Brendan Bayliss of Umphrey's McGee
When Brendan Bayliss, of Chicago's own Umphrey's McGee, was born on August 11th, 1976 in Annapolis, Maryland, it was immediately speculated that Brendan would become a tennis champion. While his father went on to an illustrious, successful career in tennis as a university head coach, Brendan’s future shifted to music as soon as he picked up the guitar in high school.
While at Notre Dame, he met current band bandmate Joel Cummins in a music theory class his sophomore year. Joel was reportedly thrilled to find “someone normal” joining the class, but alas, Brendan dropped out, saying “there was no one cool in that class.” After being kicked out of three bands – he apparently didn’t like to practice – he met Ryan “Pony” Stasik one night at a party and thought to himself “I kind of like that funny kid in patchworks.” Weeks later, they started Tashi Station, which would grab original Umphrey's McGee Drummer Mike Mirro and Cummins’ attention. Brendan convinced Ryan that they should start a band together with Mirro & Cummins. “You quit your band, we’ll quit ours.”
Brendan studied some classical guitar while playing with the band early on, and shortly after taking a couple of lessons from local guitar wizard Jake Cinninger before Jake was in the band, Brendan was writing guitar riffs like the main one from DBK. And once Jake was joined the band, Brendan’s dual guitar lead songwriting expanded to places he couldn’t have possibly imagined. Brendan has become an outstanding vocalist, guitarist, improviser, and composer over the years, when he’s on, he’s unstoppable. Maybe even impervious, as Mike Tyson would say.
Fun fact: While in South Bend, Brendan once owned a huge, classic station wagon that was featured in a very poor band photo shoot. Good guitarist, great look.
