Terrace Club was quiet on Tuesday afternoon — after classes let out for the day, but before students had settled into evening study spots. Despite a few people scattered around tables in the club’s dining area, the room felt mostly empty, providing an intimate space to interview Princeton’s own Strawberry Milk. A band divided — but not split up — by class years, only Toussaint Santicola Jones ’25 and Harit Raghunathan ’25 were with me in person. The group’s two graduated musicians, Cole Vandenberg ’24 and Chris Johnston ’24, joined us via Zoom.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and concision.
The Daily Princetonian: Can you tell me a little bit about the group? How did you all start out, and what style or genre do you usually like to perform?
Harit Raghunathan: We started my freshman year, when I was auditioning alongside Cole. We were auditioning for the Princeton University Rock Ensemble. We were not up to par, and we were rejected. Luckily for us, outside the practice audition room was Chris, and I didn’t even know he was part of the group. Two days later, Chris was like, “I don’t know why you got rejected. Let’s just make a band by ourselves. Why not?” We started in the Forbes basement, just playing covers. From there, we got lucky. Then Toussaint came along, helped us start writing original songs, giving us the confidence to grow out and start playing at Terrace. Then we played for Lawnparties back in 2022 when we opened for Flo Milli, and since then, it’s been a roller coaster. We’ve been recording originals in the studio. I hope it keeps on growing and becomes something we can do for the rest of our lives.
DP: It sounds like everything is going very well at the moment, and I’m looking forward to hearing some new music. Where would you say your dream venue is on campus?
Chris Johnston: Obviously, I think I’ve been happy with everything we’ve been able to do on campus, but I think it would be fun to play at Ivy.
Toussaint Jones: I was going to say Ivy too. I’ve played there with a different band that I was in before, but it would be fun to play again.
DP: That’s cool. So, if you could have any guest performer, and let’s do both established musicians and other students, who would you want that to be?
TJ: If it’s anyone in the world, I feel like it would have to be Dave Matthews Band. They’re very inspirational to our music, but the whole band would have two of every instrument. In terms of other students, and I feel like maybe this is a cop out answer, but a lot of our second record was more of a fusion. We’ve gotten to work with between 16 and 20 other musicians on campus, and I feel like they were all incredible. It’s hard to say who’s the dream because we’ve gotten to work with so many amazing people on campus.
DP: How do you get inspired to write music? Is there a place that you go, certain music that you listen to, or does it just come to you?
Cole Vandenberg: I’m pretty new to musical writing, so I don’t know if I have a plan, but usually I’ll be listening to a song and they do something interesting that I like. And then I think, “Oh, I’d like to try and capture that in my own music.” I also think that most of the time, we’re really influenced by each other. We all come from different musical backgrounds. I’ll hear the stuff that Chris writes, and I’ll hear the stuff that Toussaint writes, and I’ll think, “I have to keep up.” We help each other find new styles.
DP: Hearing the actual experience of being inspired by each other, and wanting to bring that out, I think that’s really cool.
TJ: Chris also has an interesting process. Chris blew our minds one time because he told me, “I wrote this song, but I can’t show it to you yet.” I asked why, and he said, “I wrote it in my head, but I don't know how to play it yet. I haven’t figured it out.” He wrote the whole thing in his head without even touching the idea in physical form. Chris, what’s your process?
CJ: I would say that maybe there is a moment of inspiration that has to happen for every song. Something pops into your head and you’re thinking about it, and you want to try to figure it out. I also think a lot of it is just effort and trying to get the song done. It’s not going to just come out of sitting down for 10 minutes next to a guitar or piano, and now you have a song. A lot of it is “I have this seedling of an idea, and now I have to sit with it for five or six hours to see if it can go anywhere. It might not — it usually doesn’t. The only way to get there is if I sit here for the next few hours and work on it. So I know I have to do that, and if I don’t, nothing will happen.
DP: I don’t think I could possibly have the patience for that, so kudos to all of you. Now that we have a pretty good picture of who you guys are and what your process is, for the two of you that haven’t graduated yet, what’s the image going forward after graduation? Is this band specifically something you all plan to continue or branch out individually?
TJ: It’s kind of interesting because when I first got on campus, I wasn’t really involved. I write orchestra music, and I’m a music major, so I was doing that. I also met a bunch of other people, and I joined a bunch of other bands. But, over that time, it very quickly crystallized into “I’m most interested in working with these guys.” I think pretty early on it was clear to us that we were like, “This is very good, and we want to do this for as long as we possibly can.” In the past year, as we were preparing for them to graduate, we had to make some decisions as to what they were doing next year and what we were doing next year. The plan has been to do it professionally. All the plans that I’m making for grad school are based around doing the band. We’re gonna give it a good college try for the next few years to try to make this our career, so that’s the plan.
DP: Well, I wish you all nothing but all the success that you can possibly have in the future. Thank you for sitting down and talking to me!
Mackenzie Hollingsworth is an assistant editor for The Prospect. She is a member of the Class of 2026 and can be reached at mh5273@princeton.edu.
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