In 2008, Michael Schumacher, student at McNally Smith college of music joined the group as a replacement 2nd guitar player. "My main influences have been fingerstyle players such as Tommy Emmanuel and Richard Thompson. When I heard the music of Windowvine, I fell in love with the composition style but it felt like it lacked substance. It was very raw and I felt that with my help the music could become refined and more beautiful." After Mike joined the group, they were blessed by the amazing talent of a young bass player by the name of Kai Milbridge and shortly after that, Chris Holder on lead vocals. They spent the next year writing songs and recording at the studios at McNally Smith. After their first show, Kai made an announcement that he was moving out of state for school. Replacing him was Ben Duncan who has been a joy as well to be in the band. After a few more shows, Chris made the choice to leave to pursue a different path. As if that wasn't enough, just a few months later, Ben decided that this was not the path that he should take and decided to focus his energy on becoming a medic. They hope all goes well with him as he added a certain element to the group that can't ever be replaced. Windowvine has been through many trials and many players but the concept and music lives on to please your ears and give you something new and refreshing to wrap your ears around.