Dan Satterberg: Music Man

The King County Prosecutor can slap a mean bass.

King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg has a gig this Wednesday, and it’s not in court. It’s at the Tin Theater in Burien, where Satterberg’s band, the Treehouse Dreamers, will help launch an Internet radio station.

Wait, what?

That’s right. Satterberg plays in a band. Actually two. The Treehouse Dreamers perform original music, some written by Satterberg. And then there’s his cover band, the Approximations.

“I’ve been playing bass with some of the same guys in these two bands since high school,” Satterberg explains in an e-mail to SW. His other “instrument,” as he puts it in an online profile for the Approximations—a band that also includes a Microsoftie, a corporate lawyer, and a CFO—is “screaming vocals.”

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Good to know that the guy who locks up murderers and rapists also has a sense of humor, as well as musical skills. And judging by the samples on the Treehouse Dreamers’ website (treehousedreamers.com), he’s pretty good, too. The sound is basically classic rock, but there are self-described disco and punk influences too.

There are also some lyrics that, considering Satterberg is a Republican, sound suspiciously bleeding-heart liberal. One song urges “compassion and social justice” for the “mouths that still need feeding.” Another is called “The Waltz of the Robber Baron,” with a verse that goes like this:

Demanding attention wherever he speaks

Exhorting the strong and deriding the weak

He’ll show you his fist

Knowing you won’t resist

He’s a Capitalist

OK, so those songs weren’t actually written by Satterberg. It’s just that one of his numbers compares writers to monkeys, so we’re doing our best not to focus on that.

“I’m not giving up my day job,” Satterberg assures SW.

His gig on Wed., Feb. 15 is at 5:30 p.m. and will help launch SoKing Internet Radio, which is affiliated with a half-dozen local blogs in south King County, including The B-Town Blog in Burien.