A dream of hearing their songs echo through the bars and venues outside of the Bryan-College Station area has become the reality for local student band HYAH! as their music expands into surrounding cities.
HYAH! features the musical talents of mechanical engineering senior Will Roberts, civil engineering senior Eliot Guerin, applied mathematics and computer science senior Alfonzo Galvan and statistics junior David Alvarez.
Galvan said the band members met through MSC Town Hall and picked up Guerin along their way to create the sound they have today.
“At first it started with us joining a group called Town Hall and then we met other musician friends,” Galvan said. “And then we formed a band to just play at parties and stuff, a bunch of covers, and then we went off and did other groups and played around a lot.”
Each member has their own influence that lends to the overall style of the band. For Roberts, bands like the Arctic Monkeys, Led Zeppelin and Galactic influenced his style while Guerin took influence from rock bands and jazz.
“Galactic is also an influence for me,” Guerin said. “I’m also influenced by jazz mostly but also a lot of funk from New Orleans as well.”
The band has grown over the years, picking up followers and likes along the way. The band members agreed that it was a gradual process of gaining a fanbase, but HYAH! Is now gaining recognition.
“We went from one like to the next day two likes to the day after that having five likes. And now I think we’re about at least 500 likes,” Galvan said.
Galvan said that while gaining new fans has been an achievement for them, what they have excelled at is creating content together that they love.
“I definitely think we have grown more as a group, we’ve gotten more comfortable with each other. Adding Eliot [Guerin] to the group also made a cool change to the sound, he blends us all together in a blend of punk-funk-soul,” Galvan said.
The members of HYAH! have many goals set for their band. Roberts says he would like to play more shows. Alvarez is working on recording the band’s music to release before everyone parts ways after graduation. However, if most of the band members choose to stay in Texas, Guerin said the band will more than likely remain together.
“I’d like to put out more music before everyone leaves this year,” Alvarez said. “Most of us are graduating in May and some of us are off to work and some off to grad school so it will be very spotty until that time.”
HYAH!’s music can be found on Facebook, Spotify, Bandcamp and Soundcloud.