It’s no surprise that a seven-member band like Chicago-based Sneezy has a unique sound, but time and again people seem shocked by the seamless flow.

“People who see us, maybe for the first time, try to explain what our genre of music is, because it’s not really one defined thing,” said Austin Lutter, who plays lead guitar and contributes vocals for the band. “You can’t say it’s rock, you can’t say it’s R&B, you can’t say it’s, you know, jazz fusion or soul music. It’s kind of all of those things blended into one.”

That’s due to two main factors, the members’ wide range of interests and influences and their long-standing relationships. Brett O’Connor, on lead vocals and harmonica, Jack Holland, who plays acoustic guitar and adds vocals, and Lutter have known each other and played together from an early age.

“We have been playing music together since first grade,” said O’Connor.

“Brett and Jack, our two frontmen, have been in a band pretty much their whole lives. I joined in, like, second grade when I saw them, because I’m a year older,” added Lutter 

“Yeah, we just grew up playing music together,” O’Connor continued.

It started even earlier than that. Holland and Lutter’s families lived down the street from each other, and their dads and O’Connor’s, who also sang and harped, played around their hometown of Libertyville, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago where five of the seven members are originally from.

In addition to Holland, Lutter and O’Connor, the remaining four members are Danny Bauer on keyboard and vocals, Thomas “Chops” Hannum on bass, Austin Koziol on drums and vocals and Destiny Pivonka on saxophone and vocals. 

“Six out of seven of us sing,” said Lutter. “So, (with our instruments) a very full sound, lots of people on stage.

“It’s also a very high-energy show. We like to have a lot of fun, and try to have that same energy we had when we were in first grade on stage, now later in life. We’ve picked up a lot of friends along the way. Now we’re doing it full-time, traveling all over the country.”

In their early days, it was how they hung out, getting gigs around the Lake County area of Illinois for free, and eventually for drinks, but as they grew the band, that became a tough sell.

“We had been called the Sneezy Trio for a bit, but we would roll in with, like six people, and they’re like, ‘We just thought three were coming.’ So they couldn’t give us enough beer,” said Holland. “So, we changed the name and started asking for money.”

“Yeah, it started off with the local gigs, like literally talent shows, when we were all in high school together, and as a different version of the band,” said Lutter. “Not necessarily Sneezy, but after college, we all kind of started taking it a little more seriously.”

The band ranges in age from late 20s to 40, and in 2012, some of the members were still in college and some had graduated, and it was that mix that clued them into the possibility of touring and making it as a band.

“Our bass player, Tom, was in a fraternity in Hoboken, New Jersey, and they had a pretty decent budget for entertainment that year for specific events,” said Lutter. “They actually flew us out there, which was like my first real rock star moment – like, holy crap, somebody else bought a plane ticket for us, for all five of us. There were only five of us in the band at the time.”

The real turning point for the band came a half-decade later when a high school friend hired the band for her wedding. 

“With the PA loaded in, all of us in three of our personal cars,” said Lutter. “We just stuffed them full of everything and drove out to Colorado. She had a really fancy looking wedding up in the mountains, and that was kind of like our first foray of like a 17 hour drive to drive all the way out there to play the gig and come back.

“Ever since then, it’s been, ‘How can we do that a little smarter next time?’”

That led them to hire a full-time manager about two years later, who introduced them to the steps of touring as a living. 

“He kind of showed us the basics of getting in the van, booking the gigs yourself, driving out to the gigs, trying to recoup as much money as possible without it going too far to the red,” said Lutter. “Now we have a real management team with a real agency behind it, as well, so we’ve really built up our efforts quite a bit since then.”

Their current manager, Brian Good, is based out of Asheville, what Lutter now calls a second home for the band. As they transitioned into more serious touring around 2019, a friend and former band-member moved to Asheville, so the city became a regular stop and evolved into the center of a hub-and-spoke model for touring the region. Which is how they met Good and developed a relationship with Echo Mountain Recording, where they just finished recording their upcoming album as Hurricane Helene hit. 

“On the last night of our recording on Thursday night, the hurricane hit, so we finished our album, got all the tracks done and everything, and we were planning on heading home at 7 a.m. the next morning,” said Lutter. “We tried to leave, but all the roads were closed because there were literally roads falling into the sides of the mountain.

“We ended up getting stuck for three days,” he said. “We found ourselves helping out. At a local business helping serve pizzas, playing at the local music venue for tips trying to entertain people in the height of the madness that Saturday after Helene.” 

Strangely, it mirrors their trip to New Jersey in 2012, which coincided with Hurricane Sandy. That week a three-day trip turned into seven. 

But the band is looking ahead. They’re with a new agency, and Lutter said they’re proud of how the new album is turning out.

“We got the right agency and the right resources to get to that next level in 2025. We’re playing Jam Cruise next year in February. So that’s kind of like a big bucket list item,” he said.

They hope that in the coming years, they can tour bigger and farther, developing relationships on the west coast and maybe internationally. This winter, they’re opening for Big Something’s New Years Eve show in Raleigh at the Lincoln Theater on December 31.

But it all comes down to what makes Sneezy special in the first place – the family they’ve formed within and through the band. 

“We have our families that we can stay with when we’re out on the road, which is always nice, but honestly, meeting friends out on the road who are willing to let seven, well, we’re technically eight people with our merch manager (Mike Church), basically allowing eight people to crash on their couches kind of thing is really what makes it doable,” said Lutter. 

“The best part is doing it with the people that we have shared memories with, and that we’re creating more with each other.” said Holland. “Touring can be really hard. I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t with my friends.”