Team Smile and Nod began with a surprise.  About a week after swapping demo CD’s, Rich surprised Kara with a remix of one of her songs.  She loved it.  Inspired by the remix, they started developing songs together.  Rich was a remixer and electronic musician.  Kara was a folksinger and songwriter.  The collaboration became Team Smile and Nod, a lesbian-fronted electro anti-folk duo from Columbus, Ohio.  On their debut CD, Look Both Ways Before You Die, they merge their musical styles into an upbeat, melody-driven, politically-inspired pop fusion.

Kara Elizabeth Sherman provides the lyrics, vocals, sounds, and guitars to Team Smile and Nod.  Her first musical influences were drawn from her parents’ record collection.  “When I was a kid, I would spend hours listening to their favorite folk singers:  Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkel, Peter, Paul, and Mary, John Denver...  I felt a comforting connection to their stories and melodies,” Kara explains.  She began creating songs as a teenager and performed solo at various coffee shops and bars, OSU’s Take Back the Night and Rock for Choice, and opened for Catie Curtis at the late Little Brother’s.  In 2004, she attended the Recording Workshop in Chillicothe, Ohio.  “Learning the art of recording really opened my musical vision.  I met Rich soon after I finished school.  We connected through our mutual interest in recording and experimenting with music.”   

Rich Ratvasky creates a sonic layer of feeling with his electronic arrangements.  He experiments with keyboards, vocals, guitars, and effects as half of Team Smile and Nod.  He has been involved in bands and electronic music since high school.  “In the late 80’s, I was in a band, Big Engine, that started as 60’s psychedelic pop-rock and developed into a more electronic band.  At the same time, I was in an industrial type band called Lick,” Rich explains.  “In high school, I started making my first recordings with basically toy keyboards, a guitar, and two tape decks.”  Rich performed at raves and clubs while part of Columbus’ underground electronic scene in the ‘90s (ele_mental collective).  He has self-released a CD series and contributed to many compilations (21/22 Corporation) using the name Ihannoa.   Rich has created numerous remixes and collaborations with Azoic and Pinebox.

With each new song creation, Kara and Rich merge their individual efforts into a true collaboration.  “Our writing process has completely changed.  With our early songs, we would work in a very separate way.  We would each record our parts separately, give it a listen together, make changes separately, then come together to mix and master it.  We still spend some solo time on the music, but we develop the feel and melodies of the songs together now,” Kara explains. Their debut CD exhibits the development of their experimental sound.  Rich elaborates, “I try to do something new every time and make something that makes me excited to hear it.  With all the new technology, the possibilities are literally endless.”

Look Both Ways Before You Die weaves through a wide range of topics connected with honesty and emotion. It includes tender love songs like “Still Stuck” and “So Damn Good”.  They discuss homophobia and LGBT issues with “Scrooge” and “Scar”.  Some songs are full of dark humor and sadness like “Kill Myself to Death”.  The duo also reflects on capitalism and vegetarianism. “To me, the point of music is to render feeling.  Even if the words seem harsh or hardcore at times, the point is to convey personal truth,” Kara explains.  The CD was recorded, mixed, and mastered in Columbus, Ohio.  Kara laid down her basic vocal and guitar tracks in her home studio.  The rest was composed and completed at Rich’s Ostrich Studio.  The resulting project was released on Kara’s indie label, Thinkroot Records.

To this day, Rich and Kara are surprised that Team Smile and Nod began as a surprise. Moreover, they are still excited about the collaboration.  They discovered that together they can create layers of sounds that express the feelings of the words in their songs.  The give and take of collaborating as two very differently inspired people keeps their music unpredictable, innovative, and fun. 

"It's hard to come up with a fresh and unique sound in this post post-modern world of music, but Team Smile and Nod has managed to do just that.  Their sound is sophisticated, playful, melodic and extremely engaging… By digesting the atmospheric layering and sonic textures of terrific emo-pop of the past, they have produced an emotionally compelling sound for the future that is distinctly their own.”  Jon Peterson, Host, "Shakin It" WCBE/ Columbus.