Runaround, an all-senior campus band, secured its first win of the annual campus-wide Battle of the Bands competition hosted by the men’s music fraternity Theta Epsilon at Elks Lodge Oct. 17. 

“The concept for Battle is to get a bunch of bands together to play live music, compete, and have fun,” said Daniel Doyle, the lead singer for Runaround. “I’ve heard from a lot of alumni that it’s a lot more impressive now than it was when it began around 10 years ago.” 

The competition pits five campus bands against each other, and  judges evaluate their stage presence, performance, song selection, and technical ability. The judges panel this year consisted of Nathan Schlueter, professor of philosophy; Paul Schmitt, associate professor of chemistry; and Christopher Hamilton, professor of chemistry. Runaround secured the win by one point, beating Jett Cruz and the Bahama Mamas, which finished second, and Backspace, which finished third. 

Doyle, who is a member of Theta Epsilon fraternity, said that his involvement in the fraternity has helped him enter more fully into the band presence on campus. 

“I’ve sang for a while, and I play guitar a lot, but I got interested in Theta because I heard that live music and bands were a thing, and I thought that was cool,” Doyle said. “When you play with really good musicians, you can put together really good songs that are artistic and are truly like art.” 

Senior Aidan Christian, lead singer for Jett Cruz and the Bahama Mamas, said that singing and performing are the best forms of creative expression he has found. 

“When you’re up on stage it’s easy to forget about the audience because it’s loud and all you can hear is your band mates and yourself,” Christian said. “It’s freeing. It feels like catharsis.” 

Junior Henry Webster, a new Theta Epsilon pledge and member of Bottom Dollar, said the pledges were excited to play their first event as a full group. 

“We had a really good crowd, bigger than we had expected,” Webster said. “In the past, Theta hasn’t done a pledge band at Battle, so this was a new experience for everyone.” 

Christian sees the excitement of starting a band among freshmen as the legacy that the current seniors will leave behind.
“It feels like almost every freshman class comes in, and a bunch of freshmen say I need to form a band, which is exactly what happened to us,” Christian said. “It keeps happening, and it keeps happening, and I just hope it doesn’t die, because that would be a tragedy, not just for the musicians themselves, but for all of campus.”

Doyle said he hopes that events like Battle of the Bands will continue to draw campus interest in the future, especially after his graduation. 

“Every senior talks about how graduating feels scary because there’s a bunch of people in the senior class who are super involved in the band culture, so there’s a little fear as to who’s gonna pick up the mantle,” Doyle said. “But then we get to see a band like Backspace, that placed third and played phenomenally. It’s mostly juniors and sophomores, so they’ll be around next year, and that’s really hopeful for the future.”