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Introducing The Band Ezekiel

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Dominic Smith, Bernadette Smith, MaryAnne Muglia and Christian Nguyen.

Dominic, Bernadette, MaryAnne and Christian, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
Dominic: I could not be more grateful to make music with some of the most important people in my life: my sister Bernadette, my fiance MaryAnne, and my best friend Christian. And what’s crazy is that I have already had so many diverse musical experiences with each of them individually. So having us all be together seems too good to be true. Bernadette and I grew up playing music with our parents at St. Tim’s Catholic Church in Mesa; It was our mom and dad’s example to us kids to be good musicians, but moreover to use our gifts and talents to serve and lift people up. Plus, learning and playing new music weekly helped us develop musical efficiency. In high school, I started dating MaryAnne and played acoustic/indie pop shows at a local coffee shop in Chandler, SoZo Coffee. This expanded our idea of music beyond service and praising God (her parents were also church music ministers) to have fun playing styles outside of “sacred music”. Christian entered into my life senior year of high school after Maryanne and I broke up, and we continued with coffee shop shows through our first few college years. In college, all four of us worked as music ministers for the Catholic center for college students, MaryAnne, Bernadette and I at NAU, and Christian at UofA. In 2016, Christian came to Flagstaff to help with music on student-led retreats, and so happened the first unofficial formation of “The Band Ezekiel”. In 2017, we entered a song-writing contest and were chosen for a complimentary recording session in Nashville. Since then, we’ve all graduated from college with various degrees and are making the dream a reality. We are moving into the same apartment complex while recording and playing in our hometown; it’s been an exciting journey that’s only beginning, and I can’t wait to see where it takes us.

Bernadette: I think the beauty of our story is that, at least in my mind, there isn’t one experience, memory, or one person that brought us together or that told us, “hey, we should be a band.” It was many little moments along the way. The four of us came from three different faithful and musical families, influenced greatly by our individual experiences in leading music ministry in college. Maybe since 2012, we essentially grew up together and then separately, as we went through many life changes. But every time we ended up playing music together again, we just clicked! It didn’t matter if it was a coffee shop, a retreat, a mass, a concert, or a living room; we had shared some unknown bond within music and spirituality that never left any of our memories even if we were also living in different places. I think we have evolved to become more of a community than a band, and I’m just so thankful for that.

MaryAnne: I knew I wanted to sing and write songs from a very young age, but I never thought it would be spiritual music, or with a band for that matter! I met Dominic & Bernadette in high school and always admired their effortless ease to make music. Shortly after that, I met Christian, who had gone to high school with Bernadette & Dominic! His amazing piano skills and creativity never fails to amaze me! In 2016, Dominic & I were asked to lead a retreat and asked Bernadette and Christian to join us. I left the weekend completely inspired and excited about praise & worship music for the first time in a while. I knew that I wanted to do this for the rest of my life with THOSE people! Since then we’ve been graduating college, traveling overseas, getting new jobs, moving across the country/world, and working around our crazy schedules to now: living in the same state, recording, writing, and being the band Ezekiel!!

Christian: We picked the name Ezekiel, which refers to the Old Testament prophet that we all have a connection with. Now we’re all living in the same place, pushing each other really hard, and making the music we want to be making. It feels like things are just starting. The four of us grew up absorbed in music in different ways. We met each other during our high school days and the many occasions that we got to play music together felt like — although we still don’t know very much about music — it felt like it was fulfilling every imaginable reason why someone would want to play tunes together. Each of us providing our own voice to any given song, with a delicate dance between expressiveness and restraint. Significantly though, nights like those would always follow with great conversations about everything. Eventually, we all grew to be the closest of friends and built up a good amount of trust into an environment where good creativity can spring forth which we’re still cultivating.

Can you give our readers some background on your art?
Christian: I grew up playing classical piano, but also was trained by my teachers to improvise, compose, and engage in more contemporary kinds of music. Songwriting was a totally different world which I never imagined I would be in, but my inclination towards music that goes beyond every day drew the four of us to each other. Maryanne, although born 80% deaf, was gifted with an immaculately beautiful voice, along with absolute vocal control and frightening intelligence. Dominic as a kid had this crazy gift of being able to retain copious amounts of lyrics and melodies. Bernadette has a really raw and genuine energy to her entire persona that seeps into her music, as well as her beautiful violin tone.

Our art is definitely still getting off the ground, but at our core we are deeply moved by the shared experience of something unexplainable, uncontrollable, that can happen when we play together or listen to our favorite artists. The music we try to chase will invite listeners (and ourselves) into stepping into a bigger and deeper reality than any individual or gathering of people. The best part is that it never feels the same and it’s out of anyone’s control. What we ideally hope that people take away is a reminder that life’s problems, self-criticism, and criticism of others are but a drop in the ocean of the Divine Flow that permeates all being.

Bernadette: We all think and write music as if we are perpetual seekers. We want to honor God with our gifts, but we also want to learn more about Him through this process. I don’t see us having a certain agenda or platform in our music, but a real devotion to what we think is beautiful, energizing, and true. We share an interest in certain artists that greatly influence our collaborations, but ultimately, we share a desire for our music to be a vehicle for collective personal growth for anyone who wants to listen.

Dominic: Our music is a collective process: each of us writes music and brings a unique element to our sound. Our style incorporates acoustic instruments (guitar, ukulele, violin, cajon), rich piano, layered vocal harmonies, and story-telling song writing. Right now, our art is a reflection of who we are, which is “still growing”. We’re a group of young creative individuals who believe playing together allows for more authentic and quality art than anything we could do by ourselves. Our music comes from a place of honest experience; we don’t want to hide anything from our audience or pretend we are something we aren’t. We want the art to provide a space that allows people the freedom to think and see outside of their own perspective like it has for us. Music has both the ability to send you inward and outward; to raise you to dance, or bring you to tears; to excite you, to enlighten you, to lead you to contemplation. We can’t expect our music to do all of these, but we can’t help but try. Music is sacred to us, in the sense that we recognize that it can express some indefinable individual and collective human experience. Therefore, we thank not only our parents for exposing us to its awesome power but to some power above us all that unites us in a universal song.

MaryAnne agrees with her bandmates and thinks their answers are sufficient, she has nothing to add 🙂

Any advice for aspiring or new artists?
There is a fear when showing your art/music to the public eye. It can be very vulnerable and difficult sometimes. It’s important for artists to know that any time you feel that fear, do it anyway. That is one of the reasons why music is so beautiful – someone took a risk to share a small part of themselves. We learn from these kinds of risks.

Don’t limit yourself by comparison and insecurity. People often put off pursuing a craft because it’s tedious but the work will pay off when you realize that the time you spent led to a level of expression that you wouldn’t know you were capable of. Sometimes there is just so much inspiration to draw from that a great way to find your real voice is to step away from all the noise and stimuli and see what rises from within. Always remember that silence is a vital part of the music! Ultimately, create because you love what you do and it energizes you! Let your passion be a light to other people around you and always practice gratitude for the ability to create!

What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
You can support us both in-person and online! In the coming months, we will be playing at music at several venues, including churches of various faiths. September we will host a community night with music at Abiding Savior Lutheran Church in Scottsdale. In November we are playing at All Saints Catholic Church in Mesa and St. Thomas More Newman Center in Tucson. Our band will also be featured at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport through the “Traveling Tunes” program in July (we play behind security…so book your flight now!) All of our concerts are posted on our website, thebandezekiel.com and we are planning at least once a month.

Our music can be streamed on Spotify, YouTube, and apple music, so the best way to support us would be to listen to us, add us to your playlists and share us with your friends! Follow our Facebook and Instagram bandpage, @thebandezekiel, for the most up to date information about upcoming performances and what we’re up to! And as always, thank you for listening and supporting art!

Image Credit:
Sasha Knock – picture of band in desert with instruments

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