I sat down this week with The Equinox House Band, this year’s Music Mayhem winners, minus Mike, to talk about their experiences playing SienaFest and how they got started. From left to right is Conor McDonald, a junior management major, Chris Caimano, an “old” junior english major, Mike Cesario, a junior management major with a religious studies minor, and Brandon Larocca, a junior environmental science major.
Her Campus Siena: So when did you guys decide to become a band? How did you all get together?
Conor: Well I think that was Mike, actually. Mike and I are in pep band and we both play the drums, knew Chris could play the bass cause he showed up earlier in the year and started jamming, and Brandon was in our hallway last year so we knew he could play, too. I think Mike asked the others to jam and I happened to be there, and at one point Mike was like, “Oh, do you want to sing?” and it came from that.
Her Campus Siena: What kind of music do you guys play? Do you write your own stuff or is it mostly covers?
Chris: As of right now, we’re pretty much just covers. We plan on taking it a little more seriously next year, going out and playing at different places and hopefully having some sort of material that we make over the summer together. We do have an original song right now that we’ve been testing out at the townhouses recently, and have seemed to get some good reception. That was written by Mike.
Her Campus Siena: Do you guys play at the townhouses often? Can we see you most weekends?
Conor: We’ve gone out a few times. Our name actually comes from the fact that we play at Brandon’s good friends’ house, and they dubbed themselves the Equinox House, so that kind of made the band name The Equinox House Band. So we play there a lot.
Chris: We also recently found out that the Equinox House is a world famous narcotic recovery center, my mom found out about it and said, “Did you name that after heroin?” and I’m like, “No, I didn’t!”
Her Campus Siena: What is your favorite type of music to play? Do you have a genre or artist that you really like to cover?
Brandon: We kind of each have our own favorite genres. I know I absolutely love the blues, and more of the old folk-rock like Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and those kinds of guys.
Chris: Yeah there’s a lot of crossover. We all like different things, but it all works.
Brandon: It all really falls into good time jamming type of music.
Conor: We all have totally different views on what we like to listen to, but when someone brings new songs to the table I usually dig them. We all have pretty good taste in music, I think.
Brandon: And we’re able to put our own twist on even covers and make them our own.
Chris: I think part of that is that our influences help our own personal sounds, and our personal sounds all mesh really well. We knew it the first time we played, too, and knew we could be a solid group. And Conor started as singer, and we realized he could play guitar, and bass, and drums too. It helps having a “utility guy” like that, enabling us to move around when we want to do a particular part on a particular song, because we’re all at least proficient in at least two instruments.
Conor: It’s also nice for when we play live if one of us can’t be there, because we can all sing and between what the rest of us know it’s really no factor if all of us can’t be there at the same time.
Her Campus Siena: I guess the most obvious is, how was Music Mayhem for you guys?
Brandon: Music Mayhem was pretty awesome. We knew we were going last and kind of had that late night crew. I mean it was like 6:30-7 o’clock, but it was the last people there and they all got up really close to us and were getting really into it, so we had a great time and played really good and it was a lot of fun.
Her Campus Siena: And getting to open up for Hoodie Allen and Sammy Adams in front of a sold out crowd?
Brandon: The concert was unreal. An awesome experience.
Conor: It was also really cool because we got to use the equipment that the big guys were using. I could actually hear myself sing, I had a monitor facing me and I’ve never had that, I usually have to like, blow my voice out.
Chris: It was quite the experience. We were all kind of skeptical going in because we’d gotten so hyped up for Music Mayhem, and so we were ready to play and inviting mad people and thinking how we’d kill it, we’d win the competition, and then we did and realized we had to play tomorrow. When we went in the next morning and met up we weren’t even sure if we really wanted to play, but when we got there they were sound checking, and there was smoke everywhere and there was the PA pumping and a big ass stage and we were like, “Oh, this is the real deal,” and it was really cool; we ended up having a great time. I was so nervous, my heart was like pounding out of my chest when we got up there.
Conor: Yeah, I was supposed to have a guitar on stage but it didn’t end up working, but because of that I was able to dance around and I think that was a lot of it, being able to move around and get the crowd hyped.
Chris: Yeah, we know no one was there for us but it was still really cool.
Brandon: Yeah, unfortunately it was sold out and so none of our friends who came to see us at Music Mayhem could come to the show.
Conor: They’ll see us at the townhouses again.
Brandon: And usually I get so nervous, even doing presentations in class, and I was not a bit nervous. It was fun, it was a great time. People will come and be like, “Hey were you playing Music Mayhem the other night? The concert?”
Conor: Yeah, a lot of guys I don’t know will just be like, “Hey, that was great!”
Chris: Really? That’s dope! That’s the downside of living in New Hall, you don’t run into anybody.
Conor: I mean I loved playing it, and I wasn’t sure if everyone would like it.
Brandon: I think it was a change of pace, seeing Siena students playing live music.
Conor: Yeah, live music, we’re trying to get that as a scene at Siena, there’s not a lot of it!
Her Campus Siena: That would be great, how cool would it be to play Casey’s every now and again?
Brandon: That’s what we’d like to do!
Conor: I’d love to play here!
Chris: We might have to turn down a little bit for Casey’s.
Her Campus Siena: Later at night, like after it’s closed? Push aside all the tables and this could be a sweet spot.
Chris: I completely agree, and I wish Mike was here for this cause he’s got so much energy. I don’t want to say he’s like the heart of the band, but he really is like the heart of the band. You see him up on stage and it’s like his hat’s tilted up and his sunglasses are on and he’s double- choking the mic…
Conor: When I was playing the drums on the first song, I felt like the whole thing was him trying to make me laugh, and it worked so well; I was cracking up.
Chris: He’s so good, yeah, he’s a great musician and a great performer.
Conor: And he doesn’t care what people think about him.
Brandon: He doesn’t give two sh!ts.
Chris: He doesn’t, it’s awesome, and it’s kind of good for all of us because I’m open, but I’m not that open, and when you’ve got Mike out there going “we’re about to kill it” or when he pulls us in before the show and he’s like, “Just keep it grooving,” instead of trying to get us crazy and I was thinking about that last night before the show, because you lose the little things like that when you get nervous.
Brandon: He’s definitely a good influence.
Her Campus Siena: Unfortunately, they’re not on social media yet, but look out for The Equinox House Band playing the townhouses again next year!