A new student music group is bringing grunge and alternative rock to West Delaware High School.
Silverware, a five-member band formed by students and one alumnus, was created through a shared interest in music and performing.
Jeremiah Elston is the lead singer with Kaden McNelly on lead guitar, Kaden Haas on drums, Sam Mejia on rhythm guitar, and alumnus member Brock Northburg on bass guitar.
“We all wanted the same thing,” Mejia said. “Everyone wanted the experience of being in a band and playing music together.”
Originally, the band practiced at a house outside of town before relocating to Haas’s garage. Mejia said the band’s name originated after a joke was made about the owners’ silverware.
“Our first practice, we were in the dining room of a house,” Mejia said. “We had to take the whole dining room table out of the way to play and move pictures to get to the outlets for our amps and everything.”
Together, the group focuses on music inspired by bands like Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Deftones, and Paramore.
“At first, we barely knew any songs,” Mejia said. “We’d spend half the practice trying to figure out what everybody was even playing.”
The band rehearses for two hours at a time and uses an app for sheet music to learn songs. Early rehearsals were difficult because the group was still learning how to play together and communicate musically.
“Jeremiah was basically brand new,” Mejia said. “Brock, Kaiden, and I have all been playing for about like a year and a half, and Kaden McNelly’s been playing a lot longer, about four years.”
After months of practicing in garages and crowded dining rooms, Silverware performed in front of a live audience for the first time at the school dinner show, playing Nirvana’s “In Bloom.”
“It was cool to see a different type of performance at dinner show, the crowd really enjoyed it,” audience member Reegan Reeder (12) said.
