Check'er Lee

2024 was a rough year for the Baby Grand band. A bad breakup followed up by a move to Georgia left Colby in a bad spot, but amidst all that heartbreak, a new Baby Grand album was taking shape. Over the course of many, many drives from Georgia to North Carolina, and with the addition of Cody Wade on drums (marking the first time Baby Grand wasn't just Colby and Haley), the modern age of the band took shape. There is the era before Check'er Lee and then there is after, sort of like BC and AD.

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We knew very early on that we had matured as a group and a team into a real band by now, we weren't just making music in our bedroom anymore. Live shows started to take place, and this album felt like a real good foot forward for us.

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The years between Bowling Royal and Check’er Lee brought major changes. Haley began making music full time on her own in North Carolina, and Colby’s marriage ended, and when a friend offered him an engineering job in Georgia, Haley helped him move. The music of Check'er Lee grew out of those separate lives. Most were written by Haley between 2022 and 2025 as she established herself as a solo performer in North Carolina.

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The first recording for Check’er Lee was an early version of “Lower Management,” made in 2023. “Pavlov’s Horn” was recorded around Christmas 2024. We recorded the rest of the album in spring and summer 2025, then mixed and mastered it through the fall, culminating in the release in December of 2025.

 

The name came from a play on words based on some repeat childhood memories of our dad getting pissed at the staff at Applebees and demanding the check early. "Check'er Lee" was when Baby Grand grew up into an adult grand piano, every parent's dream.