Sometimes the easiest projects are the ones you don’t know you’re working on.
When guitarist Marty Moran got together with some musician friends a couple of years ago, he didn’t know he was working on the early phases of an album.
“This was a side-project,” Moran said of what became the band The Otis Problem. “I thought this was a chance to grab some beers and play some music. It turned into a full-time thing.”
The result of this full-time thing is “Places in Between,” the debut album from the group, which formed in January 2006.
“Places” contains 11 songs that Moran, the former frontman of Hazing Kate, described as “surprisingly easy” to work on. With four songwriters in the group, Moran was pleased at how seamless the creative process was.
“I sometimes would bring in a skeleton of a song,” he said. “Someone else would listen to it and take it somewhere else I hadn’t even thought of.”
The band has been working on its new album for about the last year, Moran said, recording with Stephen Shirk at Shirk Music and Sound.
The Otis Problem will play a CD-release party at 10 p.m. Saturday at Wise Fool’s Pub in Lincoln Park.
Listen to The Otis Problem’s “Go,” from the album “Places in Between,” at redeyechicago.com/chitunes.
