Band offers wide range of
music to audiences
By Nathan Cross
Staff
Writer
Practice space for a band is sometimes hard to
come by, but JFK & The Juniors will take any space they can get,
even if it means playing in the closet.
"It's interesting," said band member Ray Wheeler.
"There was one time last year we practiced in our trumpet player's house
in a room that was a regular bedroom. We were all crammed in there.
Someone had to play in the closet."
Practicing while standing in a closet is just part
of the musical growth JFK & The Juniors has gone through in its
short career. The group has been around for about two years and was
formed out of the breakup of Lafayette band MF & Allowishus and
the Evansville band One Dollar Smoothie. There are eight band members
in JFK & The Juniors; all of them have been Purdue students at one
time.
Band members say the strange band name, JFK &
The Juniors, actually has no meaning behind it.
"We probably went over a thousand names before
we picked one," said Wheeler. "It ended up that there was nothing behind
(the name); it just sounded cool."
He said JFK & The Juniors are a ska/punk band
that doesn't draw many comparisons to other bands because its style
changes so much according to what song they play.
"I can't even think of a band that our style is
close to. Our sound really varies. We play a nice range of ska and punk
and even get into a little bit of hardcore punk."
The majority of the band's work is original material
and everyone is said to take part in the song writing process. "Any
of the rhythm section guys like Garren or Mike or Justin will write
the guitar part and it just goes from there and everyone just adds their
own parts," said Wheeler.
JFK & The Juniors also play an occasional cover
song. At its last show in the Purdue Memorial Union, band members spiced
up Madonna's "Material Girl."
This is not unusual for the group; in the past
it has played "Walking on Sunshine" and "Walk Like An Egyptian." For
the next show the group is thinking about doing a cover of "Build Me
Up Buttercup."
Right now the band members are just having fun
playing shows. "If we got signed to a record label of course that would
be wonderful; but we don't have any high expectations," said Wheeler.
n If anyone wants to learn more about the band,
the Web site at http://expert.cc.purdue.edu/~housman/jfk offers band
news, MP3s, show times and dates, band member bios and band pictures.
JFK & The Juniors will be performing at 7 tonight in the University
Church.
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