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by KELSEY OHLEGER
Intern Lifestyles Reporter
What do you get when you mix bluegrass music with pop, indie and folk?
The Roland Jones Orchestra.
The band consists of five musicians playing traditional blue grass instruments.
Although they play the instruments to form a traditional bluegrass band, the music they produce is unique within the local music scene.
“We do play
traditional bluegrass tunes but none of the songs we have written are
traditional,” Caleb P. Humphries, mandolin player, said. “All of the
music we put together is from a bluegrass standpoint because that is
what we all know best, but we’re just building on a foundation of that
type of music.”
Banjo player Jared D. McEntire has played alongside Humphries, senior advertising major, since their early years of high school.
During their sophomore year of college, the two joined with guitarist Drew G. Parrot, senior building sciences major.
Within
the past year, they added fiddle player Jacob B. Wolfe, sophomore
design major, and bassist J. Troy Harris, sophomore music performance
major, to form The Roland Jones Orchestra.
They hope for their broad range of music to appeal to all types of people.
“At this
point in our lives it’s our creative peak –so if we can do it, why
not,” McEntire said. “There are people out there who really appreciate
it and want to sit down and listen to good stuff.”
The
group works to produce original songs written by Humphries, but enjoys
experimenting with all music from old time bluegrass to Justin
Timberlake and Jack Johnson covers.
When
asked what genre they would place themselves in, Humphries did not have
an answer but explained they could place themselves in the midst of
four or five.
McEntire, junior psychology major, preferred no genre.
“We want
to have fun with music and have people listen to something that is
different and familiar at the same time,” McEntire said. “We want
something you can appreciate as well [as] dance to because if you just
want to boogie to music you can go to any bar and listen to any college
band.”
The Roland Jones Orchestra has no specific goals but wants to continue to make music and have fun.
The band is a close group of friends who enjoy playing music while not taking it completely seriously.
“Out of
four hours of practicing we get about 30 minutes of production,”
McEntire said. “The rest of the time is telling jokes, goofing around
and not practicing, but when we need to work we do.”
They have played multiple shows in Boone including Murphy’s Restaurant
and Pub, Dragonfly Theater and Crossroads coffee shop and just traveled
on a mini-tour this past weekend to play three shows.
Currently, the band has no shows scheduled and hopes to work on recording new music, but has no set plans.
“We
don’t want to fall into the path of setting goals and becoming a cliché
band,” McEntire said. “We want to be good. And we’re not sacrificing
anything for anything. We’re making music that we like and we’re not
going to stop doing that to help us get a record label.”
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