A Rocker for the Next Gen

The former bassist of the band From Good Homes has a new creative musical outlet—children's tunes.

Posted January 12, 2010 by Emily Faherty

Children’s music artist Brady Rymer gets the inspiration for his kid-friendly songs from son, Gus, left, and daughter, Daisy.

Photo by Eileen M. Duffy.

Though Jersey jam band From Good Homes called it quits ten years ago, former bassist Brady Rymer has not lost touch with the fans that rocked with him in the ’90s. Nowadays, those fans are toting their tots to catch Rymer in his current guise as a children’s musician.

“I’m always seeing the young kids up on the shoulders of From Good Homes fans and they tell me, ‘I loved From Good Homes, and now I can play your stuff for my kids too!’” says Rymer, 45, who moved to Sparta from Illinois as a young teen.

Before Rymer was singing about “bathtub soup,” “diggin’ up a dinosaur,” and “eatin’ animal crackers,” he and From Good Homes made a name for themselves with three albums on RCA Records. The childhood friends started playing music in local biker clubs in high school, then performed up and down the East Coast, traveling in a wood-paneled station wagon. While still in their 20s, they landed opening slots for Bob Dylan and The Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir and swapped headlining duties with the Dave Matthews Band and Hootie and the Blowfish. The five-member band, self-described as hick-pop, was “right smack dab in the middle of the new jam band scene,” Rymer says.

However, as the band was taking off, Rymer and his bandmates started families and the roadwork became less desirable. In 1999, the band broke up. (They reunited in December for two concerts at the Wellmont Theatre in Montclair.)

“We would have had to hit the road even harder, and that was really hard for me to justify at that point,” says Rymer. He and his wife, Bridget, had welcomed a son, Gus, in 1996, and daughter, Daisy, in 1998. It was not long before the new dad was singing silly songs for his kids. Just for fun, he cut a solo album, Good Morning, Gus, as a “gift” to his son.

“It really happened naturally to sing for them, and then about them,” Rymer says of his drift toward children’s music.

After releasing four solo records, Rymer teamed up with other musical parents (some of whom he met at his children’s preschool or on the playground) and formed the Little Band That Could. The band complements his vocals and guitar with accordion, keyboard, mandolin, and other instruments.

Last year, Here Comes Brady Rymer and the Little Band That Could was nominated for a Grammy Award in the children’s music category. He did not win, but Rymer says attending the Grammy show in Los Angeles “was like walking on air.” The recognition, he says, “finally seemed to impress my family.”

Rymer will watch this year’s Grammys on TV. With a new record in the works, he hopes for an invite back to “music’s biggest night.” The band is touring, with a stop in New Jersey on January 31 for two return performances at the South Orange Performing Arts Center.

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