Thank You for the Music: “Box House”

By Sarah Reilly

The drums grow louder, the bass maintains a steady beat against the audience’s chests. The little poetry book has become of no use for lyrics. As the energy of the room grows, so does the volume of the words. The excitement increases. The little poetry now thrown to the side, it hits the guitarist in the side of the face.

“There was one bum note. There was literally one single bum note and he just rolled right back into it,”said, Miles Doyle, the bassist of the band Box House.

This is just one of the many amazing memories this band has created.

Box House has been playing, writing, and performing with each other for about a year and a half. Three of the members, Becky Sargeant, Jon O’Brian, and Drew Zaremba, met from an old band they all had played in. Doyle joined recently as their old guitarist, while Luchiano left for college in London.

The four of them have known each other for a while. Box House currently has an extended play record, or EP,  with 7 songs titled “Sick Days.” The songs all come from the band member’s hearts and are written to help inspire others. Although inspiration to create music can come in many different forms though.

“So really what inspires me, just like thousands of other musicians of modern day, was playing rock band and guitar hero,” drummer Drew Zaremba said. A musical game inspired Zaremba to go with music. Inspired him to play more and more. Other members were inspired by the environment they grew up in and their school band. 

“It can be very difficult to find people who want to take it as seriously as you do. Cause everybody wants to be in a band, no one wants to put in the work,” Doyle said. Being in a band takes a lot of hard work. You have to write the music, write the lyrics, and schedule shows. You also have to work with all of the other members in a cooperative manner. To be successful with this, you must surround yourself with people who you believe you can work with.

“The bands you’ll end up in aren’t exactly what you had in mind when you started playing,” guitarist Jon O’Brian said. It is all part of the process of finding that band that you will do amazing things with. Like, writing songs with amazing meaning.

“So, I’m a pretty-like impassioned feminist. I was raised mainly by my mother and sister and that goes a lot into my song writing,” Sargeant said. The song “Where to Start” is a song demonstrating how weird the idea of being a nice guy once means someone has to date you. The song mocks this behavior and in the end talks about how things don’t work that way.

“This song is called Love Sick #2 and it’s about boys.” Sargeant said. “Love Sick #2” is a love song written about a boy Sargeant had a crush on in middle school. The song has no pronouns because Sargeant is bisexual and doesn’t want the song to be subject to one gender. 

“It’s about me!” Zaremba said. The song “Down” is mainly about mental illness.

“I’m like diagnosed bipolar, like I’m medicated for it… I guess on one of those days where my mood kind of swung on the lower end I had written a lot of the lyrics on that,” Sargeant said. Being bipolar is a mental illness where you can have great shifts in mood, energy, and activity levels. It is something that many people live with. This song is a way for people who are bipolar to understand each other and feel less alone.

Box House is an amazing band with talented band members. They all have a great passion for what they do and it really shows in their work. They talk about love, issues in our world, and mental illnesses in their songs. Their shows have such a great energy that you just can’t forget them. So Box House, thank you for the wonderful experiences and thank you for your passion. Thank you for the music.