A Donkey Kong onesie costume, raspy voices, and the sounds of “Good 4 U” are typical sights and sounds at a Diet of Worms concert. 

But some members of this up-and-coming student band say they never would have imagined themselves performing on stage.

“Before I got to this campus, I really enjoyed music. I liked to sing, but only within the confines of my room,” junior vocalist Rachel Houts said. “I never thought I was going to do anything music-related in college.” 

Houts was not the only Diet of Worms member not dreaming of the spotlight prior to college.

“When I was younger I wanted to be in a band, but I’m kind of introverted,” junior bassist Matthew Karten said. “I didn’t really have that many great connections. So this group just kind of happened, but I didn’t imagine it would be anything like this. And it’s a lot more chaotic than I thought it would be. But that’s okay.” 

But others, like sophomore pianist Erik Teder, have always had a musical itch. 

“For me, it’s always been the goal,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to jam with my friends who are musical.” 

But despite having musical friends throughout high school, he could never convince his friends to play together. 

“I’d been kind of clawing at every musical person I knew in high school and trying to form a band and I just couldn’t pull it together,” he said. “Then, when we got here, obviously, that changed.”

It is thanks in large part to Teder’s dedication to getting a musical group together that the band got its start. 

“The original Diet of Worms was three people. It was Erik, Luke Avery, and I,” sophomore lead vocalist Aidan Christian said. “It started because Erik, the first week on campus, walked around to everybody and said, ‘Do you know how to play an instrument or sing? Do you want to be in a band?’ And I guess it started with us in the first floor lobby of Galloway.”

The newly-formed band, however, knew they needed more members with a wider range of musical abilities. 

“I met Erik at the Lutheran Society kickoff bonfire,” Houts said. “One of my friends was like, ‘Oh, Rachel sings,’ and he just turned to me and was like, ‘You want to be in a band?’”

The band now consists of Houts, Karten, Teder, Christian, sophomore lead guitarist Luke Avery, sophomore guitarist Summerlin Williams, senior drummer Carter McNish, and senior saxophone player Daniel Ladzinski. 

“Erik actually asked so many people that the original band group chat had like 18 people in it that we never saw,” Christian said. “You just have to cast a wide net, though.”

Besides gathering members for the band, the group also had to decide on a name, which was not easy.

“We had signed up to play at Phi Mu Battle of the Bands. We had put our names down, we got our slot, and we were super excited,” Houts said. “Then the president emails us and is like, ‘Okay, well, you have to have a name for the group.’ We’re like, ‘Shoot.’ So we spent a long time brainstorming during rehearsals. We had no good options.”

The members suggested many names, with only a few making the top rankings. 

“Our original name was Modest Mouse Cover Band: The Band,” Christian said. “That name floated around a few times during brainstorming. I really thought it was a keeper.”

But ultimately, it was McNish who coined the name. 

“Carter came up with the name Diet of Worms because he’s Catholic,” Christian said. “Of course, Diet of Worms is the edict that formally separated Martin Luther from the Catholic Church in the 1500s.”

As Hillsdale students, keeping the Protestant versus Catholic debate in their band name made sense and added to the humor. 

“But that wasn’t really why we chose it,” Houts said. “It was just like ‘Wow, that sounds kind of metal.’”

The band’s first formal event together was last year at Galloway Residence’s annual Halloween celebration, known as Galloween. 

“We advertised that so hard,” Teder said. “I had run around to the blackboards and written ‘Galloween! Pull up! Campus’ best band at 8 p.m.’”

“I remember the entire week leading up to Galloween I was going, ‘You need to come watch my band. You need to come watch my band at this dorm event,’” Christian said. “I think that was the largest turnout for a Galloween in history.” 

Following their historic Galloween performance, the band was energized and excited to play more. Since then, they have done just that, playing at several campus events last spring and welcoming students back to campus this fall at Welcome Party last month. 

Despite having played more shows, one thing left to establish is the genre of music that the band is known for. 

“I feel like our go-to genre is hard to pinpoint right now because we’re kind of in flux,” Houts said. “What we’ve been doing is a lot of ‘Okay, we like this song. Let’s play it.’ I feel like we found that it can be hard to engage an audience that way. So we’re kind of trying to figure out where the line is between ‘Oh, we can play our fun, obscure stuff,’ and ‘We’re gonna play what people want to hear.’” 

Christian said he thinks the band’s genre is a bit easier to identify.

“I think if you had to put a genre on it, you would just say pop rock,” he said. “Then again, if you go look at our most repeated song, it’s ‘Good 4 U’ by Olivia Rodrigo. It goes hard. People love that song. We love that song.”

This year the band members said they are looking forward to better establishing themselves as a band and performing at more campus events. 

“I think a lot of this year’s going to be trying to figure out how you start as a joke and turn it into something that you feel comfortable putting a lot of work into,” Houts said. “It’s not an easy thing for any of us. It’s obviously a huge time commitment. And so I think we’re just past the stage where we want this to be just silly. And we would like to actually be good.” 

This school year provides them a new opportunity to reestablish themselves as a group and to continue in the progress they made last year.

“This is a new era in a lot of ways and we’re still figuring out exactly how a lot of that is gonna look like,” Teder said, “but we learned a lot last year and we all have a vision of what we want Diet of Worms to be, so it’s how do we reconcile that into who we actually become? So we’re really intentional about that this year.”