The Hoya: The Guide: January 17, 2014

January 17, 2014

MUSIC ISSUE

Table of Contents 4 5 6 7 8 10 11

Tate Tucker Evan Floyd Old Moonlight Mellen The Ripples Daniel Breland & Louis De Tilly Zoe Rosen & Sam Pence

the guide EMMA HINCHLIFFE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF SHEENA KARKAL MANAGING EDITOR IAN TICE LAYOUT EDITOR

KIM BUSSING GUIDE EDITOR TM GIBBONS-NEFF EXECUTIVE EDITOR ROBERT DEPAOLO COPY CHIEF

ALEXANDER BROWN PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR Allie Hillsbery Jess Kelham-Hohler Lindsay Leasor

Deputy Guide Editor Deputy Guide Editor Deputy Guide Editor

Jackie McCadden Zack Saravay Sharanya Sririam

Front Cover: Mellen | Photo Courtesy Clare Donnelly Back Cover: Evan Floyd | Photo Courtesy Evan Floyd

Deputy Copy Editor Deputy Copy Editor Deputy Copy Editor

Listen to samplings of the featured artist’s work online at thehoya.com

HITTING THE RIGHT NOTES

Photo courtesy Tate Tucker

F

rom rapping with professional musicians to creating music in their dorm rooms, Georgetown artists vary in style. In this special music issue of the guide, meet these talented student bands and artists,

including Mellen, Old Moonlight, The Ripples and Tate Tucker. Learn about what drives their particular brands of creativity and their backstories. See thehoya.com for an exclusive playlist featuring tracks from every musician.

Tate Tucker

COL ’14 | Rap

JOSEPH KUPERSCHMIDT Hoya Staff Writer

Photo courtesy NextGen Journal

Photo courtesy Pigeons & Planes

Photo courtesy Tate Tucker

4 | THE GUIDE

Photo courtesy DJBooth

Although Tate Tucker (COL ’14) no longer studies in the School of Foreign Service, that hasn’t stopped him from making a global impact. A California native, Tucker has been rapping since high school, and his talent has scored him millions of views on YouTube, huge performance opportunities and international recognition.

Long before “Harlem Shake” clips had gone viral, Tucker recorded his own version of the song, which ended up being a massive milestone for him.

“At the time it was the craziest thing ever,” Tucker said. “We shot the video like three months before the whole craze happened. My manager at the time was all about the future. ‘We’re going to be ahead of everything’; that’s how he approached me at one of my shows when we met. He was like, ‘In three months, this will be the thing.’”

And his manager was right. Tucker’s video has been viewed over six million times. “It was still pretty surprising,” Tucker said. “He obviously didn’t think it was going to be to that extent.”

Considering Tucker’s success, it’s shocking to think he considered quitting rap upon being accepted to Georgetown.

“I got into rapping just as a hobby in high school because it got me into parties, and it was a cool thing to do.

And as soon as I got into Georgetown, I wanted nothing to do with it,” Tucker said. He had his mind set on success, which he believed he would find in the SFS. “I was on my fast track to becoming something or someone. I didn’t quite know what, but I knew it was going to be something political and powerful.

So, the School of Foreign Service was my passion at the time,” Tucker said.

When he arrived on campus, however, his plans changed after performing for one of rap music’s biggest stars.

“My friend invited me to go to his ‘Sociology of Hip Hop’ class with Professor Michael Eric Dyson, and I rapped for him. I was a big fan of him before the class, so it was awesome that he said he liked it,” Tucker said. “We bumped into him at Wisey’s, and he said that he was going to have Lupe Fiasco come into class the next week. He wanted me to come in and rap for him.”

Following his performance for Fiasco, which received positive reception on numerous blogs and Facebook pages, opportunities opened for Tucker as a rapper.

“That was the start. A lot of differ-

ent people reached out to me,” he said.

“That was when I first realized that this is something that people like more than just an entrance to a party. It’s not a party trick anymore.”

Beyond Tucker’s YouTube success, his music has been played frequently on France’s top hip-hop radio station and has been featured on “Access Hollywood.” While he was amazed by those achievements, nothing has been quite as surprising to him as his popularity in Papua New Guinea.

“My friend is like a hitchhiking farmer, and he took a little soul-searching trip to Papua New Guinea,” Tucker said.

“At several different bars, he would just hear my music playing on the radio.”

Now a senior, Tucker expresses how much of his artistic growth he owes to his education at Georgetown. Although it has sometimes been difficult for him to balance his music and schoolwork, he believes that he benefited from his studies as an English major.

“I took classes that were really conducive to developing my writing, my prose. I’ve really improved in terms of my critical thinking and my ability to articulate my thoughts,” Tucker said. “I kind of got obsessed with random literature classes like ‘The 18th Century Novel.’ It was more about reading text that I was unfamiliar with to work on my mechanics, and I think that’s added subtle influence to my music and my outlook.”

After Georgetown, Tucker will begin working for Teach for America, but he still has plans to pursue a music career.

When he considers his post-graduation path, however, he hopes to retool the themes of his music to make more of a social impact.

“I just think the things I’ve been rapping about the last couple of years have been petty in comparison to the things that I’m going to be confronting and the things I’m going to be fighting for,” Tucker said. “Just with the thoughts of social inequality and literacy disparities, I want to start gearing toward music that is able to inspire and uplift. It’s kind of failing other people if I try to be ignorant when I’m not.”

As part of his new musical focus, Tucker will soon release two new tracks, which he calls some of his strongest work ever.

“The best is yet to come,” Tucker said. “It’s going to surprise people.”

And when it arrives, it’s sure to be a hit, from Georgetown all the way to Papua New Guinea.

Listen to Tucker’s track, “Fire,” at thehoya.com.

Evan Floyd NICOLE JARVIS Hoya Staff Writer

While some collegiate musicians have been honing their skills since childhood, DJ Evan Floyd (MSB ’14) discovered his passion later in life.

“I played saxophone for seven years when I was younger, but I quit once I got to high school because being in the band wasn’t necessarily the coolest thing ever,” Floyd said.

“When I got to Georgetown, my freshman year roommate introduced me to electronic music, and I fell in love with it. I downloaded some software, started messing around and it took off from there.”

This initial tinkering in his freshman dorm soon became Floyd’s true passion, and his dedication to finding and producing new sounds helped lead to his first break — performing every Wednesday at last year’s Senior Nights at The Tombs.

“My roommate at the time was a bouncer there, and they needed a DJ, and he knew I had been practicing so they gave me that first opportunity,” Floyd said. “I was there for one

MSB ’14 | DJ

semester, and they ended up firing me because they said my music didn’t fit the vibe they were going for.”

Luckily for Floyd, he was hired that same day by Rhino Bar & Pumphouse, and soon after he was added to the weekly roster at Modern, performing every Thursday night.

“Modern had only been kind of a thing the previous semester, but … it really took off and kids just started coming out. That’s when it really took off for me … having Modern become a real staple in Georgetown and have it be the true Thursday night spot week in and week out. It really wasn’t a question where kids were going. They were coming to Modern,” Floyd said.

Word of Floyd’s Thursday night popularity spread through the D.C. club owner scene and he soon started doing freelance shows at nightclubs throughout the District. Recently, he left Modern to take up residence at rising hotspot Malmaison.

Floyd has been able to channel his passion for electronic music production into markets far beyond Modern and M Street. Last summer, a friend referred him to an employer based in

Photo courtesy Evan Floyd

Shanghai, China, where Floyd, an international business and marketing double major, spent three months interning for an entertainment production company and trying out his beats on eager international audiences.

“It was one of the best three months of my life because during the day I was planning these big concerts and music festivals and at night I would be able to go to DJ,” Floyd said.

“I started out at a place called the Shanghai Rose — it’s a new club on the Bund, which is the main strip in Shanghai — and then branched out and DJed a lot of underground clubs. My number one goal was to DJ a huge pool party there for the summer, and actually, the last Saturday I was out there, it happened. I DJed a three-level pool, filled with people from top to bottom and it was amazing,” said Floyd.

Returning to the United States after the experience, however, has had its drawbacks.

“It’s more fun to DJ abroad because in the U.S., people want to know the words to every single song they hear, whereas in China and abroad they don’t speak the language so there was no word association. As long as the song is musically pleasing, people are going to

dance,” Floyd said.

For music fans who have never listened to electronic music before, or who know more traditional paths to music production, Floyd’s creative process may seem space-age.

“When you’re a part of a band, you have one person who comes up with the basic idea and everyone feeds off each other to make music,” Floyd said. “When you’re producing electronic music, it’s a completely different concept. You essentially have to know how to synthesize sounds from nothing — making your own drum sounds, making your own horns, guitar strums. It’s not so much knowing one instrument but knowing how to make the sounds of all of them.”

“You really have to know how everything is supposed to fit together and understand the groove you’re going for,” Floyd added. “I feel like that’s where a lot of producers slip up, just getting lost and overcomplicated and just trying to do way too much. Keeping it simple is the best way to go.”

Listen to Floyd’s sample mix at thehoya.com.

MUSIC ISSUE | 5

Old Moonlight

JESS KELHAM-HOHLER Hoya Staff Writer

It all started with an ad on Craigslist.

“I was at work in Houston,” Danny Goldberg (NHS ’14) said. “I’d never been on the musician’s thing on Craigslist, but did so at work because I was bored. So I looked up a posting for a kind of Southern rock band. All the other postings were kind of sketch, but I actually responded.

A few weeks later we had our first practice at Georgetown.”

Together, Goldberg, now the drummer for the band, and Sam Gyllenhaal, a 2011 graduate of Elon University, who was behind the Craigslist ad and is now lead vocalist, began to form a band.

Four months later, Goldberg and Gyllenhaal, along with Dan McCusker (COL ’16) on lead guitar, Nick Seaman (COL ‘14) on bass and Jack Holtze (COL ’16) on sax and vocals, are already booking regular live shows and have even recorded their first track, “Summer Thunder.”

The band, Old Moonlight, plays music that they describe as a blend between Southern rock and “California country.” Gyllenhaal, who writes the songs for the band, says that they have a wide range of influences, including The Eagles, Lynyrd Skinner and The Marshall Tucker Band. While the other band members had not originally been such fans of country music, they now insist that they find a common influence in country rock.

This collaboration of sound and influences has

6 | THE GUIDE

Danny Goldberg (NHS ’14), Sam Gyllenhaal Dan McCusker (COL ’16), Nick Seaman (COL

certainly proved to be a success, as the band has booked multiple shows at Mason Inn and has gathered a strong following from Georgetown students, as well as the wider D.C. area.

“We have found our niche here,” Seaman said.

He credits the the supportive culture of Georgetown bands for making it easier to be recognized and, more importantly, heard.

While they maintain these classic influences, it is clear that the band is also trying to define their own sound. Part of this comes from the use of the saxaphone, which gives the band a jazz influence. Saxophonist and vocalist Holtze, who has a background of jazz and improvisation and that he uses to find his place in the band’s sound, describes himself as a big fan of the big bands of the ‘70s and ‘80s.

While Gyllenhaal admits that he sometimes has to restrain Holtze’s enthusiasm for jazz and that he never imagined having a saxophone player in the band, he now sees the saxophone as integral to their sound.

The band is clearly in its element when playing live.

“One of the things that has really worked out about this whole collaboration is that we’ve all been playing since we’ve been young and we’ve all been comfortable with performing,” Goldberg said.

After performing, the group has been contacted by multiple venues who have particularly liked their sound. On campus, they play

at Epicurean and Co. and Uncommon Grounds.

The band credits these live performances with allowing them to try out new sounds and covers, including Katy Perry’s “Roar” which they said went over particularly well with the female crowd.

“I think we’ve put a lot of pressure on ourselves, doing all these shows within a few months, but at the same time it’s stuff we can all do because we’re used to it and can handle doing a song Sam throws at us 10 minutes before a show,” Goldberg said.

Their ease in performing live is evident in their single “Summer Thunder,” the first track the group has recorded. A laid-back song with a clear country tone, “Summer Thunder” will make you feel as if you’re there with the band.

“It’s just a cool picture. You can put yourself there. I think everybody has some of those summer love stories, so it’s pretty relatable,” Gyllenhaal said.

Old Moonlight is relatively modest in their goals.

“Our main ambition right now is just to keep getting better. We hold ourselves to a very high standard, and we’re not satisfied yet with our sound. So we want to continue to push it and become as tight with our music as we can,” Gyllenhaal said.

Listen to Old Moonlight’s track, “Summer Thunder,” at thehoya.com.

From l

l, Jack Holtze (COL ’16), L ’14) | Country rock

left: Nick Seaman, Jack Holtze, Sam Gyllenhaal Photo courtesy Margaux Nielsen

Mellen

Rohan Advani (SFS ’16), Mary Ellen Funke (SFS ’15), Danny Goldberg (NHS ’14), Phil Rogers (MSB ’14), Danny Sullivan (MSB ’14) | Folk rock

From left: Rohan Advani, Danny Goldberg, Danny Sullivan, Mary Ellen Funke, Phil Rogers Photo Courtesy Clare Donnelly

EMILY TROISI

Hoya Staff Writer

Last September, the five members of Mellen, a folk-rock band, were finally in a position to come together and embark on a new, exciting and banter-filled musical journey. Although the unofficial leader of the band, Mary Ellen Funke (SFS ’15), started her musical career at Georgetown as a solo act, she branched out last year and became the head of a band called Mellenfolly. Although this band parted ways due to graduations and study abroad, Funke’s friend, Danny Sullivan (MSB ’14), approached her about forming a new band, and the rest is history.

Sullivan had only participated in a cappella in college and found himself interested in forming a band.

“I knew that Mellenfolly was kind of in reorganization and all up in the air. They are still all friends of ours, but you know, people were travelling,” Sullivan said. “So I approached [Mary Ellen] and was like, ‘Hey, you want to try and do something,’ and then this kind of fell together. She was the one who found everybody.”

The eclectic group also consists of Danny Goldberg (NHS ’14), Phil Rogers (MSB ’14) and Rohan Advani (SFS ’16). Mellen will inevitably face the same reorganization that Mellenfolly did after gradutaion in May, but that is not stopping them from writing and performing music together.

While they have yet to record anything as a full band, they hope that will change by the end of the semester/ The quintet plans to get their music online for more recognition and permanence as a group.

“We want to record,” Sullivan said. “I want to record music we’ve written. We’ve written a lot of music, we’re not going to record all of it, but I just want to get that out there.”

When asked how they would describe their sound, the band debated whether the term “folksy” was an accurate descriptor.

“We’re a blend of folk and others. We’re primarily folk,” Funke said.

Although Sullivan also tried to label the band, he struggled to classify it as one musical genre.

While the band does agree that they have a folksy sound, they are less inclined to liken their music to that of any other band in particular.

“I don’t really know if there’s a specific band that we sound like though. I’ve tried really hard to think about it,” Funke said.

However, to get an idea about the kind of music Mellen plays, consider noteworthy influences, including Bright Eyes, Bastille, The Tallest Man on the Earth and above all others, Bon Iver.

Although their sound is hard to sum up, the emotions and motivations that fuel their music and songwriting are genuine and heartfelt. However, members of the band can attest that it was not always

easy to write and perform the music they wanted.

“My freshman and sophomore years there weren’t really that many venues for quiet, acoustic music,” Funke said. “It kind of drove me to write a lot more upbeat songs than I ever would have possibly wanted to. And then I stopped liking them.”

Mellen has since been able to refocus their music on people and experiences in their lives that truly inspire them.

“I feel like we’ve had a lot more opportunity to just play what we play,” Funke said.

Their songs are about the people in their lives, their frustrations and questions and just generally what they know.

“There are definitely some musicians who write stories or write about things that haven’t happened to them. I just write about my life,” Sullivan said. “It’s usually not about me individually; it’s about someone that I care about, that I’m just observing. Whether it’s happy, sad or whatever, I pay attention to people in my life.”

Mellen has both an incredible energy and an entertaining bond that highlight their passion for music. They are playful and joyous, while at the same time sincere and definitely a band worth checking out while their members are still on the Hilltop.

Listen to Mellen’s track, “Nothing Comes to Pass,” at thehoya.com.

MUSIC ISSUE | 7

The Ripples Anthony Albanese (COL ’16), Zach Fore, Will Heuser (COL ’15), Tyler Pierce (COL ’15), Ben Suarez (COL ’14) | Rock

8 | THE GUIDE

From left: Anthony Albanese, Tyler Pierce, Will Hueser, Ben Suarez, Sacha Millet Photo courtesy Harrison Suarez

From left: Will Hueser, Ben Suarez, Tyler Pierce, Anthony Albanese, Sacha Millet, Lyell Evans Photo courtesy Nate Johnson

ALLIE HILLSBERY Hoya Staff Writer

A new folk-rock band, The Ripples, has made its way onto Georgetown’s music scene this year. Tyler Pierce (COL ’15), who heads the group, is described by his fellow musicians as the band’s “music mind.” After playing as a solo artist for several years, Pierce was inspired to form a band after spending last summer working on an album in Long Island with his high school friend and former Northwestern student Will Heuser (COL ’15). The two spent much of last year collaborating on songs via email, with Pierce sending his initial work on melodies to Heuser, who acted as a “free-lance lyricist.”

“We realized that we were going to take it a little more seriously,” Pierce said. “But [Will] was still in Chicago. It sucked to have to work with each other from across the country.”

Heuser ended up transferring to Georgetown this year. “I transferred for the band,” Heusen said.

Pierce and Heuser worked for months with their friend Matt Parker, who plays multiple instruments, to record a self-titled

album, which was released in November.

Although the two learned about producing music and are proud of their first record, they realized that they wanted to work with other musicians going forward.

“About two weeks in, we decided that we didn’t want to be a two-piece folk band,” Heusen said.

Currently, The Ripples are a five-man band with drummer Anthony Albanese (COL ’16), bassist Ben Suarez (COL ’14) and local guitarist Zach Fore.

With more contributing members, the song-writing process has moved in a direction that has pleased the original duo.

“The only reason we were doing 100 percent of the work,” Heuser said, “is that we were 100 percent of the band.”

Suarez referred to Pierce and Heuser as the nucleus of The Ripples and noted that a song usually starts with the two of them.

From there, it becomes a group effort.

“We write the songs, but the way the songs sound is based off of how everybody plays their own thing,” Pierce said.

“I think it’s the autonomy we have with our own part writing. Everyone can kind of write their own part and then we’re all open to suggestions and whether it works or not.

If something doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.

That person is told and we move on,” Suarez said.

In regard to their general style, The Ripples draw much of their influence from ’60s music. Heuser has aimed for their general sound to be reminiscent of The Band, a rock group popular between 1964 and 1976, in terms of the instrumentation and how multiple vocalists are featured.

The Ripples have no specific target audience.

“We appeal to anyone from 16 to 70,” Suarez said.

“Older people like us because they remember this type of music, and younger people like us because they don’t realize that everything they listen to today is still a derivative of the classic stuff,” Albanese added.

The Ripples have a great group dynamic and are very enthusiastic about the band’s chemistry. They have found it to be a defining part of their college career.

“Communicating through music has got to be the coolest part,” Heuser said. “When you can tell everyone where to go with the song by just switching up the rhythm a little, those are the moments when you’re like, ‘We should do this. We should be a

band for the rest of our lives. I don’t know why we would ever not do this.’”

To date, The Ripples have mostly played bar circuits, but they seem to be quickly moving toward their goal of becoming a selfsufficient, well-known group.

“We started in September and we’re already playing the Rock & Roll Hotel, so we’re pretty satisfied,” Suarez said. “We’re shooting high still, but I think we’re all pretty happy with how rapid the process has been.”

“I’m confident with the members we have and that we’re going to have an awesome sound. I’m excited to just keep moving forward,” said Pierce.

They will be headlining at the Rock & Roll Hotel on Friday, Jan. 31. The show starts at 9 p.m., and The Ripples will be playing alongside several other up-and-coming D.C. bands.

Tickets for the all-ages show are $12 and can be purchased on their website or at the door.

The Ripples encourage all students to make it to H Street.

“We want Georgetown to know about and be proud of its music,” Suarez said.

Listen to The Ripples’ track, “Woke Up Once In Mexico,” at thehoya.com.

MUSIC ISSUE | 9

Daniel Breland LINDSAY LEE

Hoya Staff Writer

Daniel Breland (MSB ’17) hails from a musical household in Burlington, N. J. Both of his parents are singers, and Breland started his musical career as a background vocalist during his older sister Gianya’s living room concerts for their family and family friends.

“I was so embarrassed about it, but eventually I started to enjoy it, and we started to make songs together,” Breland said.

He proceeded to sing with both his church and school choirs and began songwriting at the age of 14. At the time, Breland played the drums but was unable to play any other instruments, so he turned to his boarding school roommate, Nathan Tempro. Tempro was experimenting with making beats on his computer, and Breland would then rap or sing their lyrics over these rhythms. Breland began posting videos on YouTube that ranged from webcam videos of himself soloing a cappella, to original songs produced and recorded in a studio and covers recorded in his basement at home. He now boasts more than 13,500 subscribers and nearly 1,500,000 views in the past three years. Some of his original songs, “Unaware,” “Without You” and “Entropy,” can be found on SoundCloud.

Breland was one of only 48 students accepted to New York University’s Tisch School of the

Louis De Tilly LINDSAY LEASOR Hoya Staff Writer

From humming songs on the radio as a toddler to contemplating the complexities of My Chemical Romance during his teen years, Louis De Tilly (COL ’16) has always had a deep appreciation for music. Now, with years of classical training and songwriting practice under his belt, he anticipates the release of his first EP on April 30.

In his earlier days, De Tilly tried his hand at a variety of instruments. “My mom started me on violin. I didn’t like it. I only went [to the lessons] for the candy,” De Tilly said.

“Two years later, of my own volition, I signed myself up for piano, and I really enjoyed that. And then one Christmas, a few years later, I asked for a guitar, and that was when my songwriting began.”

His first song was an upbeat track called “Skydiving,” and, from there, he began to explore a variety of musical styles. “When I started, the songs were more upbeat and cheerful.

Then I went through a phase where they were not dark lyrically but dark musically — chords that make you feel a bit uneasy but are really cool,” De Tilly said.

He suggested that his changes in style over time might simply be due to getting older and

10 | THE GUIDE

MSB ’17 | R&B

Arts’ Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, but he chose to attend Georgetown to earn an undergraduate business degree.

“I would love to get involved with a record label, maybe even start my own.

It’s definitely a dream of mine,” Breland said. He already has experience working with a label, having written several songs for Atlantic Records. He hopes to further that relationship in the future by continuing to write for them this summer.

At Georgetown, Breland is a member of the coed a cappella group, the Georgetown Phantoms, and has learned valuable lessons from his experience in the group.

“I think it’s training me to learn the musicality of how ever yt hing comes together.

Everyone is equally important, and I think it’s really important as an artist to be able to appreciate the other things that are going on in a song besides the lead vocalist,” Breland said.

He has been working on a variety of projects that have included more harmonies and a stronger a cappella-like presence.

Breland continues to make music amid his busy schedule and has been working with two

of his good friends as his producers.

“I’ve been kind of working in the R&B, pop and hip hop genres. I like to have some jazz fusion when I can, and we’re working on a mixtape I will hopefully be releasing around spring break,” Breland said.

Breland’s soulful voice lends itself well to this style of music and makes it hard to believe he was ever a shy little kid singing behind his sister.

“I get stage fright before I go on, but once I get up there it disappears. I like to have a good time, and I try not to psych myself out too much,” Breland said. He has yet to perform any of his original music on campus but has been collaborating with other Georgetown musicians to write new songs and film new videos.

Although he specializes in a genre of music that can often be explicit, Breland strives to keep his music clean.

“I think that there are some little kids that could one day look up to me, and I don’t want to be feeding them information or lyrics that are negative or inappropriate,” Breland said.

“I think there are too many artists out there doing that, and, granted, they are just expressing themselves and I respect that, but I think for me, I’m just going to stick true to being clean.”

Listen to Breland’s track, “Unaware,” at thehoya.com.

COL ’16 | Singer/Songwriter being exposed to a variety of artists.

“When I listened to the Red Hot Chili Peppers in my teens, it was more cheerful. When I listened to folk, it was a bit sadder. And now it’s a lot heavier and a bit more electronic because that’s the modern sound that’s coming through more nowadays,” he said.

When writing a new song, De Tilly finds that composing the music itself is the easy part.

“For me, lyrics have always been tough because it’s a very vulnerable state when you write how you feel,” he said. “When you manage to get a genuine expression, you don’t feel like you could put that to music as entertainment. It feels like it should be by itself as poetry.”

De Tilly has developed a method for his songwriting that encapsulates his strengths as an artist.

“When I write my songs, I write the music first and then I improvise lyrics that flow with the sound really well,” De Tilly said. “The lyrics will make sense, but they will be made up as a tool for the sound, just like another instrument, instead of actually trying to say something. But a lot of the time it does end up saying something.”

While Pompadour — his EP titled after his stage name — is still in its preliminary stages, De Tilly plans to create four to six tracks using

a combination of guitar, vocals, synths, digital sounds and background vocals. His ideas for the EP are influenced by current trends in alternative pop music with elements of hip-hop, pop and rock (thanks to the new electric guitar he got for Christmas). As a result, his work does not fit neatly into one genre, but this is what makes it unique.

“When you write music, you always consider it your own,” De Tilly said. “It takes other people to decide where it fits into music in general.”

If he finds success with his current music, De Tilly hopes to make a career in the industry.

“I would want to become a producer or work in the music industry in general,” he said. “Not necessarily on stage because my music is more for fun, but behind the scenes making stuff happen.”

Listen to De Tilly’s track, “Tower,” at thehoya.com.

Zoe Rosen VICTORIA EDEL Hoya Staff Writer

At the age of 16, Zoe Rosen (COL ’16) wrote her first song. She was moving from Switzerland — where she grew up — to Canada, and she utilized a class assignment to express her feelings.

“It was about saying goodbye to Switzerland and what that experience was like. I got to perform the new song at my new school a year later,” she said. “Even people who were at the new school could relate because people who had moved could relate to that kind of experience.” Although she felt nervous as she shared her work with the public for the first time, she knew she had stumbled upon something special.

“Songwriting was something that was very new for me, but I was already very excited, and I knew right away it was some-

Sam Pence LINDSAY LEE

Hoya Staff Writer

Although he just began trying his hand at songwriting this summer, Sam Pence (SFS ’16) is an emerging artist with many years of musical experience. When Pence was 7 years old, his parents encouraged him and his five elder siblings to take piano lessons. Even though he wasn’t overly fond of the lessons, he stuck with the piano on his own. He began playing the violin in the sixth grade and the guitar in his freshman year of high school and he developed a passion for singing somewhere along the way. He continues to sing and play the piano and guitar today.

“I didn’t really start seriously writing music until college. I would say that my sound really evolved because of college,” Pence said.

His first collection of original songs, entitled “Up and In,” was released during the summer of 2013 on Bandcamp, an online music store and artist promotion site. The songs in this collection were inspired by his relationships, whether intimate, platonic or familial, and by general life experiences.

“Random subtle details in life that you come across and the dynamics you have between different people are all kind of amalgamated into some idea that turns into a song,” Pence said.

COL ’16 | Singer/Songwriter thing I loved,” Rosen said. Armed with her guitar, Rosen has been writing and performing ever since.

It was around this time that Rosen also began taking lessons in order to classically train her voice. As a result, her interests lie not only in writing and performing her own indie-pop songs, but also in opera. Both of those passions are nurtured by her major, American musical culture, which fuses together music theory, criticism and practice.

The major is housed in one of the university’s smallest departments, the Department o f

Performing Arts, which is emblematic of the music culture at Georgetown.

“It’s nice having such a small music program because you get to know everyone in it really well,” Rosen said. “Hopefully, as the music program continues to expand, it will become something Georgetown prioritizes in the future.”

The general community of musical artists at Georgetown is also a small but growing group.

Rosen was brought together with other musicians by initiatives such as the Guild of Bands, a course in the music program that helps assemble and give practice space to musicians, and the recently formed GU Jam Sesh. Jam Sesh is a group unaffiliated with the university that was formed this past summer in an effort to connect musicians and give them spaces in which to perform. Rosen credits these two groups with giving her more opportunities to share her music.

“With the start of GU Jam Sesh, I got to perform at a bunch of stuff [last] semester and also open mics. Last semester was definitely a big improvement from last year, in terms of performing opportunities,” she said.

When it comes to songwriting, Rosen is constantly inspired by other artists; right now, her favorite song is “Sweater Weather” by The Neighbourhood, and Of Monsters and Men and Imagine Dragons are currently dominating her playlists. But she’s also particularly inspired by someone a lot less indie: Adele.

“Even though her songs are more R&B pop, she’s a really good songwriter so she’s someone I listen to a lot for inspiration,” Rosen said. Like

Adele, she frequently writes about her own life experiences such as change, relationships of all types and romance. Like Taylor Swift, she’s not afraid to call out exes in her songs.

“I’ve … [called people out], but I haven’t done it to the same extent as [Taylor Swift],” Rosen said. “If I did that I might be uncomfortable singing the songs in front of people. I try to sing things that are less controversial but are still saying what I want to say.” But just listening to any sort of music is what inspires Rosen the most.

“Listening to other artists is the biggest inspiration because you can hear how they can turn anything into a song. If you listen to what’s on the radio, you can write about the most ridiculous thing and [turn it] into a hit song.”

Rosen is currently working on recording a handful of her songs with the goal of releasing an EP by the end of the semester.

Looking toward her post-graduation life, Rosen hopes to pursue some sort of career in the music industry, though she isn’t sure yet whether she’d like to land on the performing side or the business one.

“I want to see what a career in the music business would be like and then from that see what I like better,” she said. “It’s definitely something worthwhile to consider as a career even though it’s very difficult to break into.” No matter what happens, Rosen enjoys writing and performing her own songs and intends to keep at it.

Listen to Rosen’s single, “Nothing,” at thehoya.com.

SFS ’16 | Singer/Songwriter He describes his sound as “acoustic minimalist,” which he says is inspired by the styles of Ed Sheeran, John Mayer and the early years of Coldplay. If he had the hypothetical opportunity to collaborate with any three artists, he would choose Bob Dylan, William Fitzsimmons and Chris Martin of Coldplay, whom Pence calls his first real musical inspiration.

Experimenting with different styles of singing, songwriting and recording, Pence urges those who might not yet love his music to bear with him.

“I have a lot to share with the world but maybe my sound isn’t so developed yet, so I’m working on it,” Pence said.

Having just begun songwriting himself, Pence has some good advice for those who hope to write their own music someday: “Just be patient. Don’t try to rush into things that you think are going to please other people, just kind of go with your gut. If you’re struggling with songwriting or writer’s block, always revert to patience.”

His most recent original song is a holiday song entitled “Happy Days.”

“It’s kind of cliche, and I was ok with that.

I wanted to see what kinds of sounds I was capable of creating. It’s a lot different from my previous songwriting,” Pence said. He has yet to perform his original music on campus but

can be seen performing covers at Uncommon Grounds or singing in co-ed a cappella group, Georgetown Superfood. Pence think his experience in Superfood has improved his technical vocal abilities and he hopes to try his hand at arranging for the group in an effort to improve his composition skills.

Pence records his songs using a USB microphone that hooks into his computer, and he edits the tracks himself in Garage Band. He has recently been experimenting with different recording styles and techniques and shares his music on SoundCloud, Bandcamp and his Facebook artist page.

He currently classifies his musical interest as more of a hobby than a career path. “It’s such a volatile pursuit, and it does take a lot of luck and I think I still have a long way to go. But I’m definitely going to stick with it and just see where it takes me,” Pence said . Though he doesn’t plan to pursue music seriously, the Hilltop can still expect to see more Pence originals, covers and live performances in the near future.

Listen to Pence’s single, “Loose Ends,” at thehoya.com.

MUSIC ISSUE | 11

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