Metuchen Arts Council and Friends of Metuchen Arts celebrate an a capella concert collaboration - presented at St Luke’s Church on August 2nd, 2024.
First, help us understand who you are as an artist. What is your medium/specialty and what do you like about it – why do you do what you do?
Ball in the House is an R&B/Soul/Pop a cappella group with a strong speciality in arts education programs. So part of our medium/specialty is a cappella - singing without instruments - and creating a rich, full sound that is often mistaken for containing background tracks, when everything we do is 100% live. We love the sound of voices in harmony, so that sound, combined with the groove of the rhythm section, is something we all absolutely love.
The other part of our medium/specialty is education - sharing the love of music, explaining what we do, showing students how easy it is to do this once they know what to do, and inspiring them to get involved in the arts. There’s a great satisfaction here of sharing the love of something we love ourselves, as well as hoping to give students a positive experience and positive encouragement, when some of us have had the experience of growing up with negative experiences and peer pressure to not be involved in the arts.
How did you get where you are today? With five members in your ensemble, there may be five different journeys to recount - or perhaps there is a group story -
Originally, I (Jon) started the group with a friend that I sang with in college, along with some friends from a boys choir school that we attended in middle school. We recruited other friends of friends and started street performing at Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston, along with opening for any band in the area that would have us. After building a following, the work slowly grew to be a full-time job, and at one point, we got asked to perform in a school, and that began the journey of arts education becoming a very important part of what we do. As the touring got more frequent, some people dropped out and we needed to audition for other singers, and that’s how all the current members came aboard, most having sung a cappella in college.
what was the most important choice you made or a breakthrough you experienced to get to where you are today?
Definitely making arts education a key part of what we do. It gave us a whole new market to work in, as well as something else to differentiate us from other bands (besides the whole a cappella thing).
Your group has a great name – Ball in the House – how did that come about?
So we’re rehearsing 2 days before our very 1st show and realized that we hadn’t even talked about a name for the band, so we started brainstorming names and they were all just absolutely terrible. We got so frustrated that we took a break and turned on the TV. We ended up watching an episode of The Brady Bunch where the boys were throwing a basketball around and it got away from them, fell down the stairs, and broke mom’s favorite vase. All throughout the rest of the episode, they kept saying “Mom always said, “don’t play ball in the house!”” and so when we got back to our discussion, that was one of the suggestions and the only one we didn’t hate, so it stuck.
What is a little known fact about each of you – outside of music – that others may not know? (e.g., a special hobby, a unique claim to fame, etc..)
Jon owns over 300 boardgames
Tyler is a huge wrestling fan and has 2 replica championship belts
Kevin is a triplet and collects Yu-Gi-Oh!
Oscar is an Eagle Scout and the first person in his family not to go into the military
Wallace loves physical fitness and has his first Spartan Race coming up soon
If you could go back in time and tell your younger self one piece of advice about following your artistic (or creative) passion, what would it be?
You don’t have to be perfect, or the best, or famous in order to work in music - be creative, have fun, be yourself, experiment, be open to all ideas and you’ll find a way to make it happen if it’s what you love to do!
—Jon Ryan