Sound Team was an American band based in Austin, Texas that formed in 2000 around principal songwriters Bill Baird and Matt Oliver. For most of their recording career, Sound Team consisted of Bill Baird, Matt Oliver, Jordan Johns, Sam Sanford, Michael Baird and Gabe Pearlman. Sanford and Michael Baird left the group in 2006. The band continued to record and tour briefly with a new lineup, but finally disbanded in late 2007.
Formation and early shows
Bill Baird and Matt Oliver met in Austin in 2000 and began recording crazy songs on cheap gear that drew inspiration out of everything from traditional American folk and pop song forms to German synthesizer music. They released two CD-R albums, Sound Team and Into the Lens.
Line-up solidified, early releases and tours
In 2002 Baird's younger brother Michael, Michael’s friend Jordan Johns, and old friend Sam Sanford all enlisted, and after they had played a handful of shows in various performance spaces and punk dives, Gabe Pearlman joined in early 2003. The group released two cassettes, Every Day Is a New Year and the "Yes" Special Cassette, and their audience continued to grow. After touring throughout 2003 and 2004, the group continued to work dead-end jobs, pooled their cash, and converted an abandoned record-pressing plant into a makeshift analog recording studio. The result was the Marathon LP, which appeared on the St. Ives label, a vinyl-only imprint of Indiana's Secretly Canadian. In the fall of 2005, several songs from previous cassette and vinyl releases appeared on the WORK EP.
Contract with EMI and break-up
In 2005, the band was signed to a contract with Capitol Records. Support slots on several tours culminated with an appearance in Central Park opening for Arcade Fire. In June 2006, Capitol released the band's debut album, "Movie Monster". Although the album was met with generally positive reviews, commercial sales were poor. Another factor negatively affecting sales of the album was that, unbeknownst to the band, Capitol set the album's list price at an astronomical $18.98. After extensive touring in support of the album, both Sam Sanford and the younger Baird left the band for other pursuits. Will Patterson was enlisted as a replacement. In 2007, after a massive shake-up at Capitol in which the band's A&R rep and the president of the company was fired, Sound Team was dropped from the EMI label. Sound Team released a vinyl EP, Empty Rooms/Bedroom Walls/Up from Ashes, and shot a Take-Away Show acoustic video for La Blogotheque that year, but internal friction in the group led to its decision to break up, and on September 15, 2007, Sound Team played its last show at the 2007 Austin City Limits Music Festival. Subsequently, the band released its entire recorded catalog as high-quality MP3 downloads, completely free of charge, on its Web site.
Post break-up
Bill Baird began performing under the moniker as early as 2006, and performances frequently include former Sound Team members Sam Sanford and Will Patterson. Sunset lasted until 2010, after which Baird began releasing solo albums. Meanwhile, Matt Oliver and Jordan Johns continued to operate the analog recording studio at , and began performing as in 2009.
