Two sophomores are using music to grow their platform

Ermias Hagos, Staff Reporter
Originally published May 14, 2019

Since August 2018, Sophomores Eric Souza-Ponce and Drew Semick have been working hard to drop their first album Warm Up. With their band Vibes, they’ve been able to produce upbeat music with the two of them and a few collaborations as well. Once a week, Souza-Ponce and Semick get together to make multiple kinds of music including jazz, metal and rap.

“Our music is very diverse. We do anything from jazz to metal and even collab with rappers like Lil Po and Lil Beamer Dope God,” Souza-Ponce said.

Playing in a band with only two members can be tough and playing such various types of music can be even more challenging. But Semick and Souza-Ponce have been able to make it work. Semick plays the drums, while Souza-Ponce covers writing, vocals and guitar. Prior to being in Vibes, Souza-Ponce had performed in multiple bands as a guitarist and vocalist.

“I was playing for a few guys for a while, and I wasn’t in a steady band at that point and I was like lets make something happen and I had all these ideas for music and I wanted to get a group together to perform,” Souza-Ponce said. “We started in August, and we’ve made a lot of progress so far.”

Since Souza-Ponce first thought of the idea of the band, Semick decided to take part in what he thought was a great opportunity to take.

“Me, Eric and some others had been jamming a couple of times before, and Eric invited me to join his band and I thought that’d be a cool thing to do because I’ve never done that before. I haven’t joined a band with a group of friends before,” Semick said.

Vibes doesn’t have any specific goals of reaching a certain amount of views or hits- it’s their motivation to keep producing music that fuels them.

“Music is such a big part of our lives, we would make music regardless of what we do,” Souza-Ponce said. “But we just really like making music together because it’s a communal thing, it brings people together. So our goal at this point is to keep making music together and it’s up to people whether they like our music or not.”

For most high school bands, becoming a huge hit among students and peers can be challenging. Attracting a solid fan base and being able to maintain them requires the right music, beat, composers and taste that appeals to high schoolers. For Souza-Ponce’s band, achieving this may not be so hard after all. With the commitment they have to practice weekly and the motivation to drop their first hit, most high schoolers would want to appreciate this.

You can find Vibes on soundcloud at Vibes: Eric Souza-Ponce