Last November, the winner of the Duke/UNC Battle of the Bands was announced. Duke emerged triumphant as The Pulsar Triyo walked away with the prize package, which included $750 in winnings and a gig at the Lincoln Theater in Raleigh. Now, four months after the battle, The Pulsar Triyo is showing no signs of slowing down.
“It's an interesting time for us right now,” Pulsar Li, the band's pianist, said. “This is prime time. We're at our best.”
The Pulsar Triyo formed last year after a fortuitous meeting between Li and sophomore drummer Eric Bishop—also a member of the Duke band Kody—at a jazz ensemble practice. When they finally began to play together in the second semester, Li and Bishop auditioned other musicians.
When they heard bassist Zach Kilgore, they knew he was right for the position. “He was perfect,” Li said.
Originally, the band was going to call themselves “Trio,” but originality intervened and a “y” was added. It still didn't seem right.
“'Triyo' by itself was too ambitious,” Li explained. “While we do embody the true culmination of a trio, we're just not that cocky.” And so, they added Li's name in front to display humility.
Instead of following the normal college band routine and playing rock and roll, The Pulsar Triyo tried something new. As a self-proclaimed “modern jazz-funk” unit, they understand that their music is not mainstream yet they remain unfazed.
“Jazz is just a whole different universe, a whole different dimension,” Li explained. “You have to listen more and be more attentive to the music itself.”
Moreover, to The Pulsar Triyo, jazz music is simply more provocative. “There are so many intricacies in jazz than most other music forms,” Bishop said.
“We seek to be ambitious in our music, and modern jazz-funk allows us to do that,” Li said. “We like to funk out, and so does everyone else. Everybody wins that way.”
What the band prides itself on is its live show. An audience member at a Pulsar Triyo concert can expect anything from improvised six-song medleys to covers of Britney Spears' “Toxic” to a new song's spontaneous birth. “That's the great thing about jazz and improvisation,” Bishop said. “A song can take any form you want it to.”
“What makes The Pulsar Triyo so fun for me is that we work with each other not as bandmates, not as musicians, and not as coworkers,” Li said. “I just like to look at these guys as friends. It's an honor that I get to play with [them].” That chemistry is what helped The Pulsar Triyo win last year's Battle of the Bands. However, although they have been crowned the best band between Duke and UNC, they are modest about it.
“There were so many great bands out there,” Bishop said. “I was sure they were going to win. However, winning only made us work harder at our music. It put a pressure on us to be even better.”
To some students, the musical caliber of the Duke music scene may be in question. The Pulsar Triyo attributes this critique not to the talent of other Duke bands but rather to the interest of the student body as a whole.
“I'm from New Jersey, and whenever there was a free show there, the floor would be packed,” Li explained. “Here, it's totally different. People here are going to be CEOs and doctors. Music often isn't on their radar.”
However, Kilgore sees the scene here as improving. “Because of All Campus Entertainment [a Union-sponsored outlet for Duke bands on campus], the music scene has been much more publicized,” he said.
In the end, though, The Pulsar Triyo will continue to play regardless of the state of interest in Duke students.
“This is music made for ourselves,” Kilgore said. “If people enjoy what we dig on, then that's alright with me.”
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