Meredith Williams, Arts and Entertainment Editor
Chloe Wright, Junior Editor
“We love coming out here, Sewanee! Y’all know how to party,” Trevor Terndrup, lead singer of Moon Taxi, said from the stage, amongst the packed crowd of cheering college students. After a long, long night of dancing and screaming the lyrics to our new favorite songs, nothing exemplifies EQB quite like Sewaneroo.
Sewanee’s annual music festival Sewaneroo was a complete hit this year, with acts ranging from hip hop to folk to high energy rock. In order to know more about the performances, Arts and Entertainment Editor Meredith Williams (C ’27) and Junior Editor Chloe Wright (C ’27) interviewed every performing band– student or otherwise– that went on the Sewaneroo stage.
The first artist– known as Kaleb instead of his full name Kaleb Seay (C ’24)– has performed 3 times at Sewaneroo, and with all of those opportunities, he has given himself plenty of time to develop his style. “I would define [my music] not like a genre, but the first thing I would say is that it is real,” he said. “Though, if you wanted a genre, from time to time I do RnB, and I recently just recorded a country song.”
After performing his first time at Sewaneroo in 2022 without much knowledge of what the music festival really was, Seay felt inspired to pursue music by how much everyone supported him. “You might not realize it now, especially while being young, but everything pays off,” Seay said. “Cherish the time you’re here. This place gives you the opportunity to push your own art.”
While known around the fraternity band scene, J.Y. Elliott (C ‘24) told us about how excited he was to play at Sewaneroo for the first time. Having the chance to play solo instead of with his classic rock band 5 Car Pileup, he chose to play acoustic. “[Sewaneroo] has been a thing since I was a freshman, and I never really thought about it,” he said. “I’m excited for the last couple shows we have, and it’s easy to get into the music scene at Sewanee if you really want to.”
Next, Petey and the Brofish,usually describe themselves as “high energy.” But their Sewaneroo set was designed to be more laid back since they would not have their rhythm set. “We’re usually much harder rock, but we just wanted to lay it back a little bit,” one of the band members said. “We try to hit across the board energy-wise.”
This isn’t their first rodeo when it comes to playing around Sewanee, of course. Petey and the Brofish have often seen the stages of Arm and Trout and Leg and Salmon. “I love the more intimate feeling without drums and bass,” another member of the band said. “I think as a harder rock band we don’t have the chance to showcase in other shows or at a frat party.” Overall, Petey and the Brofish used the chance to play at Sewaneroo to try something new.
The Tilts, a “hodgepodge of indie rock with a Sewanee feel”, as described by their lead singer Cannon Stratigos (C ’24), performed for their third time here at Sewaneroo. The Tilts can be found most weekends performing a show at fraternities, slowly developing their style and scene as a band. With three released singles on Spotify and other song clips on their Instagram (@the_tilts), they have been gaining recognition and playing more gigs around campus. As the Easter 2024 semester is wrapping up, The Tilts have announced more weekend shows that are a must-see for Sewanee students.
Thomas Sartor, a student attending Belmont University in Nashville, TN, was the final student artist to perform before Moon Taxi. When asked to describe his style of music, Sartor explained, “I would describe it as folk rock with a really genuine singer songwriter edge.” Sartor has performed a few solo gigs at Sewanee before, but this was his first performance at Sewaneroo with his full band. Sartor has made a name for himself, with over 1,500 Spotify monthly listeners; he decided he wanted to play a bigger gig, and explained “Sewanee has extremely vivacious and energetic crowd… as soon as I had the band assembled I was especially ready [to perform at Sewaneroo].”
The big act of the night, Nashville’s own alt-rock five-piece band Moon Taxi, returns to Sewaneroo for the second time since 2008. The Purple was grateful to have the opportunity to sit down with Trevor Terndrup, Moon Taxi’s lead singer, and interview him about his band’s music and his experience at Sewaneroo as a whole.
For those who have never heard of Moon Taxi’s music, Terndrup describes it as “rock music at its core, [but] musically it’s pretty poppy and catchy. [When we perform live], we kind of extend it, so we make it really fun to see live.” On their Spotify page boasting more than 700,000 monthly listeners, you can see their genres ranging from reggae-influenced “Lay Low” and the iconic, alternative pop “Morocco.”
The inspiration for their hit song “Two High” comes from a sentimental place; after attending the womens’ march after the 2016 election, he felt compelled to bring people together in a world with so much disorder. “I was thinking about the peace sign and how it’s a universal thing that brings people together and transcends languages and ideologies,” he said. Regarding the title of the song in particular, Terndrup said that it was actually a typo from Moon Taxi keyboardist Wes Bailey; it originally was meant to be “Too High.” “That song really did change all of our lives,” he said. “It took us around the world.”
While plenty of colleges host music festivals (e.g., Vanderbilt’s Rites of Spring), Sewanee’s campus is undoubtedly more rural, intimate, and overall different. When asked what Moon Taxi wants to bring and take away from performing at Sewaneroo, Terndrup talked about how important it is to unite people through song. “I don’t know the people who will be at the show tonight, but hopefully by the end of it, they’ll know a little bit about me. Hopefully, [we and the audience] can enjoy the experience together.”