Zoie and Sage Moser will perform Saturday, January 20th at Potter's Lounge at the Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Kalamazoo. Their music is a mixture jazz, pop, and alternative.
During her time in Chicago, Zoie Moser was busy making a name for herself. She sang backup vocals for The Rolling Stones with a college ensemble. She performed an original song for Nobel Peace Prize laureates at a conference in California. She was composing commercial work and, of course, gigging around the city.
But two years ago, the music stopped.
"I developed nodes on my vocal chords," said Moser. "And they were like you either need to go into surgery or you need to stop performing — and at that time I was performing and living in Chicago and I was performing like four nights a week for four to five hours a day."
Moser's mother convinced her to come home and give her vocal chords a rest. So, she moved in with her family in Vicksburg.
"I was on vocal rest for four months and then I was actually planning on moving to California — to L.A. —and then our mom got diagnosed with stage four cancer and so I ended up staying here," Moser said.
Moser says her mother responded well to treatment. But the harrowing experience brought her and her younger sister, Sage, closer together — especially musically. Moser says Sage's guitar has added a different flavor to her music.
"Before I was kind of doing more pop-jazz infused kind of stuff — it was more ethereal. And now we could kind of have more hard-rock, alternative sound bringing her in," Moser said.
The Family Theatre Company
In 2013, the Moser family founded Bad Wolf Theatre Company out of Battle Creek. It’s a pop-up theatre that performs at different venues in the area. They also do theatre camps for kids.
Moser's mother and her sister, Rochelle, are the theatre's founders. Rochelle is the executive director and writes many of the scripts. She currently lives in Anaheim, California and works for Disney.
Zoie does all of the music, backing tracks, and sound for the theatre. Her mom does set design and costumes. Her dad helps with tech and her sister, Sage, does a little bit of everything.
Every summer all four daughters come to help the theatre put on an original musical — including founder Rochelle who lives in Anaheim, California where she works for Disney. Moser says it takes about a week for her and Rochelle to put the music together.
"That’s probably the most stressful part is writing so fast, but it’s also the most rewarding part because something magical happens by having to do it so fast and in that little time crunch," said Moser.
Moser says that’s what happened with one of the family’s favorite musicals called “The Hollow.” Zoie Moser explains some of the plot:
"It was about a girl who was at a dance and she went down to this graveyard. And she was waiting for her date to come and he never showed up and she froze to death. And then she became a ghost in this graveyard. And then, years later, this guy comes down and is able to see her and talk to her and they basically bond and have this relationship."
Moving To L.A. and Making An E.P.
Moser says while the family will always come together for the theatre, she’s not planning on living in Vicksburg for very long. Moser is finally moving to Los Angeles in March.
That might seem like the end of this project with her younger sister, Sage. Fortunately, Sage says she plans to go to college in California next year.
Zoie Moser says she also plans to release her first E.P. She expects to start raising money for that effort through a GoFundMe campaign soon.
Upcoming Shows:
All of the following are free of charge
- Saturday, January 20th at Potter's Lounge, 7pm
- Wednesday, January 24th at The B.O.B. in Grand Rapids, 8pm
- Friday, February 23rd at Potter's Lounge, 7pm
- Sunday, March 4th at C Bar at Four Winds Casino, 7pm
