Live music is not uncommon for a Louisiana Saturday night.

Free Therapy, a group of LSU students who formed the band a little over a year ago, moved up in status from being openers to headliners at a spring concert called Common Sounds. In the back parking lot of The Chapel off of Dalrymple Dr., Common Sounds was held on March 22, making it the third annual concert for LSU students to enjoy live music and community.

“It was so full circle,” Taylor Beth, band member and LSU senior said.

At Common Sounds 2024, Beth was asked to open for singer songwriter Jordy Searcy, famous for his 2018 song “Love & War in Your Twenties,” but she didn’t have a band. When she decided to ask senior Daniel Thompson for his help, he replied saying he could form a band for her.

Thompson reached out to another friend, Logan Randag, asking him to be on guitar. Thompson had a little bit of a one-man band, kind of like Mary Poppins, with percussion at his feet and the mandolin in his hands, Thompson said. The band described its first performance as awkward, thrown together, unprepared and unsure of what they wanted.

“This is a week before the show,” Thompson said. “We were so behind. Definitely shouldn’t have been writing music, should’ve been practicing the songs.”

Creativity and ideas filled the room with the band sitting in a circle, playing their originals and finishing them. Randag had one in particular that he had hoped to finish with the group. The band was unintentionally created that night.

Formally being introduced as Taylor Beth and the Boys at Common Sounds, they began to realize the band was starting to lift off. Not only was it some friends pursuing their dreams and having a fun time, but they were also growing into something bigger than that. The name Free Therapy was eventually coined and their weekly hangouts continued, which included Raising Cane’s and meeting at one of their houses to write a song.

During the first rehearsal, the band’s first single, “Sick of It All,” was written and quickly blew up among their friends. Free Therapy played it for the first time as a band at Common Sounds 2024 and ran with it ever since. Sitting in a recording studio tracking “Sick of It All,” they were met with the rawness of what this had become.

The compatibility of the three as friends and bandmates was a shock since they had not been friends when they first began writing together. The band decided the local church parking lot would be the perfect place to start practicing, since that’s where they had met. The first two months of being a band was just getting to know each other and telling stories.

“This would have never happened without Refuge,” Thompson said. “None of us would’ve met without Refuge, even if we would have met, there would have been no purpose to play together.”

As they progress as a band, Free Therapy hopes for students to know that they just exist. To love their music as much as they do. The band members are all Christian, but their music is secular. Free Therapy lives in the music world hoping to be a light and a friend to the people they interact with.

“We’re doing it all, we’re putting the work in,” Beth said.

Free Therapy has had numerous opportunities to showcase its musical talents, even The Basin Music Hall noticed the crowd they had pulled in. The band also performed gigs with Istrouma Brewery, The Refuge, Baton Rouge Music Studios and has even put on house shows. Free Therapy is on the move, and its next show will be in Oklahoma for a YoungLife college event.

Free Therapy will continue to chase its dreams, prospering until it isn’t feasible anymore and plans to put in all they can, as long as they can. The band hopes to have enough momentum to keep going after college so they don;t have to leave Free Therapy behind.

Until then, future plans for Free Therapy include a new EP being released on May 2, 2025, with the name not being released yet.

Free Therapy believes that once you attend one of its shows you’ll be hooked, so maybe your next Louisiana Saturday night will include attending a Free Therapy gig. For more information on where to catch their next show and updates on release dates, check out its Instagram @Freetherapy.band