Making the Band...s

In a row of houses on Central Campus, the music stops at 10 p.m.

10 p.m. comes and goes, 6 a.m. comes and goes, and though a neighbor mandates silence, the masterminds behind that music can't be made to stop thinking and tapping their feet. And in between tuning their instruments for Coffeehouse gigs, touring colleges and recording debut albums, Duke's student bands don't stop dreaming big.

The music scene consists of several groups, whose members are more likely to be found in Sanford or Teer than in a music class in Biddle. Stella by Starlight's keyboardist harbors aspirations of producing music for Britney Spears, and the singer for Luego served a stint as a nude model for a Durham art class. The vocalist for the Soulless Dogs Blues Band builds his own amps, and Panda Force's vocalist performed in the campus production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. But despite their eclectic first impressions, they have some things in common: all the bands want to stay together after graduating, record full-length albums and play great music.

"The goal is to make it," says junior Spike Brehm, who plays bass in both Luego and the Soulless Dogs Blues Band. The other members nod in agreement, fingertips drumming on the tables and itching to get back to practicing. "We want to get famous, really."

With majors from art history to engineering and biology, the members of these bands could have stayed on the well-worn path to Teach for America or Wall Street. But even though they march to the beat of a different drummer when it comes to future careers, they are Duke students through and through.

"We practice at least four times a week, and play at least twice a week," says Julian Dawes, Trinity '07, the bassist for Smooch. He sits on a plastic lawn chair in the middle of the band's practice house on Alexander Drive, given to them for free from the University. Senior Will Arnold-guitarist and the epitome of "rock star" with shaggy hair, tight jeans and a cigarette-adds that the band used to jam till the sun rose, the night being the only time all five members could coordinate their schedules, keeping themselves wired with caffeine and nicotine and ambition. They smile, get up from the ratty couch in the middle of the kitchen and say they have to unload their cars from a gig they had the night before. The band's gotta practice, after all.

Smooch might attribute its success to Spanish-speaking countries. Guitarist Peter More and drummer Edward Wardle, both seniors, began playing together during their semester abroad in Madrid in Fall 2006. When they returned to Duke, the picked up Dawes, Arnold and senior Eric Griffin and began performing covers in bars and at parties. Last summer, the group solidified as a permanent band when they traveled to Mexico to visit More's friends, members of a band there called Pila Seca.

"We ended up going to Mexico and playing in nightclubs every night, and that's what galvanized us, that made us realize that this is more than just a hobby," More says.

"In terms of the arts in general, I'd say Duke is pretty pathetic," More says. Despite the University's concerted effort to focus on arts and bring artists to campus, band members says little administrative attention is paid to the initiatives students carry out on their own.

"I always thought it would be cool if Duke set up a concert for all student bands, like in Page [Auditorium]," says Dawes, who majored in art history. He and Wardle, a theater studies major, similarly lament a lack of support in those departments.

But student presence is another story. Gaining popularity through friends, word of mouth and Facebook, Smooch draws crowds to gigs at the Nasher and the James Joyce, and an attendance record around 300 at Devine's in early February. Though most of the fans are students, Arnold says Smooch is beginning to earn a local fanbase too.

"There's a woman who heard us playing and wandered in off the street. We were playing some Kings of Leon, and she said 'Oh my God, how do you know that band? That's my favorite band,'" Arnold says. "Now she comes to all our shows."

Stella by Starlight is no stranger to student fans either. Comprised of seniors Sonny Byrd, Nate Fowler and Greg Laird, the band recently filmed a student-made music video at Shooters featuring a party scene and a fight between people in animal costumes. The band is also gearing up to film another with MTVu and renowned dancer Kenichi Eniba, who is famous for doing the robot.

"I feel excessively famous on campus all the time," Laird jokes, and the rest of the band laughs even though they've racked up media attention lately for winning MTV's Woodie award for best college band, and were subsequently asked to host The Dean's List, a music program on the channel.

"I think Stella by Starlight is a campus celebrity-but [individually] we're not," Byrd says, adding that though people don't recognize him personally-an inconspicuous figure with modest facial hair and an old Simpsons T-shirt-heads turn and compliments fly as soon as they learn of his association with the band.

But despite their recent successes and the release of a second EP last month, the band is uncertain about its future after all three members graduate in May. Last year, the band played as a quartet, but after their bassist, Shuhei Yamamoto, Trinity '07, graduated, the group settled into a trio setting and continued sailing on smooth seas with one man down. Fowler, the band's keyboardist, plans to make the best of Stella until graduation, but after that plans to play music with another band. Byrd, the guitarist, wants to stay with the band as long as possible, and stay close to music after that through management or music mentoring, though he says he'd like to dabble in choreography as well.

"I will be in med school if this doesn't work out," drummer Laird says and fends off sympathetic glances from his bandmates.

But for now, the band-which takes its name from a jazz tune of the same name-is devoted to playing at their Central house, planning a Spring Break tour, and living it up during their last semester of college.

"I stay drunk about five or six times a week," Laird jokes and calls out Fowler for being the "band alcoholic." But really, they say that they all unwind through a shared hobby of cooking. While it may seem too quaint for an award-winning rock band, their eyes light up when they discuss their passion for slow-cookers, which Byrd describes as "the wave of the future."

All in all, Stella by Starlight can be considered a success story, and though they admit that being in a band has its difficulties, it's an incredibly rewarding experience. Conversations among the members are punctuated with jokes, riffs, memories of Fowler's short-lived rap career (his stage name was White Boy) and plans for opening for OK Go in K-ville and at Tulane's equivalent of Cameron Rocks!

"'Stella' is glam, 'Starlight' is emo-we're emo-glam-rock," Fowler laughs, and the restless band gears up for another night of practice on the eve of their EP release.

The Soulless Dogs Blues Band writes songs "about things people wouldn't usually write about"-like Nobel physicist Richard Feynman. In the Small Town Records studio beneath The Loop where the band is practicing for seven hours straight, bassist Spike Brehm takes breaks in between songs to do his homework. He and junior Ben Shelton-on guitar, keys and vocals-are both engineers, and besides being a highly acclaimed musician, Shelton's claim to fame is building his own amplifiers. But despite the themes of physics and engineering running throughout the lime-green studio, the Soulless Dogs are still an enthusiastic musical force to be reckoned with.

Fusing soul, jazz, gospel and funk, Brehm and Shelton play with junior George Dyer on guitar and Rob DiMauro on drums. DiMauro, who lives in Chapel Hill, was connected with the remaining members of the band through Pulsar Li, Trinity '07, founding member of last year's campus sensation, the Pulsar Triyo. DiMauro describes the band's sound as "Stevie Ray Vaughan meets Jackson Browne meets Stevie Wonder meets Steely Dan," and the rest nod in agreement.

The Soulless Dogs-like the other bands-live and breathe music, and hope to tour and make it big. But despite their love of the game (Brehm also plays in Luego), being both a musician and a student doesn't come without its sacrifices.

"It's hard-it pretty much takes up all my time, at the cost of hanging out with people," Brehm says. He also echoes Smooch's sentiments about an apparent lack of support from the University. "It's weird being a band at Duke, but you try to make this work. You don't feel like there's an appreciation for music."

But in the face of reality, the band is not discouraged-they're recording their first album, and these old Dogs are constantly learning new tricks.

"I started playing guitar seriously in college-Ben gave me some pointers," Dyer says. "He yells at me a lot."

Shelton laughs. "He responds by going back and practicing."

They play a recording of one of their songs-the one about Richard Feynman-and their smiles get big, their eyes get proud, and they nod along to every riff and burst out in song together on the chorus. The Small Town Records studio is a happy place and the Soulless Dogs know it.

Panda Force, a relative newcomer on the student band scene, is made up of sophomores David Munoz, Navid Nafissi, Sam Schlinkert and Aidan Stallworth. These guys love what they do.

"I think that's the thing that unifies us the most, is our love for music," vocalist Stallworth says in between fits of laughter, because the guys never stop throwing meaningful glances at each other across the table and telling inside jokes.

They have trouble identifying themes in their music, tossing around words like "happy, upbeat, sunny," "free life" or "philosophical." They settle on indecision, and say that their sound and their ideas are still evolving. They glean some inspiration from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Beatles (a common denominator among all the groups), but they also respect the other bands on campus. Maybe the other bands are role models, or maybe developing a music scene on campus just requires a precedent and initiative.

"Soulless Dogs was one of the first bands I saw freshman year, and I was excited that a band like that could exist on campus," Schlinkert says.

So freshman year they got together, developed a cohesive entity and started taking themselves seriously (besides the constant laughter, that is). They say they love each other and have avoided a band fight in the year of their existence.

"The reason the band works is not that we're the four best musicians," says Schlinkert, who plays the bass. "It's because we all get along."

Cue the awws, but Panda Force knows what's up. They honed in on the deal with the Central band houses, they're recording at Small Town Records, and they've played at the Coffeehouse and at several parties.

"What the family and the world gets to know is that I want to be a clinical psychologist," Stallworth says. "But if the band makes it, I'm with the band."

Luego is a band that has been through many line-ups, with Brehm and vocalist Patrick Phelan, Trinity '07, the only original members left. Cellist Dan Carlin, Trinity '07, and drummer Dan Cook, a senior, joined during the summer and fall of this year (along with Phelan's dog Zoe, who allegedly barks along when the band rehearses). Luego's looking to record a full-length album this summer and tour up and down the east coast.

"Patrick is the driving force behind this band," Brehm says. "He wants to be on the cover of Rolling Stone."

Each of the members identifies most closely with a different musical genre, and brings the style to the band's table. Brehm claims funk, Cook jazz, Carlin classical and Phelan folk. "When it all does come together, it's cool," Brehm says.

Touring every weekend to places like Chattanooga, Knoxville, Wilmington and Atlanta, Luego is beginning to carve out a niche for itself and forging connections with other musicians. Admittedly they say being in a band takes work, but it's their life, essentially, and they wouldn't trade it for anything. The ultimate reward for them is seeing people enjoying their show and noticing their sound.

"We see people turn around and curl their lip, girls take their shirts off," Phelan says.

The band tours in "The Grocery-Getter," their 1992 Chevy G20 conversion van that they can't discuss with a straight face. With a TV, enough space for Brehm and Phelan to rehearse on the road, and a stock supply of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and goldfish, the Grocery-Getter doesn't let the band down on the road, getting them to gigs where they play with the likes of State Radio and Chatham County Line.

Similarly to the other bands, Luego has a dream, and with every song and every chord is slowly inching toward it. When Cook and Brehm graduate, Luego hopes it will still be together. Sticking around in Durham to play with the band, Carlin delivers sandwiches for Jimmy John's, and Phelan works as a file clerk at Duke Hospital and as a towel boy at Wilson Gym. Day jobs are all well and good, but this band's got places to be.

So Brehm talks about "making it"-all the bands talk about making it. Besides their music, perhaps the best quality of Duke's student bands is their unadulterated hope for the future. The future vibrates in the air between the riffs they cut and the beats they throw, and all the bands have something going for them. They want to make it, and the old, white houses on Alexander Drive-with music engrained into their walls-have everything to show for it.