Well over a year ago, four friends sat in a Scott Hall dorm room kidding around about possible names for their "fake band."
"We made a joke about some stupid physics problem, like 'if you are standing in the shadow of a seven meter sun, how many apples does Johnny have?'" said Nick Hutchinson, the band's guitarist. "I just kinda wrote down anything that kinda sounded like a band name, and that was how it all started."
Beyond the name, "it all" came to mean hours of practice and perfection that turned the idea of a "seven meter sun" into a real band. A year later, "it all" lead to a performance in the middle of Uptown park on Thursday, September 6th.
Seven Meter Sun is a "self-organized, self-promoted and self-produced alternative rock band," according to the Office of Student Activities. Band members Andrew Back, Noah Diring, Nick Hutchinson and Aimee Litson are all undergraduate students and claim to have been brought together by what they call "commonality of fanboyism."
"It was sort of a spontaneous idea," said Hutchinson. "We all played instruments, and we all sing, so the idea was, 'why aren't we in a band?'"
While not all of them are music majors, they have all been heavily influenced by music throughout their lives. Hutchinson was involved throughout high school, while Aimee Litson has played piano and had classical vocal training since she was a child.
"I wouldn't say I'm an expert at piano," said Litson. "I just think that our ability to work with different instruments helps us with songwriting."
The band has recently shed the role of being a "cover band" and has instead focused on original music, which was highlighted in Thursday's concert.
"I just wrote about the thoughts in my head and how I was sort of frustrated with the world," said Litson about their song "Easy Distance." "I wanted to talk about how easy it is to look at something in the world and not care enough to not do something about it."
Her inspiration for this song came from one of her professors, who spoke about inspiring people to act more on the things that upset them. He inspired both the title and many of the lyrics.
Each member has written their own songs, and each one is almost a different genre of music. Their own unique tastes and personalities shine through in each song, according to Diring.
"We all have very different styles," said Diring. "Aimee writes songs from a more external point, and starts with the message, while I try to be more introspective. I start with the music, then the lyrics come from how the music makes me feel."
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Their different styles of writing allow them to work with different genres of music and, Hutchinson hopes, reach a greater audience.
"We just write about anything that comes to mind, and our style is very ungrounded," he said. "We all can write for completely different genres, all have very different tastes in music and our range can evolve and reach more people."
While they are not on Spotify or Soundcloud, Seven Meter Sun plan to release an EP in the coming months. They plan on switching to entirely original music in the months to come.
mintona2@miamioh.edu
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