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During Halloween weekend, student band NONEWFRIENDS. organized a two-day festival called “Spook Ball” with nine other student bands. Anyone who wanted to attend could text 315-509-9511 to RSVP and get the address for the shows. By the time they were done, Jackson Siporin, saxophonist and guitarist for the band, realized they had over 500 phone numbers.

“For Halloween, we used the number to kind of communicate. And then we had a lot of people on it, like more than I think we ever could have expected,” Siporin said. “We were like, ‘We have to do something with this.’”

Fifteen days later, the band announced a “Monday Memos” series on its Instagram. They decided to use the phone number to finally bring to fruition a concept Siporin and his bandmate, guitarist Peter Groppe, were thinking about for a while: spotlighting individual members of the band’s personal work, as well as early versions and previously unreleased demos of songs. Each memo goes out as a text with a link to a YouTube video and a brief note from the artist.

Each Monday since then, a different band member has sent out a link to one of their unheard songs. More people signed up for the texts — which fans do by texting the number — and the series’ audience grew to 600 since that announcement, Siporin said.

Liz Stuart, the band’s lead singer, introduced the first memo — a song she wrote in July that bassist Jack Harrington produced with her. Stuart said this first memo felt a lot more “raw,” but she wasn’t too nervous about releasing it.

“Most of the music that’s out currently is all very personal to me anyway, so putting up a demo was just kind of an extension of that,” Stuart said. “It was very personal, but it’s also like, I’ve already been very vulnerable to the public, so it wasn’t really so crazy.”

The memos help fans feel closer to the already accessible band, Syracuse University junior Johany Madrid said. The band has performed many concerts this year at multiple locations, including student houses and downtown Syracuse restaurant Funk ‘n Waffles.

Madrid went to her first NONEWFRIENDS. concert in late September and was hooked, she said. Now that she can listen to the band’s demos and independent work, the junior said she understands the music and musicians better.

“It was cool to hear them outside of the scene that I usually see them in too, because I usually only see them at their shows. So, listening to them on my own is really nice and being able to hear their thought processes and stuff,” Madrid said.

Groppe plays guitar for the band, but in last week’s “Monday Memo,” he sent out a demo where he sings an early version of the band’s number one song — with over 200,000 streams on Spotify — “Already Gone.” According to his “Monday Memo” text message, he recorded it in Thanksgiving break 2017 — his freshman year at SU.

Lead singer Liz Stuart sent out the first memo on Nov. 15.

The memos help fans feel closer to the already accessible band, Syracuse University junior Johany Madrid said. The band has performed many concerts this year at multiple locations, including student houses and downtown Syracuse restaurant Funk ‘n Waffles.

Madrid went to her first NONEWFRIENDS. concert in late September and was hooked, she said. Now that she can listen to the band’s demos and independent work, the junior said she understands the music and musicians better.

“It was cool to hear them outside of the scene that I usually see them in too, because I usually only see them at their shows. So, listening to them on my own is really nice and being able to hear their thought processes and stuff,” Madrid said.

Groppe plays guitar for the band, but in last week’s “Monday Memo,” he sent out a demo where he sings an early version of the band’s number one song — with over 200,000 streams on Spotify — “Already Gone.” According to his “Monday Memo” text message, he recorded it in Thanksgiving break 2017 — his freshman year at SU.

Published on December 5, 2021 at 10:51 pm

Contact Sydney: sypollac@syr.edu