If senior Micah Russell could explain the Bare Naked Statue’s newest album “All Expenses Paid” in one word, it would be “refreshing.” BNS is Saint Louis University’s all-male a cappella group.

“With the past CDs, you get one feeling the whole way through, and I think that this one is very refreshing because it shows a lot of diversity and shows off our talent and all the work we put in for these last three years,” Russell said.

BNS will be holding a CD-release party on Oct. 29 from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Quad to promote the release of their new album. BNS, in addition to SLU’s all-female a cappella group Beyond All Reason, will be performing at the party.

“All Expenses Paid” is the third album that the group has recorded since their formation in 2000.

“We looked at the old CDs and looked at the reviews of them and said, ‘how can we get away from the bad stuff, keep the good stuff and then make it even more than that’,” Russell said.

Their first album was “Please Don’t Feed The Statues,” which was released in 2004. Russell said that the a cappella community had overdone many of the songs on this album. The group later released their second album, “Pitches” in 2007. Russell explained that this album lacked the energy that their latest album has and that it had a melodramatic mood.

“If you hear from our first CD to this one now, it’s just night and day. Just the hours of recording that we actually put in- the way that we actually sat down and recorded and went through editing and mixing the CD,” senior Paul Paetow said.
Senior Nic Summary was of a similar opinion.

“I honestly do feel that this CD is leaps and bounds above the other two,” Summary said.

The album features a diverse track list with covers of Panic! At The Disco’s “I Write Sins Not Tragedies,” Ben Folds’ “Fred Jones, Pt. 2,” and Flo Rida and Travis Barker’s “Low Remix.”

“We try to show off a good balance of songs on the CD. We didn’t pick too many songs that were the same genre or had the same tempo. We try to mix it up between some more fast, fun 90s songs and a rap song or two, a couple more slower ballads just to kind of show the range of the group,” Paetow said.

He explained that this decision was made to combat some of the criticism that they have received in the past.

“That’s some of the criticism…that we always pick that same generic, poppy 90s song,” Paetow said.

The newest album was recorded over a span of three years. The process began in 2008 when Russell, Summary and Paetow were freshman.

“We started recording at the end of my freshman year, and now I am a senior, so it’s kind of like my little pet project,” said Russell.

Paetow and Russell both explained that many hours went into the recording process.

“There were nights when we went over by a few hours, just sitting their trying to work out minor little things, just to try and make the CD as best as we could,” Paetow said.

The title for the albums comes from a trip the group took to Boston two years ago, where they performed with the MIT Muses.

“The joke with it is that BNS funded everything. We did fundraising and everything so that none of the guys would have to pay out of pocket,” Russell said.
Former SLU student Lawrence Hwang formed BNS in 2000. The original group was made up of seven members. However, the size has doubled since then, with a current group of 16 members.

“The group has changed a lot in terms of its seriousness
It started out as a friend thing. That’s how a lot of a cappella groups start out…it’s more selective, so our talent level has increased since its initiation,” Russell said.
He explained that the group has become somewhat of a fraternity.
“All the guys hang out a lot. It’s something special just to us,” Russell said.
According to Paetow the biggest change since the formation of the group is in the SLU community and the expansion of their knowledge of BNS.
“Even outside the university, just in the St. Louis community, I feel like we’ve developed a pretty big name for ourselves in the past 10 years, and we are starting to get opportunities to perform on some larger stages outside of the university,” Paetow said.