Addie Sartino didn’t have a typical teenage experience. While her peers were focused on high school sports and college applications, she was getting permission slips signed to go on tour as the lead singer of The Greeting Committee, an indie rock band formed in Kansas City.
“I was 15 when the band started,” Sartino said. “I would say being 15 gave me the feeling that I’m indestructible, and that things were going to happen for me because I wanted them to happen.”
Sartino’s young age brought an edge that helped begin her career.
“What fueled me in my younger years was this determination. I think that really did lead to the luck and success we faced early on,” Sartino said. “I fully believe in manifesting.”
The Greeting Committee’s commercial ascent came quickly, with radio airplay and a major-label record deal leading to support slots on tour and sold-out shows of their own. But like most musicians, the band’s overnight success was the result of steady work–and was only the beginning.
“We got a seat at the table, but then it’s like, how do you work towards the center of the table? How do I get in even more?” Sartino said. “It’s so much more than just getting a record deal. You then have to go make the music, and sell the tickets, and try to garner the success so that you can get more support.”
At first, Sartino and her three bandmates tried playing by the label’s rules to find growth.
“We were getting a lot of outside influence from the label and being told we really needed to write a certain way. We were being pressured into working with songwriters, so we went to LA. Nobody wanted to work with a full band, we were told, so our bassist and our drummer would stay back at the Airbnb while me and our guitarist would go write,” Sartino said.
“That was obviously really bad for group morale.”
As the band grew older, so did the resentment between them.
“I felt like I was pulling my bandmates on a sled, and I was being pulled by management and the label. I was, at the end of the day, just trying to do everything in my power to push us forward, and that meant I was not checking in and considering my bandmates as much as I should have.”
After attending group therapy, two members of The Greeting Committee decided to part ways with the project. This left only Sartino and multi-instrumentalist Pierce Turcotte in the band.
“Being a good leader really involves taking care of the people that are with you. When you’re 20 years old, that’s just not really a skill that you have formed. That led to some pretty large insecurity in who I am as a person, what kind of leader I am, and that was really difficult,” Sartino said.
“It was me and three teenage boys that I wouldn’t have chosen to necessarily start a business with. We chose to enter a band together. We didn’t think about how that is entering a business together.”
Despite the grief that came with these growing pains, Sartino and Turcotte opened a new chapter of The Greeting Committee, expanding their fanbase as they stretched their discography. Together, they wrote and released their latest album, Everyone’s Gone and I Know I’m The Cause.
“I didn’t want to lock myself into a building and write a record. My inspiration lies outside of the studio. This last record was really a reflection of all of the music that Pierce and I were listening to at the time.”
Sartino also used this album cycle to find herself again as an artist.
“My interest in music was just wearing so thin, I was so burnt out. I was so emotionally exhausted and felt really injured, honestly. This was a healing process.”
From new beginnings to new releases, The Greeting Committee also found themselves a new hometown. But for Sartino, leaving Kansas City for Nashville brought mixed emotions.
“Moving to a city that is so career-driven means that not everybody is always going into things with the best intentions,” she said.
“I don’t feel like I’m going into social situations thinking, ‘What can I gain from this?’ I’m not saying that everybody that lives in Nashville does that by any means, but it is more common than going out into Kansas City.”
Less concerned with fitting into Nashville’s scene, Sartino has been trying to find authentic relationships regardless of her work.
“I’m not worried about other people and how they’re going to fit into getting me something, or somewhere, in the industry. I’m just looking for friends.”
Sartino has also noticed a larger shift in how she connects with the concert-going community. She’s seen audience energy dip at shows everywhere, not just at her own, leaving her questioning why crowds have become less engaged.
“Somewhere between the audience and the stage, the disconnect is starting to feel larger and larger,” Sartino said. “My theory is that people are maybe just embarrassed to clap and jump and dance. Or they’re tired. Like, I get it. I don’t want to do that at every single show I go to. But let’s, you know, maybe smile.”
This has especially affected Sartino, who relies on her fans’ energy while performing.
“We’re mostly only having fun if you’re having fun. Otherwise it feels really empty,” Sartino said.
“As rooms get bigger, or as new people come along, I would just tell fans to do your best, and to bring your most human self into the room.”
Because that’s what Sartino has done from the start: approached her work with The Greeting Committee as her whole self. From adolescence to adulthood, she has formed a vision and followed it–fears, flaws and all.
“I can put in all of my anxiety and fear, and wear myself out, and cry myself to sleep, and want something so badly, and that gets me the same result as when I don’t make myself an anxious mess over this,” Sartino said.
“I had to get back to being that 15 year old that bluntly said, ‘I’ll make it happen.’”
The Greeting Committee
The Pyramid Scheme
68 Commerce Ave. SW, Grand Rapids
Aug. 9, 7 p.m.
pyramidschemebar.com
