The Student Activities Board announced not one, but two winners of the Band Hero competition yesterday. The two bands will open Centralhallapalooza on April 25 after they agreed to share a backline for their performances.
Student bands Holy Moses and Sonic Schizophrenic took 30 percent and 24 percent of the student vote, respectively. Even though Holy Moses claimed more votes, Director of Student Activities Anthony Manno said SAB wanted to give both bands a chance to perform.
“I think the margin was 11-13 votes, and we felt that was a small margin,” Manno said. “That’s why Sonic Schizophrenic will be opening the show followed by Holy Moses.”
Manno said the original plan involved only one student band performing at Centralhallapalooza, but SAB wanted to accommodate both because “we didn’t want to compromise one or the other band.”
“The initial agreement was one opening band. We have one stage and having three backlines is a lot of stuff, and four is a mess,” Manno said. “Set changes take up to a half hour. What we worked out was we contacted both bands and said if you’re willing to share a backline, we’ll have both perform. That way the set change is minimal.”
A backline is the sound equipment used by bands during a stage performance — this includes amplification equipment and sometimes drum sets, guitars, keyboards, and synthesizers. Because backlines can vary greatly between different bands, for two bands to share a backline can be a risk.
“If you contract, you don’t share a backline,” Manno said. “You want to use your own amps and drum set because it sounds different. So this is a big deal, but we’ll work it out.”
The members of Holy Moses said they would “coordinate for a speedy stage transition.”
“And everyone should ask for an encore, because our encore is going to be awesome,” lead singer Ian Andrews ’14 said.
Holy Moses originally formed in 2012 when Andrews watched senior band member Tim Allen play with the Pickled Beats.
“I saw Tim Allen when I was a sophomore playing with the Pickled Beats his freshman year, and I knew I had seen one of the best guitar players,” Ian Andrews said. “So I went up to him and said ‘Hey man, you’re really good, we should jam.’”
Bassist senior Mike Ragan joined Allen and Andrews to perform at Centralhallapalooza 2012, and Andrews’ brother freshman Aaron Andrews joined the band this year as the drummer.
“For both Aaron and I, it’s been a dream come true to be able to put together a rock band and play together,” Ian Andrews said. “He is one of the most independent people I know, and a better musician than me by far, so I think he won’t have any trouble putting a band together of his own after we leave.”
Ragan, whom Ian Andrews described as “the most beautiful member and the most easygoing,” said that while Allen and Ian Andrews have “remarkable talent,” performing outside Hillsdale will be an unfulfilled dream for Holy Moses.
“It’s hard stylistically to come up with a venue in Hillsdale, and Ian’s all graduated and has a wife now and a job and a life, and the rest of us are all hardworking Hillsdale students,” Ragan said. “If we are going to go play outside of Hillsdale we’d have to write our own music and travel, on top of everything else we have going on. I believe we could be excellent if we had the time.”
“In another life, we could be a professional rock band,” Ian Andrews said.
Lead singer for Sonic Schizophrenic freshman Mark Naida said Sonic is honored to play with Holy Moses, which has won Battle of the Bands two years in a row.
“Whatever the vote count was, I feel honored to play with Holy Moses,” Naida said.
Sonic Schizophrenic is comprised of six Phi Mu Alpha fraternity members and came together at this year’s Battle of the Bands, covering what Naida described as “obscure tracks.”
“But people really liked it,” Naida said. “We were like a Red Hot Chili Peppers band. We thought Band Hero looked really cool and rebooted and came up with some cool songs to play. We had a lot bigger crowd and got a lot of our friends to show up.”
Naida said he is confident Sonic Schizophrenic will have a solid lineup of songs to perform next Saturday when the band opens for Holy Moses.
“We had our first rehearsal last night, and we were able to play five songs in an hour,” Naida said. “We pick things up pretty fast.”
Sonic Schizophrenic will perform at 7:15 p.m., followed by Holy Moses at 8 p.m., Chris Lane at 9 p.m., and Natalie Stovall at 10:30 p.m. on April 25 at Centralhallapalooza.
