Navigating North

In a total of 48 hours, Owatonna High School 2011 graduate Jay Seaser and two other band members drove to North Carolina, recorded their EP  album and drove back to their apartments in Mankato at the end of May. The EP album that they recorded was recently featured in Noisetrade’s New & Notable section online. 
“It was a fun road trip,” laughed Seaser. “After recording, we drove back through the Smoky Mountains, so yeah, it was intense.” 
Seaser and his band members Hailey Johnson and Josiah Jorgensen met originally as part of the worship team of the MSU campus ministry, the Navigators. Johnson is from Willmar, Minnesota, and Jorgensen is from Cokato, Minnesota.
The three began jamming after worship at the beginning of September last year, and they formed their band, Navigating North. 
“We were all interested in the same bands, same music, same sound, and from that we developed our own good sound,” said Seaser. “So we started doing shows at coffee shops and small events.” 
While they met through their similar Christian views, their sound is folk alternative without a direct Christian message. 
“I mean we’re not a Christian band, but we mostly cover bands with Christian influenced beliefs,” he said. “And hopefully we reflect those beliefs and people are positively influenced. We still want to see Jesus in our work.” 
Their EP contains four songs. The first two songs are original, while the last two songs are covers of the artists Bon Iver and the Lumineers. 
Johnson is the lead singer, and she also plays guitar. Jorgensen sings and plays the banjo, guitar and harmonica. Jorgensen comes from a musical background, and according to Seaser, Jorgensen’s family together is something of a bluegrass band. 
Seaser considers himself more of the “guy in the background,” for he plays the percussive spine of the music. He plays tambourine, shaker and hand drums such as cajón and Djembe drum. Seaser also covers a lot of the sound equipment knowledge for the band. 
“I’m really not classically trained. I just picked it up as part of the worship band with the Navigators,” said Seaser. “I picked percussion up pretty quick. I don’t know what to attribute that to, probably being so involved in band in high school, playing the trombone. I was in jazz band, orchestra and concert band.” 
Seaser said that the three of them blended well and the development of their sound was an organic growth of layering sounds.
The band has played at many acoustic venues in Mankato. “Mankato actually has a long history of music I guess, but it is mostly older—like our parents’ age,” laughed Seaser. “I feel like there is enough talent here currently that there should be a better music scene. But, yeah, the music scene has a little bit of urban and there is the country influence too, so it is an interesting mix here.” 
Despite Navigating North’s recent success, the band members are going their own separate ways. Jorgensen is graduating, Johnson is choosing a different path and Seaser is starting fresh this semester at Mankato State University studying psychology.
Seaser said that Johnson plans to do her own solo work in the near future. Seaser, however, sees himself more concentrating on his studies in psychology for now. “I just feel like I am not as talented as the other two or some other musicians,” said Seaser. “But I like to jam with people and make music, so I will probably continue that and maybe help some other people out.”
Navigating North will perform a few last times together before the end of the semester at coffee shops in Mankato before they go down their own paths. Their EP, however, is still available for listening at noisetrade.com.