Name: Brice Green
Major (s): Music and Economics (Double Major)
Year: 2015
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Michella: You’re head of Ephcappella, the umbrella organization for student a cappella groups on campus. How did you land the position and what does it entail?
Brice: I was elected head of Ephcappella by the heads of the various a cappella groups on campus. I guess a majority voted for me? Basically I run the organizational side of a cappella singing on campus. Since we have nine groups on campus, they need to figure out how to schedule concerts around each other, not sing the same songs, not take the same new members, etc. I also mediate disputes if there are any, but usually those are pretty manageable.
Michella: Aside from Good Question (one of the co-ed a cappella groups on campus), you seem to be apart of multiple music projects. Could you tell me a little bit about them?
Brice: I would love to! I am a member of a few bands, as well as a songwriter and individual performer. I was really shoved into playing with bands by my friend Kevin Lawkins who needed a keyboard player when I was a sophomore. We had a pretty terrible band that did 90s pop covers. When Kevin took a year off, that band collapsed. Paul de Konkoly Thege, who was playing bass in that band, approached me about founding a new band with different members. That new band became Gentlemen Art Thieves, which is in its third incarnation now. We started out as a cover band, but we actually play a large amount of original music at this point. I’m also part of a newer project called Bull Moose Party with some of the former members of Homage, Danny Schwartz’s funk band from a few years back. We should be coming out with some music and playing some parties and other events in October so look out for us!
In addition to the performance side, I founded the Williams Student Musicians Association, an organization dedicated to connecting musicians with each other and providing the support that they need in order to create more music on campus. It sort of came out of a sheer lack of equipment and collaboration I was running up against last year, and so hopefully it goes some way towards promoting a culture of music on campus.
Michella: That’s awesome! How has Williams shaped your musical experience/access to music talent?
Brice: Williams has been truly fantastic for me. I really came in not wanting to major in music. I played a bunch in high school, mostly classical saxophone and piano, and I decided that I didn’t like practicing enough to become a professional musician. I really came into music at Williams because of Professor Ed Gollin in the music department who teaches intro music theory. I loved that class and ended up at this point doing a thesis in music with professor Gollin as my advisor.
Musically I think that the players we have are a lot stronger than when I came in my freshman year, and I finally feel like I know enough to start tapping into that talent. We have a massively strong set of players here, which is something that people don’t really realize. The music department is starting to pick up steam in a real way. The faculty has always been great, and we have more and more majors each year. It’s honestly really exciting to see it grow!
Michella: When did your interest in music begin? Where these a turning point when you decided you wanted music to play an integral part in your life?
Brice: I started out playing because my parents thought I might like to play an instrument. I wanted to play drums but they didn’t want me to play drums, which is honestly pretty understandable from their point of view. My mom convinced me that since piano was a percussion instrument it would provide an easy to transition to drums once I got a feel for it. Which is of course a lie, but it made sense to eight-year-old me.
I played a lot through elementary, middle, and high school. I was studying classical and jazz piano at the Colburn School for Performing Arts and then I was studying classical saxophone at UCLA. I actually got pretty good at classical saxophone, but I didn’t want to go to school exclusively for music. I actually applied to Williams thinking I would study International Relations.
I really didn’t play a lot my first year. I couldn’t find my niche. I was going to be studying classical saxophone at Williams, but my prospective teacher died of pneumonia the spring before I came to campus. It wasn’t until Kevin pulled me into his ridiculous rag-tag band and we started playing in bars that I really started enjoying music again.
Before that, playing music had become a serious source of stress. There comes a point in almost everything when you get good enough that you can suddenly hear how terrible you are. All I could hear when I played was how badly I was messing up or all the mistakes I would make. When I started playing shows at parties and bars it became fun again. Playing music and having people dance is one of my favorite things to do on this planet. Playing songs that I write and seeing people enjoy them is the most gratifying thing I have ever done. I’m really glad I got back to it.
Michella: Postgrad, do you plan to continue pursuing music professionally? If not, what are your plans?
Brice: No matter what I’m going to keep playing. I have no idea whether I’m going to pursue music professionally. Honestly, if I could support myself by playing music it would be wonderful. Realistically I’m not certain I can. There is no real path into music other than trying blindly and hoping you know people. It’s a hustle at a certain point. Making great music is a good start, but then it’s about playing everywhere you can for as many people as possible, trying to get ears to the music you make. And that’s not easy at all. I think any musician given the option to become a hugely popular rock star would take it. But the path there is one that involves sleeping in vans and crashing with friends and playing shitty bars and taking painfully boring temp jobs. You really have to love what you’re doing. You have to love it enough to recognize that there are a million to one odds you’ll make it and take it anyway.
It’s never a boring existence though, and some of the best times of my life have been behind a piano. I hope that some of those times are still ahead of me. Who knows? Maybe this time in a couple years I’ll be playing music festivals and traveling around the world. Probably not though. There are a billion things I want to do and never enough time and I’m really uncertain about where my life will take me. For now, I’m just going to keep making great music and doing the things I love.