NEDERLAND — It’s often embraced that every live show a musician performs is different in some way, whether it’s the energy or the logistics, or the exact setlist. However, Satellite Friend takes that to a whole new level—they not only change their setlist from one show to another, they frequently change each setlist by adding newly-written songs.
“We kind of started under the weird premise of, ‘We wanna try to write as many songs as possible and just stay very, very active with that and rehearse a bunch,’” says Brian Loeper, lead guitarist and songwriter. “We don’t play any covers. We just kind of wanted to see what it was like when, every week, ‘Okay, what do you got?’”
Brian started the band with his life partner, Lacey Loeper, after moving to Denver from the East Coast, looking for ways to connect with the community. Jumping into open mics, they made the majority of their connections through the music community.
The band’s lineup now consists of Brian, Lacey (piano and some violin), Alex Reigembal (vocals, additional multi-instrumentalist), Adam Cogen (drums), and Jared Wengerd (electric bass). They schedule weekly rehearsal nights (currently on Tuesdays) and look forward to connecting and playing as a group, especially with new material to keep things fresh.
On the origin of the name Satellite Friend, Lacey explains, “Everyone in the band came from somewhere else, like a different state. It became a nice group of people who came from the outskirts and all came together, so I think that was a little bit of the idea. We also just wanted something that sounded friendly, so that worked out.”
With a wide musical background from the band members (folk from Alex, bluegrass and jam band music from Jared, multiple previous bands with Brian and Lacey in the lineup, jazz piano from Adam, and more), the group can come together and bounce around ideas for different songs at different styles in different directions to find the most interesting ideas.
“When I get stuck on something, rather than writing a crappy bridge or a half-baked chorus or something, I’ll just let our jazz pianist drummer come up with something cool,” says Brian on the collaborative writing process. “I’d say 98% of the time, somebody has a really interesting idea.”
The demand for a band that writes and performs original songs every week exists only among the members themselves, but the challenge and camaraderie that comes from frequently writing and rehearsing is what motivates Satellite Friend most as a group.
“I think we could have wrote, you know, ten songs and just been done with it for a couple of years, but Lacey and I have already been sitting around,” said Brian during our interview with him and Lacey. “Right now, the phone is on a keyboard, we have a keyboard, a synth, and a guitar, and we’re sitting here in an empty room on Saturday night and trying to problem solve a song that we’ve been working on for a couple weeks.”
“I think one of the biggest compliments is when people don’t know how to describe us,” says Lacey on the most rewarding aspect of the band and its writing process. “It means that it’s something they haven’t heard before, and that means we’re doing our job, I think, pretty well.”
Satellite Friend will perform at the Jamestown Mercantile, located at 108 Main Street in Jamestown, on Friday, May 22, 2026, starting at 7 p.m.
