Thank You Scientist Tickets

Thank You Scientist in Concert

The rip-roaring, genre-devouring music geniuses in Thank You Scientist are a prog-rock band for the modern age, mixing metal, jazz, funk, pop, psych, synth, and classical into an emotionally intense, hugely thrilling sonic roller coaster. 

With a sound built for arenas, it's no surprise the Jersey band have held their own opening for progressive giants like Coheed and Cambria, but a 2019 tour sees them crowding into music halls while debuting material from a long-awaited third album. With seven members who play 20-odd instruments between them — from flugelhorn to electric violin to sitar — the group are known for shows that bring to life the carefully contained chaos of their well-arranged albums, inspiring devoted fans to sway, headbang, scream, and swoon from moment to moment. Leading the wild ride is the surprisingly soothing coo and cry of frontman Salvatore Marrano.

Thank You Scientist Background

Considering their incredible musicianship and mastery of incredibly complex composition, Thank You Scientist's music-school origins shouldn't come as a surprise. Guitarist Tom Monda (who also plays sitar, cello, and the Japanese shamisen, among other instruments) was studying jazz at New Jersey's Montclair State University when he bonded with the band's original horn players over the unpredictable albums of Frank Zappa, Harry Nilsson, and Mahavishnu Orchestra. 

As the group filled out, so did their era-hopping influences: Steely Dan to Incubus, King Crimson to Mr. Bungle. A 2011 EP, The Perils of Time Travel, previewed the band's potential: thick, busy riffs paired with high vocals, epic melodies, loud brass, and sharp strings. 

It was 2012's Maps of Non-Existent Places — a harmony-heavy, mood-shifting, world-spanning feast of sound — that earned the band a growing cult following. That included Coheed and Cambria singer Claudio Sanchez, who signed them to his Evil Ink Records and invited them onto his band's legendary Neverender tour. Thoroughly battle-tested, Thank You Scientist returned in 2016 with a second album, Stranger Heads Prevail, that secured their status as a group intensely in control of their complex sound, even as that sound knows no stylistic bounds.