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Thursday, March 28, 2024
The Observer

Station One

Plenty of people talk about starting college bands. But when twins Pete and David Miller met Lawrence Santiago during a spring visitation before their freshman year and said they should start a band if they all ended up at Notre Dame, they meant it.The next fall the trio found themselves in school together, and true to their word began playing with Pete Miller on drums, David Miller on guitar and Santiago as lead singer.Keyboard player Mike Maimone joined the band after meeting Santiago in Zahm Hall. At first, the musicians played under the name The Island Boys and were later known as Housebound. During their sophomore year, Santiago came up with the name Station One, and they stuck with it. The group has also switched bassists a few times, recruiting sophomore Bobby Seus to play with the group at the beginning of this year.The group may have gone through a few changes, but four years later the Millers, Santiago and Maimone are still playing together.Tonight from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. at Reckers, fans of the Notre Dame music scene will have a chance to hear the band debut several new songs and play their old favorites.Classifying Station One into a genre is difficult. The musicians come from a wide variety of musical tastes and backgrounds, and everyone has their say in what they play. The Millers played in a punk band in high school, while Maimone played classical piano. Santiago, not limited to band vocals, also played Bernardo in the Pasquerilla East Musical Company's production of West Side Story last weekend."It was very different playing in a band than in piano recitals, and it was a difficult transition," Maimone said. "But it's a lot of fun and a lot more rewarding."Pete Miller said the band has a "very diverse style" and has been described as a "hybrid between Sublime and Maroon 5."The band covers a lot of current hits but also enjoys writing its own music. Sometimes they work alone, but most of the compositions are a collaborative effort."Lawrence has us covering Seorita by Justin Timberlake, but we also play a lot of Nirvana type stuff," Maimone said. "At first we weren't sure about covering Timberlake, but it's fun."Over the past four years the band has played at many bars, parties and competitions in the area. During their freshman year, the group won third place in NAZZ, the SUB-sponsored battle of the bands, and the following year they won first place.The band tapered off during their junior year when the lead singer and keyboard players both went abroad, though the Miller twins and a new set of musicians still took third place in the competition.While the group enjoys performing on campus, they have found the Notre Dame music scene to be somewhat constricting."There are a few really good bands. It's just people don't know about them, and there's not enough places to play," Maimone said. "We've been trying to play at Legends this semester, but there aren't enough slots for all the bands, so we're starting to look at bars."The music scene could be good. There are a lot of talented musicians here, but it also doesn't seem like people are incredibly interested in campus bands."With the group members probably parting ways after graduation, tonight's show at Reckers could be the beginning of the end for the band."Obviously we don't want to give it up, but everybody wants to be a rock star," Maimone said. "We're going to do the best we can to get a demo recorded and send it to labels."We all have pretty set plans, but we'd all prefer to do a tour or something this summer if we could."Station One is currently working on their website, www.stationonenation.com, where the group will soon have posted biographies of the band members and pictures of the band.Tonight's show will also feature Layden, a local band including the Millers' younger brother James. The younger Miller plans to attend Notre Dame next year and hopes to continue to play with his band after starting school.The chance to hear one of Notre Dame's few but proud campus bands will be free and open to all students.