three bands, three sounds

Adalia Garza | THE RIDER

With limited momentum during a pandemic, several student bands, such as The Riverside Boys, Wavphiles and Wist have dedicated their time to making their marks in the music industry with their own unique sounds and commitment to the community. 

The Riverside Boys are a four-piece band from the Rio Grande Valley with an original sound that thrives off inspiration, devoting their mission as a band to inspire others. The band is composed of lead guitarist/vocalist and UTRGV civil engineering senior Isaac Bazan, of Edinburg;  drummer and civil engineering junior Aaron Peña, of Weslaco; bassist/vocalist Dante Chavez, of Edinburg;  and guitarist/vocalist Aaron Perez, of McAllen.  

After several years of different lineups and opportunities, with other members and styles of music, the present band formed in 2018  has traveled throughout Texas in small tours.

“We jammed a whole weekend in a storage unit and that was when I started writing new songs, better songs,” Bazan said. “My voice started coming together. Dante’s bass playing became way phenomenal. Aaron started playing guitar. … Before, it was just kids trying to figure it out. … But 2018 summer was magical. That was when pieces just aligned. Stars aligned, and that’s where we’re at right now.”

The lively band has traversed through different genres beginning with blues, transitioning into modern rock ’n’ roll, taking inspiration from different pieces in the music industry to create its own sound that still conveys Valley roots.

“We are very formed by this region of our culture, its exuberance and flamboyance,” Bazan said. “We are not cookie-cutter types of people. We’re very outgoing, very fiery people. You come to our shows and it’s a vibe. It’s something very, very beautiful.”

Though the pandemic put a halt on live shows, The Riverside Boys took advantage of the opportunity to quarantine and work together to create on a level that they had not stepped into before. 

“I wish we could have done more shows and festivals, but writing and releasing the [“Always in Trouble”]  album [in November 2020] by ourselves has been very productive and cathartic,” Chavez said.

“Bazan said, “We were just in the house all the time … living together, making music together, singing songs together, recording an album together. It shifted our focus from live shows to ‘Let’s create stuff now. Let’s be more intense with it.’” 

The Riverside Boys have expressed resilience through their continuous effort to create and inspire. Their current mission is to finish projects which they are creating and producing themselves. Overall, they aim to inspire others. 

“We want to make ripples in the music scene, make the Valley people proud,” Perez said. “We want to inspire other people to do the same thing as us and to do it better than us. We want to push the boundaries of music, getting genres and putting them together.”

Bazan said their goal is to inspire others to create.

“Our whole purpose is to create creators,” he said. “So, we have to create that same spark that we once felt. That is the grand ol’ goal. We are all just taking inspiration from someone else. … It’s a circle where we are all just inspiring each other.”

In a similar fashion,  Wavphiles have made their presence known throughout the Valley and at house parties in San Marcos. The band was established in 2017 and is composed of drummer Juan Pablo “JP” Cuellar, bassist Leo Marquez and lead guitarist and vocalist Gilbert Guerra, who is a senior sociology major. 

Through their time together, they have created their own sound encompassing their individual backgrounds and mutual tastes. 

“It was supposed to be very fast, very punk and loud,” Cuellar said about their sound. “It was a cool time as we were learning together and working with each other. That hardcore punk evolved.”

Guerra said there were no limits.

“There were no sort of limits,” he said. “We didn’t want to be this one thing, so eventually we decided to move on and try different kinds of styles.” 

Cuellar said, “I think it’s very cool that we can be very versatile and pick and choose where we want to go. I don’t know where that will lead us. We’re still finding our way.”

During the pandemic,  Wavphiles decided to enhance their craft and talent.

“We had about eight songs that we never had taken the time to record, so now we had all this free time,” Guerra said. “We took the time to sit down and record stuff. We recorded via emails and kept sending each other stuff. … Then we tried going on Zoom. There was a process where it was like, ‘I hope this turns out well.’”

Through their unique sound and incorporation of their personalities, they have dedicated their mission to blend together and provide music that is genuine and connected. 

“Our influences don’t really clash together very much. … It’s very open for us,”  he said. “It leaves a lot of room in the direction we want to go. I think that’s what makes us a good band.”

Guerra added that this instillment of openness is necessary to ensure they continue on creating and producing their music. 

“We try to find ways so that we all feel proud of the song,” Guerra said. “That’s just the give and take in the band, and is a necessary give and take. If we want this band to last … we have to find ways to make it work so that it blends tastefully.”

They participated in livestreams to keep the momentum going as a band. In one instance, they gave back to their community while performing live on Instagram. This gave people the opportunity to listen to their music and support a local cause.

“We were donating to an organization called RGV Gives Back, trying to help out families that had been affected and couldn’t afford Christmas meals or anything like that because of the pandemic,” Guerra said. “It was a good experience and a lot of fun.”

In the near future, they  intend to bring more of their musical style to the Valley and allow the community to grow. They intend to do this through community involvement and sharing their music.

“One thing we definitely want to try and pursue is to get the community a little more galvanized in the future,” Guerra said. “We all love where we are from and are shaped by the RGV in many ways…  I think we should be a band that tries to reach out a little more and give back in the only way we know how, through our music.”

Another local band, known as Wist, was formed based on their mutual love for grunge sounds. The band is made up of bassist and vocalist Phillip Castelan, drummer Caleb Villalobos, and lead guitarist and vocalist Ash Zareian, who is pursuing his doctorate in marketing at UTRGV.

Zareian said they are combining different sounds.

“My goal has been to synthesize the blues with grunge because very few bands have been able to do that, especially within the past 25 years,” he said. “We have been all about balance, the yin and the yang. How can we combine the feminine with the masculine? Masculine as in rough vocals, or heavy drums, or distortion. When we say feminine we can mean quiet and sweet, almost like a lullaby.”

Wist has voiced their distinctive style through their scholarly lyrics.

“[The lyrics are] based on literature, poetry and reading books,” Zareian said. “I think the hardest part … is writing the lyrics because of how picky I am.” 

He said the band wants their sound and lyrical message to be balanced.

“I am glad we haven’t really recorded anything professional yet because of how fickle I am in terms of the lyric-writing process and the melody,” Zareian said. “I’m constantly getting better and rewriting with subtlety in arrangement.”

As the songwriter, he intends to continue writing lyrics purposefully. 

“I want to write meaningful lyrics, and have a message about light and darkness, a balance, to try and stop consumerism, have people focused less on material possessions and more on their relationships, and help people out with addiction and try to get drugs out of the picture,” Zareian said. “I want people to have an outlet where they can release and heal. At least temporarily, have people not think about what happened to them. … That’s definitely the message. It’s definitely an artistic pursuit that doesn’t really care about the money, but rather about helping people.”

He said Wist will get more recognition once the Valley “grows.”

“There’s a lot of cool stuff happening here, and I think one day we will all get the recognition for it,” Zareian said. “It’s going to take some time, the Valley needs to grow a little bit more first, it needs to be more connected to other parts of the world and we’ll definitely see that.”