The Story of a Saxophone Playing Sasquash Named...SAXSquatch

On this episode of Our American Stories, he was a sax player for one of the world's great touring bands, The Marcus King Band. But he was called to do something different. Something that could allow him to pursue his own musical and creative ambitions. Many artists go by one name: Bono, Sting, Madonna, and Prince, to name a few. Here's Saxsquatch with his story. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people,
and we love telling stories about music, and my goodness,
this is one heck of a music story and about
reimagining your own persona, and the music business is notorious
for this. We have Bono that's not his real name.

(00:31):
We have Sting, not his real name, and Prince was
not his real name. Up next, you're gonna hear a
story about sax Squatch. You can go anywhere on the
Internet or YouTube or TikTok and see videos of a
saxophone playing Sasquatch. Here is the story behind the story
of the man and the legend sax Squatch.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
There's a huge job.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
It's like a mate in my backyard. It's just a
huge I'm just I'm so much break down right now.
Oh god, it's bad out a dang saxophone.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
I'm the artist sack Squatch, And I was given that
name pretty early on when I fell in love with
the saxophone and I was just completely obsessed with it.
People called me sax Squatch and it's definitely stuck. I

(01:46):
do come from a musical family. My grandfather was a musician.
His name was gigfoot with a G and my sister
was big flute, and so I always was tinkering on
the instruments. Always loved music because it just made life
more tolerable for me. And for a long time, I

(02:11):
was kind of an artist's artist, so I kind of
play things that other musicians would like. And then as
I've kind of evolved to wanting to connect with people more,
I've kind of brought in my music to other things.

(02:32):
I have to say, most of my family has believed
in me from the beginning, even though they were originally
a little bit cautious about me sort of coming out
of the woods. I eventually convinced them that it's something
that I really wanted to do, and they were like,
all right, let's do it. And it's been an incredible journey.

(02:55):
You know. It really feels good to be believed in,
you know, And so part of my message is just
trying to connect with people and spread that belief back,
let people know that they're not alone. So I'm kind
of perpetuating that into the future and trying to spread

(03:17):
the love. So I was playing in an internationally recognized
band for a while, and I also was just starting
to figure out the Sasquatch persona. And you know, I
never really intended on it being kind of my full

(03:39):
time job, if you will. And so one day I
was just thinking, you know, all of this traveling that
I was doing, I wasn't exactly getting what I needed,
which was to be able to write my own music
and produce my own music. And I thought, you know what,

(04:02):
I just kind of connected the dots. One night. It
was laid on my couch, I think my power was out.
I had some lit candles and it was two in
the morning, and I thought to myself, I can just
do sax squatch and write my own music. So I did.
I ran up by my family and friends. They were like, hey,

(04:25):
I don't think you should do this. You know, it's
a pretty low chance that you're ever going to be
on your own doing well as a sax player. Sax
players don't exactly rise to fame in and of themselves
anymore in this day and age. And I thought about it.
I wrote a pros and cons list, as I was
suggested to do, and when I looked at the list,

(04:47):
I was just like, I gotta do it. I gotta
do it. Because the rewards were too good for me
not to go after. You know, creative freedom is one
of those things that as an artist, I would and
be able to live without. If I were to go
down the street and see someone even on the street,
making music, sounding beautiful, writing their own songs, it would

(05:09):
kill me inside to know that that wasn't me, that
I wasn't doing that. So, believe it or not, when
I started off, right when I started off, people kind
of hated it, you know, people kind of hated sack
squadch you know, my close friends were like, hey, what
are you doing? And when it started to gain some

(05:31):
traction is when people were really like, oh yeah, I
like this. Now. That was a little bit interesting to
see people like what other people like. You know, it's
kind of a phenomenon. Looking back, I'm really grateful that
I took that extremely risky leap. Now I am doing
tours of my own music, getting millions of views on TikTok.

(05:56):
I've had songs come out with John Oates from Han
Oates with Billy Ray Cyrus, and I've done music for
the game Rocket League and Fortnite. You know, when I
first started, I had kind of two goals that I
was like, I'm going to shoot for the moon and
that was to be on Jimmy Fallon and to play
the super Bowl. And I did go on Jimmy Fallon's

(06:20):
show and it was amazing. So next stop, I want
to play the super Bowl one day.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
And a great job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Monty Montgomery and Reagan Habib. And what
a story just about living your own version of the
American dream and wanting to be, my goodness a sax
player and making a living at it. And we're going
to go out with some of the music from Sax
Squatch here on our American Story, Lee Habib here again.

(07:31):
Our American Stories tries to tell the stories of America's
past and present to Americans, and we want to hear
your stories too. There's some of our favorites. Send them
to us. Go to Alamerican Stories dot com and click
the your stories tab. Again, Please go to Alamerican Stories
dot com and click the your Stories tab