Spafford Releases ‘Chapel Jam’ & Aboard For High Sierra Music Festival 2020

Spafford shared a new track dubbed “Chapel Jam.” The Arizona-based quartet recorded the off-the-cuff 47-minute exploratory jam after a canceled gig Rochester, New York. In other Spafford news, the band has been added to the High Sierra Music Festival’s 2020 lineup.

The band explained the genesis of the “Chapel Jam” in a statement:

January 2017 found the band touring the east coast for the first time, supporting Umphrey’s McGee for a big chunk of those dates. These were the biggest shows we’d played up to that point and we were grateful. Despite all the ‘what the hell is happening?-ness’

In the Spafford camp, we were mostly just excited. After a canceled gig in Rochester, we ended up staying at an old Mission-turned-Air BnB in Conesus, NY. Not totally sure what to do with a night off, we wandered around the property and explored what felt like an abandoned insane asylum before eventually deciding to walk our gear through the snow to the house so we could jam.

We set up in an old Chapel room downstairs. Nick was elevated on the altar, the rest of the band staged below. The music just kind of started playing itself and luckily Jordan made sure the recording was running. The music traveled. No real destination, no crowd. Just some friends playing music in a bizarre old chapel, in the snow, in the middle of nowhere.

Sashi and Michael found a space on the nearby couch and Chuck was in the kitchen writing the words to what would become ‘Mind’s Unchained’. We realized afterward that the van was stuck in the snow where we had parked to unload and Micheal had lost his wallet. We called a tow truck and found Micheal’s wallet a few weeks later in a road case.

We have come to call this experience Chapel Jam. It’s something special we had been keeping for ourselves just for a little while. These days things are so instantaneous it felt alright to hold on to something secret.

But we’ll always share our secrets. EVENTUALLY.

Check out the “Chapel Jam” below:

Spafford joins Joe Russo’s Almost Dead as the first two acts confirmed for the 30th annual High Sierra Music Festival. The event returns to Plumas County Fairgrounds in Quincy, California July 2 – 5, 2020. Tickets are on sale now via Eventbrite. Stay tuned for additional lineup announcements.