Olympia Students Rock out at Battle of the Bands

By Alyssa Lang, OHS Torch Reporter

On Friday, April 15, six bands competed for the title of  King of the Castle of Battle of The Bands; Sundown was one competing band which includes three Olympia Students, John, Richie, and Casey Ingram plus their father.

The Ingram Triplets have been playing in talent shows since they were eight years old. They perform at festivals, and bars around Armington, Delavan, Bloomington, Lincoln, Mackinaw and Peoria, they also play Sunday mornings at Minier Christian Church.

The whole family is involved in the band, their mother is the manager of Sundown, their father, John, sings and plays rhythm guitar, Richie plays lead guitar, Casey plays bass guitar and John plays drums.

To get nominated to play at the Battle of the Bands competition, they had to submit a letter and a CD of original music to the person in charge of the event, they then reviewed all of the applicants and chose six bands.

“My favorite thing about performing is seeing the smiles on the crowd's faces, and watching people get up and dance, it makes you feel good making people happy through music, also I like being able to express myself through music and performance,” said Casey Ingram

John says they like playing Classic Rock and Southern Rock, they got twenty-five minutes to play during the competition so they picked their five best songs, the songs they performed were Love and a Passion, Back on the Ground, DeJa Vu, Friend and On Common Ground.

“I felt pretty good about the performance even though I wasn't playing on my own set of drums. While I was rocking out I hit my hand on the drums and it started bleeding a lot, I didn't notice it until I got off the stage but I didn't care it was all part of the life of being a drummer," said John

The winner of the Battle of the Bands received a Bombsight recording studio prize package that includes a full weekend of tracking to complete a three-song extended play, a full weekend of studio time to complete mixing. The extended play will be professionally mastered by Collin Jordan at The Boiler Room in Chicago.  Alkaline Trio, Local H, Buddy Guy and Kanye West will be featured.

Sundown did not place but they received tons of positive feedback, “I personally think it was our best performance yet! When I looked at the crowd everyone was watching and getting into it!”

Sundown will enjoy many more performances entertaining people around the area and hopefully win future battles.