Bass? Bumping. Students? Jumping. Pink Monster Energy? Flowing. Friday night, the first floor of the Student Center was energetically vibrant, temporarily turned into a music venue for a clash like no other: Battle of the Bands.
Battle of the Bands, hosted by the Student Events and Activities Council (SEAC), is a yearly showcase of a handful of the talented musicians that Seattle University has to offer. This year displayed a wide variety of artistry, featuring indie rock bands, a DJ that threw it back to the 2010s (queue “Clarity” by Zedd) and string players, creating an amalgamation of sounds.
Battle of the Bands has been held at Seattle U for nearly 40 years, with past prizes ranging from cash to a performance slot at the end of the year music festival, Quadstock, which isn’t happening this year due to funding constraints.
For the first year since the COVID-19 pandemic, Battle of the Bands occurred in person rather than online. One band that performed, All Friends Here, said that the event finally taking place in person was a big draw for them to play. Last year, All Friends Here performed at Quadstock, so they were excited to perform again at Seattle U in the Battle of the Bands.
All Friends Here had a difficult time narrowing down which songs to perform in their ten-minute set; some of their songs are as long as half, if not longer, of the set, like their newest single, “Crack Your Mold,” which is six minutes long. Lead singer and Fourth-year Photography Major Fern Creson wanted to make sure that the audience got to hear the versatility of the band’s discography.
“We did a split set so people could hear a little bit of everything that we do. We have a heavy rock song, and then we have a super slow, chill song. Then we have kind of a Midwest emo track,” Creson said. “I feel like we make it a point to switch up our sound. Our sets are fun to play because it goes through such a wide variety of sounds. We don’t have a specific link.”
The lineup of musical acts also featured students from Cornish College of the Arts. Cam Catt, a Cornish first-year acting and original works major, was on the lineup of performances. Catt described his music as indie folk. He often uses descriptive lyricism to portray his experience being transgender, as well as his relationship with mental health. Catt creates most of his songs through GarageBand, contributing to the down-to-earth bedroom sound of his music.
“I like the sound that it gives of feeling like [you’re] someone peeking into someone’s actual life rather than it being super set up and filtered. Artists like that really inspire me because the thing that I want to convey most of all is authenticity, and I feel like this genre of music allows me to do that,” Catt said.
During his performance, Catt spoke up about transgender rights in light of recent anti-trans bills passed in Kansas. The bill, titled SB 244, demands a multitude of regulations, including driver identification to reflect sex at birth, as well as restricting the use of gender identity bathrooms by transgender people. His condemnation of the legislature was met with loud applause.
Battle of the Bands also featured performances from graduate students. One of these students, Mitchie Vega, a third-year in the mental health counseling program, is half of Cold Pizza, a Coldplay cover band that changes all the lyrics of classic Coldplay songs to be about pizza.
Vega and their bandmate formed Cold Pizza after participating in a talent showcase for their choir, the Seattle Trans and Nonbinary Choral Ensemble. The idea for the band name came from Vega’s experience in food service when he would make up food-themed lyrics at work.
Vega had always expressed an interest in music and grew up with musicians for family members. As he got older, he began to explore musical theater and other genres of music.
“I spent a lot of time as kind of a house DJ, more focused on electronic music, and then I got back into singing and classical and musical performance. As I was approaching my 30s and getting ready to go back to school, I began embracing my singing side a lot,” Vega said.
Some of the parody songs that Cold Pizza performed were Viva La Pizza, a parody of “Viva la Vida,” as well as Fixings, a parody of “Fix You.”
Lucas Haruto, a first-year criminology major and singer and pianist of the band Floor 2, chose to perform at Battle of the Bands after a friend of his recommended that he and his bandmates sign up.
“It was two days before the Battle of the Bands sign-up day. We were thinking about how we each play an instrument. We knew Cody can play the bass, we just needed a drummer. For the next two days we were scrambling around for a drummer and then one day Jason popped up, and we realized we could make a band,” Haruto said.
Floor 2 performed covers of “Santeria” by Sublime, “Snap Out Of It” by Arctic Monkeys and rounded out their set with an upbeat rendition of Miley Cyrus’ pop classic, “Party In The U.S.A.”
Another band that had the audience energized and dancing was Redwater, a band that pairs heavy blues with rock and roll. The drummer did tricks with his drumsticks, and the singer called everybody up to the foot of the stage, which brought high spirits throughout the set.
One Redwater member, Fourth-year Business Management major Gage Berger, explained that their song-making process is just as exciting as their shows.
“I’ll come to practice with a basic outline, and then we kind of jam on it and figure out what we like. Then we riff, and we throw in different ideas or improvise over it until we have something we like. The songs that we played tonight are a lot more structured, but usually [the songs] we play are super improvised,” Gage said.
SEAC also set up a green room for the performers, complete with snacks and drinks to provide the musicians with not only hospitality, but also to imitate what their experience would be like if they were in a professional music space.
“We want this to be a sort of stepping stone in terms of professional development. We try our best to tend to our students who are performing in this event as if they were professional, true artists out in the real world. With that comes letting them know what our expectations are. They’re performing for us, so we want to make sure that it’s not just something that’s transactional,” Josslyn Chavarria, president of SEAC, said.
The “Battle” aspect of the night came towards the end of the event, when ballots were passed around for attendees to vote for their favorite band or performance. The prize money for first place was $500, taken out of the annual funding for SEAC.
Bandwidth, the pop-rock band that took first place, played covers of famous songs such as “She Looks so Perfect” by 5 Seconds of Summer and “Iris” by the Googoo Dolls. In a message to The Spectator, Andrew Yang, a third-year electrical engineering student and trumpet player for Bandwidth, shared his gratitude for the opportunity Battle of the Bands gave them.
“We are extremely happy about winning Battle of the Bands and are extremely grateful to everyone who showed up to our debut and supported us…For more Bandwidth we will hopefully be playing at a few of the culture clubs!” Yang said.
Second place was awarded to Kimchi, an artist with an eclectic EDM sound and third place was given to Bliss, an alt-rock band. Beyond the recognition and awards, all performers took home a taste of the stage and an inspiration to continue their musical journeys in preparation for next year’s battle.