Today we’d like to introduce you to Sara Bellum.
Hi Sara, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My name is Ames King, but some of you may know me as Mx. Sara Bellum. I am the lead singer of Sara Bellum and the Brainwaves, a 7-piece dance-punk band based in Kansas City, Missouri. Our music features danceable rhythms, funky guitar riffs, and upbeat melodies, and just as our name emphasizes the brain, much of our music focuses on mental health and healing.
UMKC is really where this story begins. I met my fiancé, Noah Bartelt (MC Burnie Beta), as a fellow theater major at UMKC in 2018. Noah was already in a band called The UK’s when we met, and I was so inspired. We started going to lots of shows together, and I began to get more involved with the music scene. I came to realize that I could also start a band, and I could do it with my partner in crime. Over time, Noah and I worked on song ideas together, and we got a band together in 2020. We were all set to hit the studio and record our demos; however, the world had different plans… We released some home-recorded quarantine versions of the demos, but mental health and life got in the way of us releasing more music…
We started working on our song ideas behind the scenes for quite some time. At that point, Noah and I were a duo, unsure of who our future bandmates would be or even what instruments we’d have. Eventually, we decided we just wanted to make music with our friends and figure out how all the pieces would fit together along the way. So we asked our friend Luke Virgo Rowe (Theodore Theta), whom we met at UMKC Theater, if they would be interested in lending their talent as our theatrical sound designer/foley artist. At this time, we also asked my friend/co-worker Mariah Hinkle (Gemma Gamma) if she would bring another unique element to the group and play Viola for us.
Fast forward to 2024…
Noah had joined a band called Foxlin, where they met our drummer, Morgan Rogers. After a few rehearsals and shows together, they knew that they both clicked and searched for more reasons to jam together. Not only are they band members in Foxlin and Sara Bellum and the Brainwaves, but they also play together in Modern Day Fitzgerald! Morgan’s chameleon-like drumming adds a spark to each song that allows us to push ourselves to experiment with many styles and genres.
Mariah and I also recruited our castmate at Worlds of Fun, Ari Smith (Athen Alpha), to play bass for us. While being a big proponent of helping us launch this new iteration of our band, they have since left the band due to moving for college, but they will always be a Brainwave!
Last, but certainly not least, thanks to Luke, we reconnected with another one of our friends from UMKC Theater, Katie Schieferecke (Zesty Zeta). She has helped us take our sound to the next level with the addition of beautiful harmonies as our backup vocalist and expansion of our sonic range as our keytar and kazoo player.
Once we got the full band together, all of the puzzle pieces started to fit, and we began to push ourselves to arrange our existing songs and write new songs to showcase the unique individual talents of each member. We hit the ground running at the beginning of 2025 and began performing live shows, and have since started work on recording an EP. A fulfilling, fun trip so far, we’re so excited to see where this journey takes us!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has been anything but a smooth road; I have struggled with stage fright and insecurities about my singing and writing since I was a kid. When I tried to sing in front of people, even my closest friends, I would get so anxious that my throat would tense up and I could barely get a word out. As for my writing, I hated letting anyone read it because I always felt embarrassed and worried it was bad. I’ve battled with self-confidence issues for as long as I can remember. It has taken years of training, persevering, and finding people who believe in me to learn that before you can be good at something, you first have to let yourself be bad at it.
I struggled heavily with my confidence when we first attempted to form the band. In February of 2020, we visited the studio and tried to record some demos with our members at the time. At that point, I was in my second year of voice lessons, I was still finding my voice, and I didn’t feel confident at all. I felt like a newborn doe trying to stand for the first time, wide-eyed and shaky. Then lockdown happened…
The theater production I was in at the time had its opening night, only to become our closing night too. Eventually, I dropped out of college with 18 credit hours left. My mental health was at an all-time low; I was struggling with undiagnosed C-PTSD, and I needed to take some time away from performing altogether so that I could take care of myself.
During that time, I was working various jobs and writing lyrics when I had the capacity to. It took me a long time to process everything I had been through, but I found a productive outlet in my songwriting. I pushed past a lot of mental blockages to get here, but I am happy I did, because this project has been a dream come true. I love making music, and I love the people who make it with me.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
In Sara Bellum and the Brainwaves, I am the lead vocalist, lyricist, and social media manager. I also brainstorm with our composer, Burnie Beta, to come up with melodies and general concepts. Over the short time that we have been gigging, we have become known for our strong focus on mental health, even being described as “safe space punk” by local legend, Benjamin Earl. This emphasis on mental health in our music has been helpful for others as well. One of my proudest moments was when a friend told me that she was going through a rough patch, and our song “Reach Out” helped her get through that time. I am very proud of my band and what we are creating, and I feel incredibly honored to make music with such talented individuals.
Something that sets any band or artist apart is being authentically yourself. Everyone has their special traits that make them who they are, and that is why no one person is truly the same. People shine when they let their authenticity be seen. Having the ability to accept that fact and not take ourselves too seriously helps bring a genuine and fun-loving energy to the stage and the studio. The thing that drives us is that we are making music for ourselves before making it for anyone else. Is it fun for us? Does it inspire us? Does it heal us? Does it make us want to dance? If the answer is yes, then we hope it does the same for the listener. Although we create music for ourselves, we love it when it can also benefit the community around us. Overall, we’re just being ourselves and having fun doing it.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
Did you know a punk band could have cartoon sound effects and orchestral strings as an integral part of their sound? Neither did we; it surprised us, too! It was never our intention, when we first started the band, to incorporate and use unusual instrumentation like theatrical sound design and viola, but our desire to include our good friends, Theodore Theta and Gemma Gamma, not only made for a fun and easy working environment, but also helped to set us apart from other bands. We felt it was fundamental to have people in our band with whom we gel well, so we took note of their talents and decided to experiment with ways to incorporate them into our music. This rewarding and strange use of the scientific method greatly shaped our sound into something dynamic, quirky, and exciting. Ka-chow!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sbatbwband/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sbatbwband/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@sbatbwband
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyXMpos8fJ0
