School of rock
No shortage of teen bands in area

Remmy Workman sings in Calidora, which includes students from George Washington, Capital, Riverside and Cabell Midland.

By Tessie Carenbauer
George Washington High School

Many kids dream of growing up to become a rock star. But the reality is that the music industry is a tough business, and the chances of success are small. Still, this doesn’t stop students at George Washington and other high schools across the globe from persisting to form a band. But even that isn’t as easy as some people may think.

Junior Kaleb Peyton, better known as Pedro, attributes the difficulty of forming bands locally to the fact that there are not enough people to play all the necessary instruments.

Peyton, who listens to Slipknot, Korn and Killswitch Engage, is a bass player who hopes to form a band of his own in the next few months. Soon, he plans to add some of his music to his MySpace page (myspace.com/ignorethescreams).

Freshman Steven Sneed, also a bassist, searched for a band for three years. His new bandmate, junior guitarist Cameron Duff, searched for five months.

They collaborated with freshmen Lewis Reckline on rhythm guitar and Turner Conolly on vocals to form Tribute, a thrash/metal/progressive rock band that’s influenced by Trivium, Metallica, As I Lay Dying and The Cure, among others.

Duff, who has been playing for a year, believes it took so long to form a band because the majority of musicians are “already occupied.” Sneed says its because of the diversity of musical genres.

“Music people have different types of music,” Sneed said. “There’s not enough people to play every instrument you need.”

In fact, even Tribute, whose music can be found at myspace.com/stfunonamem, is still seeking a drummer. Connolly said this has been the biggest difficulty in forming a band.

“Nobody drums anymore,” he said.

Two other George Washington musicians - bassist Mason Lovell and guitarist Drew Runnion - have found success on the local music scene. Along with Cabell Midland’s Stephen Easter on drums, Capital’s Heath Gregg on guitar and Riverside’s Remington Workman on lead vocals, they form the hardcore metal band Calidora (formerly Foretold).

The band has played two shows at Huntington’s Monkey Bar this fall and on Dec. 20 will be part of a Darfur benefit show at George Washington High School. Like Tribute, Calidora has songs available for download on the Internet (myspace.com/calidoramusic).

FlipSide does not endorse and is not responsible for the content found on the MySpace pages mentioned in this story.

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