Newly formed student group, Valley Academy, wins Battle of the Bands

The student band Valley Academy, which features David Lind ’18, Yaw Owusu-Boahen ’17 and Ben Falter ’17,won the inaugural Battle of the Bands event on Friday.

The event, hosted by the Undergraduate Student Government’s social committee, was organized to decide the opener for the main act at Lawnparties.

The Battle of the Bands line up included student bands St. Danger, Thriller and Baker & Goods. Each band was given 20 minutes to perform.

Songline Slam members Aron Wander ’15 and Ryan Cody ’15 emceed the event, which took place on the Dillon Gymnasium Loading Dock and was sponsored by USG, the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students and the Lewis Center for the Arts.

USG president Ella Cheng ’16 said that Battle of the Bands was organized to showcase and unify the diverse student bands on campus.

Cheng is a former staff writer for The Daily Princetonian.

“A lot of us feel that an overlooked aspect here on campus is the student music community,” said Anthony Sgro ’18, USG social committee member. “There is a lot of talent, and we felt like it doesn’t get enough attention.”

Twelve student bands had applied to participate in the competition, but the social committee only chose five to perform. The criteria for selection included overall strengths and completeness of the application, as well as band showmanship.

“We selected them based on their musicality, previous performances, experience and logistical purposes,” Sgro said.

USG social chair Simon Wu ’17 said the committee conferred with entertainment company owner Bob Sallade and Campus Club director Dianne Spatafore to decide which band could best utilize the musical and staging equipment USG had at its disposal.

Wu said he optimistically predicted student attendance would be around 250, but only 80 students came on Friday.

Social committee member William Aung ’18 explained that he thought attendance was lower than expected due to the number of established events, such as dance shows and events at certaineating clubs, that also occurred on Friday.

Get the best of ‘the Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

“There were a lot of things that were unfortunate in terms of time, but aside from that, the people that came were very engaged,” Aung said.

According to Sgro, the winner was decided 50 percent by judge evaluation and 50 percent by audience member vote. Based on audience polls, Psychobaby was the runner-up.

“We didn’t want it to devolve entirely into a popularity contest,” Wu said.

The five judges were creative writing professor Paul Muldoon, Logan Roth ’15, Caroline Reese ’14, Evan Younger ’08 and Josh Hirshfeld’08.

Muldoon, an award-winning poet and songwriter, is the founding chair of the Lewis Center, Roth is the former social committee chair and a member of the student band Honeyhead, Reese is part of a folk band, Caroline Reese & the Drifting Fifth and Younger and Hirshfeld are members of the Brooklyn-based band Miracles of Modern Science.

The judges rated each band on scoresheets from one to 10, in originality, musicality, showmanship and songwriting.

At Battle of the Bands, Valley Academy played its original songs “Limitless,” which was the first track on its recently released extended play “Race Me,” as well as covers of “Shut Up and Dance” by Walk the Moon and “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran.

Valley Academy’s musical influences include OneRepublic, The 1975, Twenty One Pilots and Ed Sheeran, according to lead singer and songwriter Lind.

“Our sound is a combination of a lot of music,” he said. “The goal is to get people, including ourselves, to think more about why we do what we do.”

Drummer Owusu-Boahen and Lind have been playing together since their freshman year, and Lind and Falter met on a train on the way to a concert this year, Owusu-Boahen said.

Valley Academy was formed a couple of weeks before the release of the Battle of the Bands application. Lind said that, prior to the Friday performance, the band had only one gig at a local fundraiser with an audience of two people.

Owusu-Boahen said that winning Battle of the Bands is a highlight of his time at the University.

“We had a great time playing Battle of the Bands. People got to hear our music, we had a fun time,” Owusu-Boahen said. “Just the fact that we get to open at Lawnparties — that is one of those moments you won't get very often.”

Owusu-Boahen said that when the other bands were announced he was very excited because he really enjoys Psychobaby and Baker & Goods, and did not know how the judges would be able to decide a winner among groups with such different musical styles.

“Our band is more upbeat pop, exciting, outgoing type of music, the type of thing to dance to, and I think that is what made us stand out,” Owusu-Boahen explained.

Wu said the main act artists Alus, Luke Christopher and Big Sean will decide whether they want to interact with and meet with Valley Academy members.

“In terms of meeting the artist, that’s not something we can ever promise because a lot of the times you don’t even meet the artist, it’s up to what the artist wants to do,” Wu said.

Cheng said this year's Battle of the Bands will hopefully start a new annual tradition.