MELISSA GIUGNO — Staff Writer
(S)ecrets is a band of nine students from Southern’s music department, making some noise on campus. (S)ecrets made their debut on Dec. 7 performing four original songs. The band promises to entertain with modern/pop and original music, different than what would normally come from Southern’s usual ensembles.
Members of (S)ecrets include Sebastian Smith (mixer, composer), Andrew Pinto (vocals, lyrics), Sampson, also known as Akira (vocals, lyrics), Kristy Dillon (vocals, lyrics), Jahkeem Ohizep (raps, keys), Paul Fiscella (keys), John Joaquim (bass), Shane O’Brien (electric violin, vocals, raps) and Joshua Smith (keys, producer).
The group started working together a little over two months ago when Sebastian Smith in- quired about creating a show out of the norm for Southern’s usual ensembles. He expressed that all of Southern’s usual ensembles are led by an instruc- tor or play covers and if the ensemble does perform original songs, they come off as messy and un- structured. While many students on campus listen to “Top 40” music, the type of music featured on radio stations like KC-101, those preferences aren’t recognized by these groups.
“So, I wanted to form a small student-led en- semble that played that kind of music in an orga- nized and structured manner, playing songs that we came up with on our own,” said Sebastian Smith.
“So I asked a few friends and the ensemble was formed.”
The original songs performed by (S)ecrets were “New Day,” “Incomplete” and “Space Race,” which
became a favorite of Pinto. “It was high energy; it really got Shane and Jah-
keem involved,” said Pinto. “They wrote all of their raps, [and] it was really awesome to have the band on the vocals and to have a mainstream chorus in- fused in a song.”
Even though the concert was dubbed a pop ensemble, the band thinks differently about their specific genre.
“We’d rather not have a genre, because you don’t want to get pigeon holed into just one thing. And you can experiment with different stuff,” said Fiscella.
Akira added, “[It’s] definitely music that people can sing along to. I’m sure our music is very catchy in that sense, so we try to come up with something that we can memorize because if we can, then you can.”
“We just wanted to come up with three original songs in the mainstream/pop style and came up with four,” said Sebastian Smith about the band’s original aspirations. For future shows, he said the band raised the bar for themselves. Some goals include better lighting, because the lighting they desired couldn’t be achieved in Garner Hall.
“We want to try to get some people and equipment from the theater department to help us out with our lighting issues,” said Smith.
They also want to create four more original songs–some new be- tween song instrumentals–and have a longer show.
Other than (S)ecrets creating four new songs for their next show, they plan to record the ones they per- formed at the last show over winter break and record a couple of videos. Also SCSU TV is working on a video of this performance that should be on YouTube by the end of January.
(S)ecrets is new to Southern’s usual ensembles for people who enjoy a mainstream sound to their music. Be sure to look for their released vid- eos and music and upcoming shows next semester.
