By MOLLY WALLACE
Senior Austin Barney sets down his McDonald’s french fries and turns his mic on, bringing silence to the noise of percussion and strings.
In the kitchen of junior Garret Pierzynski’s guesthouse, A Life in Letters starts band practice.
“We are a group of high schoolers who have the mutual hobby of making music and have decided to start making our own [music],” Pierzynski said.
A Life in Letters consists of Austin Barney as the singer, junior Collin Cusick as a guitarist and back-up vocals, senior Bryce Brimhall as a guitarist, Pierzynski as the bassist and sophomore Sam Fraser as the drummer. As a pop-punk band, the members are willing and able to reach out to all genres, according to Barney.
“I guess we are trying to open a scene and provide some of our more ‘bad music suffocated’ peers with music that isn’t Britney Spears or Lil Wayne,” Barney said.
On top of providing others with music, Cusick claims that being in a band has helped him with his teamwork skills too.
“Sometimes writing together to build something that we all like has our music tastes clashing. [Being in a band] teaches you to work well with other people,” Cusick said.
Along with the band’s clashing music tastes, there have been multiple name and member changes as well. Two newer members, Brimhall and Olympia High School student, Fraser, joined this past August when previous members quit. Even with the additions, A Life in Letters has recorded its first single “Very Big Deal,” an upbeat song with a solid base line and switching tempos. The band is proud to have incorporated the influences of pop and punk into this first single. Contrary to their cover songs of bands like Mayday Parade and Man Overboard, A Life in Letters incorporates a harder guitar style with pop-ier drum beats and lyrics to create a sound they like playing.
“Jamming with a bunch of musicians is fun to do and it’s better than sitting around,” Brimhall said.
A Life in Letters practices three times a week, and tries to add a practice on weekends.
“Our practices consist of arguing with each other, practicing our songs, struggling to write new ones, Blink 182 covers and a lot of going off on random tangents,” Barney said.
The influence of music in the member’s, Barney claims, can bring out either the best or the worst in people, but the members of A Life In Letters continue to create music in a positive way. The kitchen in the guesthouse of Pierzynski’s has been one of the various homes to A Life In Letter’s practices for over five months and continues to provide a haven for the members to grow in their music.
“I’m so lucky I get to come and hang out with my best friends and do my favorite things which are playing guitar and writing songs,” Cusick said.
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