By Marlie Wilson

In an interview with The Forum, members of The Faculty, an emerging band at L-S, shared their story. It is comprised of L-S students Tim Mollen, Patrick Wilver, Ben Dasilva, Jay Sia, and Tim Jarrett, along with Lexington High School student Raffi Sweet.

How did The Faculty form?
Tim, Patrick, and Ben started a band about two years ago, originally called Ocean Street Melody. The band would only meet after school a few times a week, playing video games, skateboarding, and occasionally playing music. Ben was originally the band’s bassist before he decided to pick up the guitar like Patrick. It was not until a chance encounter at the 2007 Relay For Life, that Raffi Sweet and Ben Dasilva met. After learning that Raffi was a singer, of which the band was in dire need, Ben and Patrick picked up their guitars with him to create what is now known as “Sepia Tones.” From there, keyboard/synthesizer player Tim Jarrett (TJ) and bassist Jay Sia were added, The Faculty was formed, and the rest is history.

What is an average band practice like?
It starts every day at 3 p.m. in Tim Mollen’s basement studio. First, we play through the songs that are still a work in progress. Then, we move to practicing the songs we will play in shows. We usually end up talking about the future and how the heck we will survive being on a bus together for the rest of our lives. This is followed by a few heated games of Call of Duty 4. Then, the band gets together one more time and works on the next studio song.

Where do you guys draw inspiration from?
Our main inspirations are from bands like Motion City Soundtrack, Say Anything, The Format, Powerspace, Paramore, ‘N SYNC, and of course the always fantastic Raven Symone. The band’s catch-phrases are “That’s so Raven” and “Feels right.”

Rumor has it that you guys are about to score a record deal. How’s that going?
Myspace is what really launched our music careers out into the mainstream. After we received around 20,000 plays in our first week or so, we received messages and emails from several big name labels and managers. About two weeks into our Myspace exposure, we got an email from Brian Homes, who is the owner of the next huge online music source, known as Soundspin. After talking with him over the next few days, we worked out ways of helping to promote each other. Homes is the former tour manager of a number of our favorite bands and we knew that he could help us advance our musical career. He led us to different labels and A&R representatives from some of the largest record labels in the business. The result was that the labels really loved our music, and wanted us to move into a nicer studio to ensure that the quality of the music was top notch. It was also suggested that we redo “Whipped Cream and Broken Dreams,” because they felt that this was a strong song with a lot of potential. Since we started our Myspace on February 1, 2008, we have received more than 50,000 plays on our first three songs. We owe a lot of our success to the fans out there who have helped us spread the word to others. It is because of our great fans that we will be able to go on tour this summer and showcase our songs all over the country.

Tell us about your new album.
Our first official album will be produced at Wellspring, a studio in Acton, MA. It will be compilation of all of our hard work growing as musicians. With the success that our songs have had on Myspace, we decided to redo the song, “Whipped Cream and Broken Dreams,” and will be recording our two new songs, yet to be named, that we believe will be something that our fans and future fans will really enjoy. We want to adapt more of our own style with our own sound, and despite already being original with our first three singles, we feel like the sound quality and overall feel will be far better.

What superpower would each of you want to have?
-Tim Mollen: “I would want to be able to breathe underwater. I figure the way things are going, in forty years we will all need to be able to breathe underwater.”
-Ben Dasilva: ”If I could be any superhero, I would be Toby Maguire. He’s one hell of a jockey.”
-Raffi Sweet: “I wish I could have the ability to grow taller, just so I would have the ability to be as tall as the rest of the band.”
-Patrick Wilver: “I wish that I could have the ability to be super skinny. I want to be able to fall between the cracks in wooden floors. Well, only two pounds to go!!”
-Jay Sia: “The ability to focus more than...” (Jay Sia walked away)
-Tim Jarrett (TJ): “I would want to fly because I really want to go to Disney World.”