So many popular and successful bands form on college campus. Why not? It's an environment that endorses and encourages the coming together of individuals with similar interests. Vampire Weekend, Coldplay, MGMT, Passion Pit and Death Cab for Cutie, just to name a few, are some of today's thriving bands that were born and bloomed in a college dorm room.
Likewise, the Hill is filled with musically talented Jumbos. Every weekend, there seems to be an a cappella show, a band performing or some sort of demonstration of Tufts' musical and artistic prowess. Specifically, in terms of music, the Tufts campus is booming with incredibly talented student bands of many different genres, and the student-run group AppleJam Productions supports these student bands' passions.
AppleJam is a student-run group on campus that helps these student bands get out there, book gigs and perform in places on campus - like the Crafts House or the Sophia Gordon Multipurpose Room - or in the surrounding area. AppleJam has already had more than five concerts this year and has presented an amalgam of different bands on the Tufts campus, including Parquet Courts, The Love Experiment, Beach Cops, Indoor Kites, The Rare Occasions, Indian Twin, Honey Baby and many more. The Daily sat down for an interview with Indian Twin, Indoor Kites and The Rare Occasions to get a feel for how they came together, their music and their plans for the future.
Indian Twin
One of the many wittily named student bands on campus is an all-freshman student band called Indian Twin. Comprised of freshmen SoubhikBarari, Will Freeman and Thomas Colgrove, the trio plays what they call a "lovepunk" genre of music.
All three band members have been musically inclined from a very young age. Soubhik has been singing Hindustani classical music since he was a child and began to learn the guitar in eighth grade. Meanwhile, Freeman and Colgrove both learned the cello before shifting their attention to the electric guitar and the drums, respectively. Additionally Freeman also plays the mandolin and taught himself how to play the accordion.
"Indian Twin" came together at the beginning of last semester, the band members' first semester at Tufts. The trio met through a serendipitous twist of fate in late September and decided to have regular jam sessions and song writing congregations in Granoff Music Center, which they now call their "second home," after their downhill dorm rooms in Lewis and South Halls. Their musical chemistry soon proliferated into song writing sessions in their favorite place for jamming.
These song-writing sessions do not go to waste, as basically all of the songs they perform, with the exception of "Tunnels" by Arcade Fire, are originals. The favorite of the band is a charmingly named song "Farradaydream." Indian Twin says that their inspirations for playing and writing music are The Jesus and Mary Chain, Slowdive and Joy Division, and says that their shoegaze/punk blend inspired them to create their original "lovepunk" genre.
Though they have already performed three shows on the Tufts campus, most recently in the Sophia Gordon Multipurpose Hall on Feb. 2, along with The Rare Occasions, Salt Mill Showdown, JG and the Funky Bunch and Semi-Serious, Indian Twin also plan on performing a show on March 8 as well as a show in Boston late in March. They also have two of their songs up on the music website Bandcamp for download.
Indoor Kites
Many bands at Tufts seem to play music under the indie-rock genre. The band Indoor Kites also consists of all-freshman members - four, to be exact. AanshKapadia, Sam Worthington, Sawyer McLaughlin and Aaron Fernandez make up the band, with Kapadia on rhythm guitar and Worthington on lead guitar. Both guitarists sing vocals. McLaughlin plays bass for the band, and Fernandez keeps the beat going for them on the drums.
For most people, coming to college is a nerve-wracking exercise in the art of finding people whom you can call your friends. The members of Indoor Kites, however, found each other with no trouble at all. Kapadia and Worthington are roommates in Bush Hall, and the two of them found McLaughlin just a few doors down on their floor. Their fortunate meeting brought them together and led them on a search for the missing piece to their Indoor Kite: a drummer. Where better to look than Facebook? They placed a request for a drummer on a group called "Musicians Collective at Tufts" and found what they were looking for in Fernandez.
The band played its first show alongside Indian Twin, The Rare Occasions and textbookcopilot, a Boston-based band, and have played one other show since then. Indoor Kites' members set up their second show by themselves, playing an off-campus basement venue known as Fort Warner. Their weekly practices are obviously paying off.
While most of Indoor Kites' songs are original, the band at its last show broke out a cover of "Distopian Dream Girl" by Built to Spill. The band is on a roll, as it's been only one semester and they've already written 10 songs. They are in the works of writing a new one, which they predict will be their new favourite because of its "surfy Pixies-and Dinosaur Jr.-feel, as well as [its] Wavves style of fuzz pop." Currently, however, their favorite song is "Saturday." This Tufts indie-rock, pop-punk band has been inspired by an amalgam of musicians, from Cloud Nothings and Pavement. The band says that that other than performing more and radiating their virtuoso desires, they are all "pretty interested in becoming indoor kite fliers."
The Rare Occasions
If college bands are cool, cross-campus collaborations are even cooler. The Rare Occasions comprises two Tufts students - junior Brian McLaughlin and sophomore Peter Stone - and two juniors from Berklee College of Music, performance and music major Jeremy Cohen, film scoring student Luke Imbusch.
"We've been musicians our entire lives," McLaughin, who sings lead vocals and plays the keyboard, guitar and ukulele, said. McLaughin and Imbusch were in a band called The Valar together in Providence, R.I. before they moved to Boston for college and found new band members at their respective universities.
After winning the Tufts Battle of The Bands last year, The Rare Occasions got to open for Guster and Lupe Fiasco at Spring Fling on the Hill last year - not a bad deal for a first show. They've also played in several venues around the Boston area as well as around the Providence area. The Rare Occasions, which considers itself a garage rock band, has played twenty-three shows in total while simultaneously writing new songs and recording new tracks.
The band reports that live performances give them a good opportunity to learn what works and what doesn't with its songs, and it also practices weekly at the Berklee College of Music. Once in a while The Rare Occasions will play covers at their shows, but, like the Indoor Kites, their songs are largely original. The band members' current favorite song is their original track "Miss Mary Mack," for which they've also created a music video.
This band's hard work appears to be paying off. In the near future, they planning to release an EP, compete in a music search conducted by local radio station WBRU - which regularly plays The Rare Occasions' songs - and are even hoping to tour with bands Airacuda and The Shones this spring.
As we can see, the Hill is flush with musical talent. These three bands are just a taste of the many bands that count Tufts students among their members. What with weekly practices, original songs and regular shows, it won't be a surprise if we see some of these bands up on the President's Lawn at Spring Fling-or, perhaps in the future, living out their musical dreams somewhere much more prestigious.
