They are Root Mod. Or they are We Are Root Mod. They briefly considered I Am Root Mod. The band's name has varied slightly in the course of their six-year history. For next month's Music at the Intersection — they play the fest's main stage at 12:45 p.m. on Sunday, September 10 — they are billed as simply Root Mod, although the band's new manager is still lobbying to add "We Are" back to their moniker.
Whatever they are called, the collective led by siblings Daniel and Bianca Fitzpatrick is among the most exciting musical outfits in St. Louis, a dynamic multicultural mix of jazz, gospel, blues, funk, rock and soul that creates a unique stew of American musical traditions and brand-new inventions all their own.
What started as a five-piece family band in 2017 has grown into a 10-piece unit featuring an eclectic mix of musicians based around Bianca's expressive neo-soul vocals and Daniel's melodic but explorative piano compositions. With instrumental flourishes from the saxophone, trumpet, electric guitar and organ atop separate drums and percussion, Root Mod pumps out an almighty sound that ranges from jazz-torch subtlety to powerhouse rock-soul roof-raising.
The Fitzpatricks come by their musical prowess naturally. Their father, pianist Daniel "LaDale" Fitzpatrick, was a mainstay of the St. Louis gospel and blues scene and, at one time, played in Buddy Guy's band. Tragically, LaDale passed away unexpectedly in July. As his son and daughter talk about their father over wine and Manhattans on a sweltering Monday afternoon at Vino STL in the Central West End, it's clear they're still shaken by the loss. "He was one of the best musicians in town," Bianca says. "He is the legend."
Daniel and Bianca talk in the overlapping patter of close siblings, often finishing each other's sentences. They explain that they grew up listening to their father play in church.
"I wouldn't know what to play if it weren't for him," says Daniel, who followed in his father's footsteps as a pianist. "I don't even know if I would want to play."
Indeed, the siblings' parents instilled both a passion and a facility for music early on, first by putting them in orchestra lessons by age seven — cello for Daniel and violin for Bianca. Eventually, Daniel transitioned to piano, although his dad cautioned him against a career in music. "He told me not to become a musician," Daniel remembers. "He told me to just do it for fun because he knew it was such a struggle."
Daniel didn't listen. After a broken foot derailed college football plans, he dove hard into piano, dedicating hours in his dorm to composing. "I would forget to eat," he says. "I just fell in love with playing and writing." Two years later, Bianca also went to college, following her mother's lead by pursuing a career in fashion, a goal that eventually took her to London and Milan. Still, she never stopped singing.
"I was really shy when I was young," Bianca says. "I would get up to sing in church, and I would cry. But then my dad would take me to [Downtown jazz and blues club] BB's and would pull me on stage to sing with him when I was like 12 years old." In college, she says, she found inspiration in the neo-soul voices of India.Arie, Jill Scott, Lauryn Hill and others, adding their inflections to the gospel she grew up hearing in church and forming the versatile, adventurous style she would eventually make her own.
While neither Fitzpatrick had previously considered a career making music, one day in 2017, Daniel, who by then had written a pile of original songs influenced by everyone from Ray Charles to Oscar Peterson, asked his sister if she wanted to start a band.
Daniel would send Bianca tracks to write melodies over, and We Are Root Mod was born, filling its ranks with musical members of their family, including cousins Thomas Paden, a drummer, and Greg Fitzpatrick, a hip-hop MC and lyricist. Soon, the band was playing Friday-night street parties on Washington Avenue, self-producing the shows. "It was so rinky-dink," Daniel laughs. "We were using old amps and stuff we pulled out of the basement. But we made it work."
Before long, however, the band gained traction and became regulars in bars like their dad's old haunt BB's and the now-defunct the Monocle in the Grove neighborhood, where the band played a monthly residency in 2019. "It was insane," Bianca recalls. "It was packed every time." That momentum led to high-profile appearances at the NHL All-Star Game and the inaugural Music at the Intersection festival in 2020, as well as a coveted spot headlining the Whitaker Music Festival at the Missouri Botanical Garden last year.
All along, the band, which already included Paden (who switched from drums to organ) and guitarist Peter Plank (who performs as Heartcave for his own solo project), kept growing, adding sensational drummer Robert Reavling, percussionist Isaac Johnston and bassist Shawn Pavy along with a horn section of saxophonist Jawwaad Spann and trumpeter Brady Lewis. According to Daniel, part of the motivation to increase the size of the band was to make sure the musicians in Root Mod earned decent money. "A lot of really talented musicians will play for three hours and hardly get paid," he says. "My goal was to create an act that is so amazing and so entertaining that people would have to pay these guys what they are worth."
Now, 2023 is set to be Root Mod's biggest year yet. In addition to its Music at the Intersection set, the band is gearing up to release its first full-length album, recorded earlier this year at Shock City Studios in St. Louis with producer Sam Maul. Recently released singles include "Gotta Thing," a slinky, shape-shifting love song that pairs Bianca's voice with saxophone lines and layers of her own harmonies. "I know what I hear and what I want," she says of her process of going it alone vocally in the studio. "Everything you hear is me."
Still, Root Mod prefers to record almost entirely live in the studio to capture the band at its most sinewy and raw. "I challenged myself to just let it breathe," says Daniel, the group's musical director. "I wanted to let it be what it is without overdubs."
Another new track, "This That N' the Third," a song that blends jazz-funk arrangements around Bianca's bumblebee vocals and rapper ithinkitsbbp's skittery verses, will give the upcoming album its name. "To me, that title means that you just have to keep pushing, keep going," Daniel says. "Nobody gives a shit what you're going through because they don't know what you're going through. There's always something. You have to keep going."
And what about that band name? What is a Root Mod anyway? "I started with this web of words," Daniel explains. "We love God, so that became 'Source' and then 'Root.' Our mom is super into fashion, so 'Mod' means popular and in style. So since we want to make organic music but keep it cutting edge, we are Root Mod, conforming to God in a fashionable way."
By bringing to life a full range of musical and emotional temperatures, Daniel and Bianca, along with a cast of terrific musicians, satisfy both requirements: grounding in musical and spiritual bloodlines and exploring chic and innovative sonic creations. So who are Root Mod? They are.
Editor's note: A previous version of this story referred incorrectly to Peter Plank's solo project. It is Heartcave. We regret the error.
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