The Mighty Narwhale was an indie rock band from Grand Rapids, Michigan acti… Read Full Bio ↴The Mighty Narwhale was an indie rock band from Grand Rapids, Michigan active from 2005 to 2009. Members included Jon Pataky on keyboard, chord organ, or synthesizer, Collin Bailey on accordion and organ, Rei Robinson on drums, Dustin Meyer on violin and mandolin, William Eberhardt on electric guitar, Jef McClimans on bass guitar and Kyle Colter on trombone, theremin, guitar, percussion and various other instruments. Primary vocals were alternately provided by Pataky, Colter and Bailey.

The Mighty Narwhale's songwriting was all done collaboratively. The band started out with a quirky, or dreamy indie pop sensibility, but in the three years leading up to their only full-length release, ''A Ship Without a Country, A Mast Without a Sail'', they developed a distinct style often tending toward the epic or theatrically melodramatic. This orchestral wall-of-sound was dubbed Baroque Pop.

''A Ship Without a Country, A Mast Without a Sail'' was released on October 18th, 2008. It was completely self produced, and recorded by Jef McClimans in his tiny apartment over the summer of 2008. Between the band's conception and that time, several previous attempts had been made at recording an album, but owing partially to a lack of funds, nothing was completed. The title, ''A Ship Without a Country, A Mast Without a Sail'', is a line from one of the band's earliest songs, titled "Aluminum", which does not appear on the final version of the album.

Even prior to having any official recordings, the band garnered a substantial local and regional fan base early on, playing shows frequently in their home town and throughout the state of Michigan, sharing bills with other Michigan bands like Great Lakes Myth Society, Chance Jones, Mason Proper and Frontier Ruckus.

The Mighty Narwhale's name is a reference to the book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in which the submarine the Nautilus is initially thought to be a giant narwhale (a tusked whale more commonly spelled "narwhal", though technically either spelling is acceptable).