YOUR OWN MUSIC? YOUR OWN MUSIC?

Austin Central Library

Located in the hearts of downtown Austin, the Austin Central Library is famous for its high quality facilities. In the teen section on the second floor, the library offers an arrangement of instruments, including a drumset, keyboard, bass; as well as both the electric and acoustic guitar. These instruments are free for the uses of teens within the library.

Kings Lovely is a punk rock band based in Austin, Texas. Jules Dekock, Noah Luna, Riley Gonzalez, and Patrick Schmitt met at a musical camp program called Band-Aid in 2021 as middle and high school students.

On February 19th, they played a show at Friends Bar on 6th street. For Riley Gonzalez, the keyboardist/vocalist, changing up the songs they play at each of their shows helped them gain attention. “If you play the same things a lot people are only gonna come once,” Gonzalez said. The punk rock act was successful in keeping the crowd hyped through their one hour set. They covered a variety of genres, from Amy Winehouse to Weezer. “This is probably the biggest show we’ve played so far,” said Jules Dekock, the lead guitarist. When asked about the success of the band, Patrick Schmitt, the drummer, said, “ Let everyone have a voice because it sucks [to dismiss them] when they may have amazing ideas.”

Despite their success now, Kings Lovely confronted challenges with promoting the band in the beginning of its creation. “The place that we used to practice at wasn’t treating our teacher well,” Patrick continued. “So once we broke off, we were able to expand more creatively and get more gigs.”

While giving advice on getting the word out as a high school band, Noah Luna, the bassist, suggested that “the most effective [way] would be posting a lot, and a non effective [way] would be not telling people.” The quartet wishes to stay together as long as they can before Schmitt leaves for college. When asked about the future of the band post-graduation, Gonzalez said, “If it happens? It happens. But that’s not really where I’m putting my efforts right now.”

Sick scenic is a punk-metal band hailing from Austin, TX. With the four members all being in high school, Sick scenic is composed of singer KD, guitarist Ray, bassist Robbie, and drummer Gabby. KD and Gabby formed the band during the Winter Storm in 2021. Then Robbie and Ray joined through KD’s connections.

In regards to their genre of music, drummer Gabby describes it as just simply heavy. “I wouldn’t describe it as any genre cause we just make whatever comes up, you know? In my opinion, if you’re going for a straight up genre, it’s gonna get too confusing. We just jammed and we just made songs,” said Gabby. The band takes inspiration from other local artists like side I was on, but I backed up next to one of them and I would stand next to them cause I was really scared. I was like, what is going on?” said singer KD. “Every single time someone gets close to me I ac- pedophiles showing up.” She added, “For me, and the rest of the band, I think we love equality and safety within the scene.”