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Four best friends, after years of dipping their toes in the water of other endeavors, set out to form a band.
All with a love of music, they travel to a small rural college with no band name but a fierce desire to play music.
All their hard work pays off and they win the ultimate Battle of the Bands, launching their career in future stardom.
No, this is not a review of the newest Zach Braff movie; this is the life of a different Zach - Zach Wilson and his band, Vespertine Movement.
"All four of us have known each other throughout middle school and high school," Wilson, Vespertine's drummer, said. "We all played with other bands for a while and started playing with each other last year around this time, October or November. We [were] always in bands with other people so we wanted to form a band [that was] just the four of us."
Wilson and his friends, lead guitarist and vocalist John Kennelly, rhythm guitarist and vocalist Mike Guzman and bassist Owen McCusker traveled to Mount St. Mary's College for a Battle of the Bands competition where they took home the gold and played an after party for their friend.
After their success at the competition, the band needed a name if they were going to start trying to play local venues.
"We hadn't thought of a name yet," Wilson said. "One night me and John looked into crazy words in the dictionary. He flipped to a page and pointed and it was the word 'vespertine.' He read the definition and thought, 'that's a pretty cool name.'"
Once the friends had a name and some experience, they took their band to local venues.
"Over Thanksgiving break we went down to The 8x10 and we did an open mic there," Wilson said. "One of the guys that was working there really liked us and invited us back for the 5x5 where there are five bands for five dollars. We did that [and] we brought in over 100 people. It was a good show. That was our really big kickoff and we really started playing a lot."
Wilson used a variety of genres to describe their style, from rock to blues to jazz to reggae.
However, they claim to be mostly a jam band that takes their influence from many bands of the same type.
"A lot of the old jam bands are probably some of our biggest influences," Wilson said. "Obviously, Grateful Dead; they were one of the first ones. We cover some of their songs here and there. Personally, I love Dave Matthews Band. They are a big influence of mine musically."
Lately, Vespertine is working on playing at local shows. After graduation, they hope to focus more of their attention on the band and work their way up to an established fan base.
After starting out local, they said that they hope to be able to branch out north into Philadelphia and New York.
They say that they aspire to be the type of band that plays at local festivals and club shows.
After making a small demo in January of last year, Vespertine is making a new attempt at an LP album over the winter break. Currently, they are writing new material for the album and simply practicing a lot.
This is quite a balancing act since all four of the members are in school.
Wilson, a mass communications major and Kennelly, an American studies major, attend Towson while Guzman attends the University of Maryland and McCusker, UMBC.
Since all of the members are in relatively close areas, they all return home on the weekends to practice.
"During the week I do all of the school work and classes," Wilson said. "But also when I don't have a lot of school work, the second thing is booking shows and contacting people. During the week, I'm just looking forward to practice. The band gets me through the week; knowing I'm going to be practicing on the weekend."
Wilson said playing with his friends works out well because they are already close so it makes spending time together easier. He also said over the years they have come to learn each other's musical style, which makes them more in sync while playing.
"We have been in and out of bands together for five or six years," Wilson said. "We know each other's music styles so we all work around that. We really know who is going to be doing each part at a specific time."
To get more information and hear some of their music, visit www.myspace.com/vespertinemovement.
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