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Hays High School's Official Student Newspaper

The Guidon Online

Hays High School's Official Student Newspaper

The Guidon Online

Local band releases demo, dreams of making it big

Local band releases demo, dreams of making it big

Taking advantage of any show it can play, this one-year-old pop punk/alternative band has performed over 18 shows hoping to rise to fame.

Brown Bag Special is a three-man band consisting of a lead guitarist and backup singer Mason Ruder; lead singer Blake Ruder; and drummer Braden Dreiling. Blake is a sophomore in high school, and Mason and Braden are currently freshman at Fort Hays State University.

“I try to put just as much effort into school as I do the band,” Dreiling said. “That way I’ll always have something to fall back on. But life would be a lot more fun if the band made it big.”

This is exactly what the boys have been trying to do, especially within the last six months. They’ve played shows in Garden City, Great Bend, Manhattan, and multiple shows.

“Our biggest show was the Wild West Fest,” Mason said. “It wasn’t the most exciting though.”

The boys all agreed that the FHSU bonfire was the best show they’ve played.

“The crowd just got into it,” Dreiling said. “It made it so much more fun for us.”

BBS has also taken a trip to Lincoln Neb. to record some of its own songs for its new album, “And Me.”

“Recording, mastering, laying out the artwork for this CD, and the CD itself cost us about $2000,” Mason said.

The demo album will be ready to sell by Oct. 19 with “Fallin;’’ being the BBS single. The three other songs on the CD will be “homecoming”, “Desolate”, and “Stay Tonight.” Once the songs are released, Mix 103 and 104.7 will be supporting the band by playing some of them for locals to hear.

All three boys have their input when a song is being written. Blake usually writes the base of the song, and Mason and Dreiling expand on it, helping him finish it up.

“I make the song what it is,” Blake said. “But they make it what it should be.”

When asked how Blake got the idea for “Fallin’’ he didn’t have much to say.

“I usually just write how I feel,” Blake said. “But to be honest, ‘Fallin’’ was kind of an accident. I was writing ‘Desolate’ at the time and it just came to me.”

“Fallin’” is said to be a crowd favorite, so the band considers this a “good mistake.”

Brown Bag Special hopes to be known as “different” than most small bands.

“A lot of people haven’t heard us,” Mason said. “But I think we’re different from a lot of bands, because we’re doing everything we can to make this our life.”

In five years, BBS would love to see themselves having some fame and touring the world.

“We’re only young once, ”Dreiling said. “We’re dreaming while we can.”

All three boys have a passion for music and have been inspired by Blink 182, and Greenday.

“We love music, and we love working with each other,” Blake said. “Mason and Braden are the best two guys I could ask to work with.”

The band has written nine songs all together, but only five have been recorded. As a group, their favorite is “Homecoming” which was written almost a year ago. They hope more people start recognizing their band and the hard work they put into it.

“Hopefully, it’ll pay off in the end,” Mason said.

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