College bands can be a mix of genius and chaos that are perfect for new styles of music. Great Pioneers of new music like The Pixies, Pink Floyd and Queen started as college students making music. The Kansas Bible Company started in a similar fashion back. Members Jake Miller (of Sanchez Agency), Michael Ruth, Jeff Yoder, Nathan Morrow, James Green, Charles Frederick, and Jake Snyder all attended Goshen College, and in 2008, started the Kansas Bible Company. 

They were originally bringers of live music to the college kids who craved it, until they took a break. Their hiccup ended in 2010, when the band got back together and released their debut album Ad Astra Per Aspera. The album is interesting to say the least. There is not much music you can easily find that is like Kansas Bible Company. 

The album opens with “How To Build a Planet,” a rock song? Maybe a funk song? Different than most anything out there. The song sounds like Patti Smith teamed up with Funkadelic, which sounds awesome, I know. Clear and crisp vocals from Miller sync with the melodies played by guitar and sax. The trumpets give it a funky side that the drums carry beautifully. They keep a similar formula for other songs on the album, continuing into their second album Hotel Chicamauga. The name comes from the space they moved to in 2011, in Nashville. The most popular song on the album in Spotify is called “Jesus The Horse Thief.” It is, again, an interesting song. It opens with a marching band-like riff that plays throughout the song. The kind of marching band that makes one wish they went to a school that’s that cool. The rest of the song is Alabama Shakes reminiscent, perfect for dancing. 

Since Hotel Chicamauga, the band has released two new albums: Paper Moon in 2016 and Saturn’s Return in 2021. The former being a more contemporary indie rock collection and the latter being a full on Beatles after India type transition. The whole album is not quite the psychedelic experimentation that The Beatles took on, but there is quite a bit of new influence since their release in 2016. Perhaps the influences in their new location of Nashville was what caused the band to expand their repertoire. 

KBC may no longer be local, but they continue to be the pride of Goshen, a testament to Northern Indiana’s breeding grounds of cool bands. Bands who do things differently.