Pressing Strings is a three piece musical force hailing from Annapolis, Maryland– Their sound has widespread roots in a number of musical genres including blues, funk, soul, folk, and reggae.

“The Naptown natives keep it real, combining robust rhythms and bluesy songwriting that’s folksy and heartfelt yet funky and feel-good. Toeing the line between hometown darlings and rising stars, these boys-next-door exude the laid-back authenticity you might expect to come out of Maryland” Baltimore Magazine

The band is the brainchild of lead singer Jordan Sokel, who started the band with a friend in college and almost bagged the project altogether in 2012. “We were hitting that age where you either choose to pursue music as a hobby or a career and guys started taking another path so I was giving serious thought into retiring the band”. Luckily bassist Nick Welker was on the same page as Sokel and the two continued playing as a duo and eventually linked up with drummer Brandon Bartlett to continue making music as Pressing Strings.

Their most recent EP, 2016’s “Most Of Us” has gained national attention and spins from AAA radio for their track “What It Means”, which takes the listener from a laid back barbecue and lands them on the main stage at a major festival in three and a half minutes.

“What it means is a very honest and personal song for me. It’s basically about me trying to make sense of what’s going on in the world, through all these mediums that we are constantly bombarded with and ultimately wondering if any of it is really important enough to be affected by it negatively” Sokel explains.

The EP was produced by Scott Jacoby (John Legend, Jose James, Coldplay, Vampire Weekend) and engineered by Neil Dorfsman (Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Mark Knopfler, Paul McCartney).

As a live band they have performed relentlessly, supplying audiences with genuine feel good performances–frequently covering an eclectic array of material and making it their own. One of their most popular tracks is a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Going to California” that features some impressive slide guitar work and a vocal performance that Page and Plant could appreciate. The band recorded and filmed it live on a whim, packed into a tiny cafe surrounded by locals in the Eastport section of Annapolis.