Meet the Photographer Behind Instagram Hotspot 'The Band Was Here'

Steve Birnbaum hopes to expand TBWH beyond social media

What began as a side project has become an all-consuming passion for Steve Birnbaum, the photographer and documentary filmmaker behind @thebandwashere.

For those of you who haven’t perused the popular Instagram venue, “I think the best way to describe what I do is that I take photographs of bands and musicians that were shot in the past and take them back to their original location now in the present to recreate the original photograph,” says Birnbaum. The account features iconic images of The Notorious B.I.G., Bruce Springsteen, David Byrne, the Doors, Madonna, SZA, Taylor Swift, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and lots of other bands and musicians.

Here, Birnbaum, who also directs and produces photography and video projects for brands and companies like Vice, Adidas, Harley-Davidson, Vox, Macy’s and Pepsi, talks about the sleuthing it takes to track down band photo locations. He also reveals the celebrity follow that drove a massive amount of traffic.

You shared a photo of Kurt Cobain taken in the kitchen of his apartment in Olympia. How did you gain access to that location? 

For the longest time, I was aware that Kurt Cobain’s old apartment that he shared with his then-girlfriend Tracy Marander was available to rent as an Airbnb. I was in Seattle on vacation and decided to reach out to the owner. Sure enough, it was open, and she was kind enough to allow me access to get my photographs. She couldn’t have been more accommodating, and I was happy to reciprocate and advertise the fact that people could Airbnb the apartment themselves if they wanted. 

Is it easy to find out where these photos were taken, or is there a lot of research involved?

Some are definitely more difficult than others, and images that clearly have a street sign or that are widely recognizable make me feel like I’m cheating in some way, like I didn’t put much effort into research. So, I’ll often challenge myself, spending hours, days, months with a picture, trying to find its locations. Google Maps has been a blessing, especially when trying to find out what locations looked like years ago.

I’ll read interviews with photographers and bands trying to find clues, sift through comments on social media, look at contact sheets if they’re available, investigate tour schedules and histories of the bands. It’s a lot but extremely satisfying when I finally track down a location.

Have you ever been unable to feature a photo because you couldn’t figure out where it was shot?

Definitely! I have a running list of images I continue to come back to because I haven’t been able to find the locations yet. 

Do you ever get to interact with or meet the photographers who took the original photos?

I’ve been fortunate to build relationship with a lot of photographers who have inspired me through the years—Charles Peterson of the Seattle grunge era being one of them, though I haven’t met him yet.

I had lunch with punk photography legends Lisa Johnson and Edward Colver the last time I was in L.A., just picking their brains and talking shop. It was great! 

It’s also been great to connect with musicians and bands. Funny story—a few years back, I woke up in the middle of the night to my phone going off from people who had started following me. I had notifications set up to be displayed on my home screen at the time. And while usually only a few would come in at a time, this was an absurd amount of traffic. 

I opened up my inbox and read one message from someone asking me why Justin Bieber was following me, and who the hell was I? Funny enough, Justin had also DM’ed me, sharing kind words about my work. We had a nice back and forth. I guess when he started following me, his fans were quick to notice.

How far out of your way have you gone to shoot a photo? 

As for just going to a location to capture an image, it would probably be a one-day trip from Philly to Nashville to visit Johnny Cash’s Cash Cabin. Johnny’s son, John Carter Cash, allowed me access, and I wanted to get these photographs before a new album was released. I had just gotten back from Nashville about a week or two before that, having been there for a work trip, and we couldn’t get it to line up when I was there.

So, I jumped on an early flight out of Philly to Nashville, rented a car, drove an hour to the location, spent 45 minutes visiting and capturing images at the site, grabbed a quick lunch and was back on a plane and home in time for a late dinner.

Do you have plans to share The Band Was Here beyond social media? Maybe in the form of a documentary or a book?

I just wrapped up on the edit of an episode. It’s a traveling show about music history and the locations of iconic album covers. I’ll be sharing a trailer online, and I’m hoping someone is interested in backing more episodes.

Many people have approached me about doing a book, but getting the rights to the original images seems to be difficult. Perhaps I could work exclusively with a photographer to do a book. Selling prints or merch is a possibility as well. 

I’ve always loved the thought of these images blown up, beyond our phone screens, and displayed in a gallery with some words accompanying the images about how they were found or their history. 

At this point, I really want to expand it beyond Instagram and see where it can go.