By AMY CHOATE
Provo seems music dense with almost every Tom, Dick and Harry in a band of some kind. For these instrument-wielding goers, it's not the love of fame that drives them to play -- no, it's something completely different. No talent, no place to practice and no audience are no obstacle for the love of good times and good music.
David Randall is a 23-year-old communications major with a passion for songwriting. He's played the guitar since he was 15, and now he wants to find some musicians to build a band. He also wants to be the next Chris Martin from Coldplay.
'I always thought songs were powerful on their own,' Randall said. 'That was until I went to a Coldplay concert in February ... They had quite the wall of sound, even though they play pretty mellow tunes. I realized you can have music that's emotionally powerful, but also musically powerful -- and rockin'. That's why I want to start a band.'
Starting a garage band doesn't technically require any talent or connections. Once you have an instrument, you're already halfway there. Everything else can be improvised, including finding a place to practice and a place to perform. Perhaps this is one contributing factor to the hundreds of makeshift bands around BYU campus.
'Music is like the greatest thing ever, because you're telling a story, but you're also giving a feeling,' Randall said. 'I don't think I know anybody who wouldn't want to be in a band.'
Strolling the streets of Provo after dark will often take you past houses and apartments with hard guitar lines and drum beats pounding recklessly through the windows. Bands play at local venues, on campus, at Muse Music and any other businesses willing to host them. But many geared up bands go unheard of, no matter how hard they try.
In a crowded basement room, one newly-formed band practices before their first big gig, a free street show to friends. Clothes are shoved haphazardly onto the bed to make room for a drum set, two guitars and one bassist. They call it 'the band room' and it smells like a sauna.
'We just want to make rock n' roll music for the kids,' they joke with each other. 'The sacrifices we make for rock n' roll!'
The band has a line-up of seven original songs, as well as 'the ones in our heads.' Though most of the members have been playing their instruments for at least five years, they still practice two times a week in their dorm-sized closet, giving each other tips, running through their play-list and trying to decide on a decent name. Their goal is to play outside of Provo, practice in some place with ventilation, and, adds the drummer, 'make sweet tee-shirts.'
Through the foam-covered door and up the stairs their roommates groan through another floor-throbbing practice. The agreement was that the band could practice from 8:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., but sometimes the rules need to be renegotiated, and sometimes the roommates need to wear earplugs.
Other times they need to resort to drastic measures.
'One night, we couldn't take it,' said Mark Inskeep, 23, from Riverside, Calif. 'We went outside and tried to cut the power to our own house to get them to stop practicing. We found the circuit box and switched off the power to the downstairs, and the whole house lost electricity, except the band room.'
The roommates have a sense of humor about it, humming along with the five songs they hear repeatedly, effectively making lemonade out of the 'living with a band' lemon.
'At least you know if they go platinum you're gonna get front row seats,' Inskeep said. 'But that's 'IF.''
Even though college bands might have the resilience to withstand the pressure and pains of practice and actual formation, one common threat is inevitable: because the university life is so transient, most bands only have a shelf life of a year, or even less, before they have to split. Members graduate, get jobs and move on. Everyone starts over.
'I'm really sad,' said Kyle Monson, a bassist leaving the band 'Fat Elvis.' 'It takes so much work to put a band together, that to start from scratch again makes me tired all over just to think about it.'
But the same drive that pushed him to perform in Provo will click into gear, and the search for band-mates will begin again. That motivation, in his opinion, is not a universal quality.
'The bands here are terrible,' Monson said. 'The motivation is awful. If you're in a band to get a girl, you'll never practice enough to get better. You'll just get good enough. And once you get a girlfriend, your incentive is gone.'
Whatever moves students to start bands and perform varies. Perhaps the more than 65 music classes offered at BYU contribute to the creativity pool. Or perhaps musical talent is a matter of gene pool.
'Mormons are just musical people,' Monson said. 'Per capita there are more guys that play the guitar than any other place. And there is a perception, whether true or not, that being in a band gets girls. So every guy in Provo wants to be in a band.'
But every aspiring Grammy winner has to start somewhere, and it's wise to have a back-up plan if things don't work out. Fat Elvis's lead singer, Chris Vermillion, is planning ahead. When his band breaks up, the remaining members plan to advertise and recruit some fresh blood. They will record and circulate their demo CD, but if all else fails, Vermillion will fall back on graduate school.
'I really do love music,' Vermillion said. 'If I could make a career out of it, I would. But I have to have a backup plan.'
Pursuing a musical career is serious business. Surviving as a band in Provo is like a spawn of salmon swimming upstream -- survival of the fittest. Even when you get to the top, the view might not be what you imagined it would be.
'The problem is, we have a lot of bands and not enough people to listen to them,' Vermillion said. 'Bands are always struggling to get people to listen to them.'
Keep swimming.