North Texas band Sophmore graduates with a growing audience
Sophmore, an indie band of high schoolers originated from the Dallas, Texas area, performs at a house show.
It is expected that not all bands comprising of high school students formed in a garage make it beyond the driveway. Perhaps the drummer isn’t committed enough and college application season is coming around. Then, one by one, members start becoming noticeably absent as each one goes off to attend a different university. Fast forward 20 years, and they are probably sitting in cubicles with slight scoliosis.
This is definitely not the case for the thriving North Texas high school band Sophmore.
“We got serious and started sophomore year in high school,” said vocalist and guitarist Mykul Mesta on how the band’s name came to be.
Now, four out of the five members of the band are juniors at Marcus High School in Flower Mound, Texas. The newest member of the band, Travis Norton, who plays a diverse combination of synthesizer and saxophone, is 19-years-old and attends North Central Texas College.
Norton, along with Mestas, Logan Krupovage on drums, Drake Shelburn on lead guitarist and Trevor Woods on bass guitar make up the local indie band.
Sophmore’s frequent shows attract a variety of teenagers and listeners who want to escape the real world for a few hours. The boys know how to enamor the crowd with not only their music but also their electric energy as well.
“They had the entire audience under their spell as they jammed out like we were in a coming of age ’90s film,” Sophmore show attendee Hailey Dufresne said. “It’s definitely something I’d want to be a part of again soon.”
The boys of Sophmore maintain a fun-loving and wild presence on stage, making it easy for fans to see they love what they do.
“It is a dream come true to us because we love music, creating it and displaying it in front of people,” Mesas said. “I think our band has great potential, and we’re about to release some new music that is much better than our old stuff.”
With musical influences from well-known indie bands like Hippo Campus and Beach Fossils, Sophmore still manages to create their own sound. In fact, it was their original sound that attracted Kyra Ganson, who now works as the band’s photographer.
“I would personally describe their style as garage rock/indie alternative,” Ganson said. “They have a very interesting tone in my opinion, very unique.”
Denton is known for being a fertile crescent of music in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, with talent pouring in all the time, and opportunities the scene in Denton has provided them is not lost on the guys of Sophmore.
“We are all definitely very grateful for the immense music scene in Denton,” Ganson said. “It has helped us make connections and has really formed who we are now.”
Though Sophmore has been playing shows for about a year in the DFW area, the band plans on not only continuing after high school, but taking on new areas as well.
“All in all, even though the band is small right now, I can really see it going somewhere,” Ganson said. “We all really love what we do, and I know [Sophmore is] planning on touring at some point.”
Featured Image: Sophmore, a Dallas-based indie band comprised of high school students, performs at a house show in Denton, Texas. TJ Webb
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