Valley band to release EP at high school showcase

PALMER — At least one local band has made a name for itself in the professional music world thanks to the Northern Star High School Rock Showcase at the Hard Rock Café in Anchorage.

Last year, Anchorage resident Kurt Riemann started the showcase “to give high school bands a venue” at which to play their music, he said, no matter their skill level.

“All you need is three chords and the truth,” reads a description of showcase requirements on its website.

Having produced and recorded more than 500 albums over 35 years through his business, Surreal Studios Recording, Riemann had the resources to make the showcase happen. All he had to do was get people to come to the event.

But he got more than he bargained for.

“The place was full,” Riemann said, of the inaugural showcase.

Not only that, but a Palmer band called Brothers in Arms came and “silenced the room,” Riemann said.

“Everyone was impressed at how good they were,” he said.

Meet the band

Brothers in Arms consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Andrew Toro, a senior at Palmer High School; Ehlo Adkins, a homeschooled senior, who plays keyboard and rhythm guitar; drummer Hunter Sullivan, a first-year student at Mat-Su College; and bassist and lyricist Cody Buzby, a student at the Mat-Su Borough’s Alaska Middle College School.

The band had its first official gig — at the “Ag Jam” in the agriculture building at Palmer High — just a couple of months before the showcase. Toro and Adkins have been playing together for a couple of years, but the band as a whole had only recently formed before the first show. Toro had only begun singing shortly before that, and Buzby didn’t even own or know how to play a bass guitar when he joined the band, though he failed to mention that at first.

“He basically … lied his way into the band,” Toro joked.

It proved to be a fortunate fib.

“He ended up writing all of our songs,” Adkins noted.

Buzby said he grew up around music and literature, spending countless hours reading with his mom. He guessed the combination led to his lyrical ability.

“I’ve always loved telling stories and (talking about) what I like to do in what I write,” he said.

The music

Toro said the band members have “a lot of different tastes,” ranging from his love of indie rock and Buzby’s penchant for folk and country to Sullivan’s knack for metal and hard rock and Adkins’ interest in hip-hop and alternative rock.

“We take what we like, each of us, and when we all play together, our sound is what happens,” Toro said.

He likened the band’s sound to Coldplay, Switchfoot and Imagine Dragons, groups that have greatly influenced their music, he said. But the group’s originality was clear to Riemann, who jumped at the opportunity to record Brothers in Arms in the studio after last year’s showcase.

“It’s frankly one of the best sounding projects I’ve ever worked on,” Riemann said of the band’s first EP. “There’s a musical maturity there far beyond what many others who are more seasoned can achieve.”

Adkins said the group considers itself “a secular band with faith-driven lyrics,” given each of the members’ Christian background and desire to appeal to larger audiences.

No business like show business?

Brothers in Arms will be releasing their EP, “Color My Soul,” at the end of this year’s Northern Star Showcase on Sunday, March 6, at the Hard Rock Café, 415 E Street, Anchorage. The event lasts from 2 to 5 p.m., but the journey toward stardom will be far from over at that point.

Toro and Adkins said they’re committed to their dream of making it big in the music industry, and plan to keep the band together while in college. Though Buzby has plans to study psychology close to home and enter the military soon after, Toro, Adkins and Sullivan will be just a few hours apart at schools in Washington and Oregon this fall.

Toro said that, “if music doesn’t work out,” he’d like to study law and business, then put that education to use in the entertainment industry.

“There’s good money in that if you have the right clients,” he said.

Though Adkins was leaning more towards youth ministry as a career, he and Toro agreed that playing music for a living would be ideal.

“(It’s the) best job I’ve ever had,” Toro said.

Another Palmer band, The Henchmen, will be joining Brothers in Arms at the showcase for the first time this year. Fronted by lead vocalist and guitarist Chris Bergey, The Henchmen was formerly known as Rumplestiltskin, and play what organ player and bassist Andrew Bryant called, “psychedelic hard rock.”

“If you like The Doors, you’re gonna like us,” Bryant said.

He said the band — Michael “Mikey” Graffeo is on drums — is hoping to work with Riemann on its upcoming EP.

Both The Henchmen and Brothers in Arms can be found on Facebook.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.