Capital University is often showcasing the musical talent of its students, from the jazzy to technological, to even classical. Included in this group of talented students are those in more alternative bands, but they are often not as talked about.
Personal Public, formed in 2012 by drummer and Capital student Jordan McVey and keyboardist Anthony Herrmann, started off as more of a production team rather than an actual band. McVey and Herrmann later found their singer, Cody Contner, on Craigslist. The three of them then began to play local shows and later scored the help of Ben Canton on lead guitar and Alex Kessis on bass. With inspiration from bands such as The Killers and Led Zeppelin, the band describes their sound as a “focused bravado.”
When asked how the band came up with the name, McVey explained that he thought of it while on a family snowboarding trip in Oregon.
“I have always loved the idea that the world has this innate balance to it, wherein opposites are always co-existing within one another,” McVey said.
At the time, McVey explained, he was obsessed with the idea of the Taijitu, which is the symbolic representation of opposites co-existing within one another, or better known as the yin and yang symbol.
“As I was riding up a chair lift on this mountainside, alone, I began to think about how a person’s life contains only two over-arching facets: being alone, or being in some level of a public setting,” Mcvey said. “So I put the first two words that I could think of that matched up with those ideas together and came up with Personal Public.”
You can find Personal Public on music streaming sites such as Spotify and Apple Music, or see them live at The Shrunken Head on Sept. 29 with Urban Tropic, another local act.
Another alternative band with some members from Capital is Lost Boys. Lost Boys recently shot two music videos in Chicago and one in Ohio, and bassist Cory Robbins said that they were some of the best (and worst) memories that he’s formed with the band. The stressful environment mixed with the teamwork brought them extremely close together, but the overnight video shoots were beautiful, and the boys even stayed up to see the sunrise.
Lost Boys does not currently have music out but, in the next couple of months, will be dropping some dark-sounding metal.
In addition, The Bascinets, an indie rock group that started as an informal high school project and later turned into a cohesive group, have recently been making a name for themselves around Columbus. Tristan Huygen, one of the guitarists, attends Capital.
When asked about the band’s sound, Huygen said, “Think like Lou Reed and Real Estate out to lunch somewhere in the midwest.”
The name of the band began as a joke between the members.
“So a bascinet is a type of knight helmet, and Wellman at one point was talking about buying one as kinda a half joke to wear on stage,” Huygen said. “[The name] was not taken by any other band at that point, and also people often mistake it for ‘bassinet,’ which of course is something you put a baby in. So that duality is kind of funny and ridiculous, and we very much enjoy that.”
Their album, “Always Want to Be Your Friend,” is on major streaming sites such as Spotify, and the band will be live in CD102.5’s Big Room Bar on Sept. 9.
Finally, Island Education is a “funkified trio” with songs about “crazy space endeavors,” according to drummer Riley McKee.
McKee, another talented Capital student, is joined in Island Education with fellow students Mario Tierno, a friend of McKee’s from high school, on bass and James Harker on guitar.
When asked about the band’s origin, McKee responded, “I told [Mario right] off the bat, ‘In college we are going to make a funk band about aliens.’ It happened!”
McKee said that they believe that music should provide a good time and that they are largely inspired by music of the 70s, as well as whatever else they are into at the time.
Check out their newest song, Funky Alien, which features the famous Ken Bone as well as Julian Dittmer, on SoundCloud.
