MUSIC
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Have you ever thought
about being in a band?
Meet the guys from Dead
Ringers: Ben Thrasher
(vocals), Max Holtman
(guitar and vocals), Drew
Phillips (bass), Ryan
Walstrom (drums), and
Tim Graupner (keyboard)
blend of inspiration
from all of our favorite
bands or something that
sounds really great live,
and the audience enjoys
it as much as we do.
All I know is that with
each song we write,
there is always some
small section that feels
like the height of the
song to me. I am always
students that have been in
an alternative rock band for
over three years. Here is
what some of the members
have to say about the time,
dedication, and heart they
put into being musicians
who work together:
writing songs looking for
that again and again.
Drew Phillips - Bass
The exhilaration that
Ryan Walstrom - Drums
Being in a band is one of
the most exhausting yet
rewarding feelings of my
life. I can’t say that I’ve
enjoyed all of what comes
with it, but I’m glad all of it
happened.
Being a high school band,
to be taken seriously. We’re still young
now, and when we were even younger,
we weren’t near t’s as if that cd ly as
good. Finding venues has always been
a challenge for us, especially since,
being minors, playing in bars has never
been an option. However, though it
takes a bit of searching, we manage
passionate about performing music to
make ourselves known, and perform our
original songs.
Writing original material can be a
especially with all of our different
preferences in music. Trying to
compose an entirely original piece of
music together can be tedious and full
of arguing (it almost always is), but it’s
also the one experience that makes
each of us invested in the band. Playing
covers is fun, but writing music has
rewards of its own. It allows expression
from all of us in a whole new form we
had never known.
Though the feeling of writing our own
music is compensation enough for the
16 Inspired
time and work, my favorite part of being
in a band has been recording what we
come up with. It takes all of the hard
work we’ve put in over the previous
few months and allows us to make it
permanent. It’s an area that requires
a lot of devotion to the quality of the
result of all your work in your hands. It’s
as if that CD is the embodiment of all
that you put into the band. In a sense,
it’s a piece of you and each band
member that you all put together to
make something.
It’s not always fun, and it certainly isn’t
times being in a band, and there’s
without a doubt a lot more to come, but
if I could go back, I wouldn’t change a
thing.
Max Holtman - Guitar
I think that we are all looking for
working together. What that may be is
something different for each of us, and
it’s always changing. It could be writing
a particular song that is the perfect
song or performing in
front of an audience - or
even just getting through
three bars of “Do I
Wanna Know” with a
friend - is something that
can be found nowhere
else. Its addictive under
the right circumstances.
And rather than
absorbing and overtaking aspects of
my life it becomes an outlet for me to
me at the moment.
My part-time job, school, a radio show,
up nearly every hour in my day and
what the biggest struggle in the past
few years has been the balance of all
of these. As much as I’d like to spend
every night writing new songs, every
now and again you’ve got to write a
few papers and crack a few books.
Despite it taking up quite a lot of my
to write and think about new things to
add into different concepts for stories
or lyrics or song structures. Books and
poems like “The Metamorphosis” and
“The Rhime of the Ancient Mariner”
have brought me hundreds of great
new ways of looking at the world and
I’ve even written some of my best lyrics
during class. Though taking notes might
be a bit more traditional, taking in the
information in my own manner helps
me retain and know it better for longer