Local school of rock on the rise – Baton Rouge Music Studios seeks help in online campaign

Since 2006, Baton Rouge Music Studios has been fostering a range of talent, helping musicians as young as four and as old as 60 learning everything from guitar riffs to signature singing styles.

The bulk of its students are in the middle and high school range, anywhere from 9-17 years old, and they are a part of the school’s Young Band Nation program. There, BRMS founder Doug Gay takes them out of the private lesson format and groups them into performing bands.

“Several bands have been formed at the school,” he says. “They’ll start their own thing, and eventually, they leave to play shows at Atomic Pop Shop or Here Today Gone Tomorrow. We support that, but we’ve never been able to provide and mentor bands through that next step after they form. We want them to remain under our mentorship a little longer so they continue to learn about [the] music business.”

To help the bands through that next stage, BRMS is expanding to a new location, which will have double the amount of space to develop the Young Band Nation curriculum via a new performance venue, instructional spaces, a recording studio/station and more. BRMS has set up an indiegogo campaign to offset build out and operational costs with the move. In just one week, the campaign earned almost $12,000 of its $50,000 goal.

The new, larger BRMS space sits in the Burbank Crossing Shopping Center, next to Hibbett Sports. While it’s still under construction, Gay has taped off where each room will be. It’s the type of move he has wanted to make for four years, and he can’t hide his excitement when talking about it.

“I knew we had to grow gradually, but there was always this nagging desire to have a community center, a haven for misfits—the kids who want to be in the school band, or those who love to sing but don’t want to be in musical theater or choir,” he says. “I’m trying to reach the kids who are inspired by Led Zeppelin, Foo Fighters and even Kelly Clarkson. We’re trying to be open to whatever is inspiring these kids. However, we can’t develop the systems we need to develop these musicians without this physical space.”