It’s around half-past 8 in the morning and crammed together in a gray Toyota Rav 4 are three of five band members of Siren Party. This is their Sunday: one of the only days that works for them and avoids schedule conflicts.
Meeting up with their other members in the parking lot of Little Wing Studio, brief words are exchanged and handshakes ensue before they begin moving their instruments inside to begin practice.
Moments like this show the underbelly of being in a band: early mornings, unsavory compromises and practices.
Once the door to the waiting room closed shut and their session began, Siren Party came alive. The bass amp growled like an animal, drums exploded and twin guitar sequences melded together into something that screamed unworldly things.
While it isn’t easy to get your foot in the door of the local music scene in Gainesville, for some bands, it’s as easy as Siren Fest 1 and Siren Fest 2.
Siren Party, the band responsible for arranging these shows, has put itself on the map as an emerging and energetic revival of punk and post-hardcore within Gainesville’s music community.
Siren Party is comprised of five band members and brings years of experience in classical instrument training to every stage they step foot on, as well as a unique slate of characters.
Robert “Bobby” Price, the lead vocalist and a 22-year-old UF student studying computer science, explains the origin story of the band’s development.
“I was actually the last member to join,” Price said. “There’s one random time I had met Alex [one of the band’s guitarists] and he was like ‘Yo, we need a vocalist’ and I coincidentally saw a flyer of a band [Siren Party] looking for a vocalist after.”
Price said he sent Siren Party an email of him singing in his car and received a quick response.
The drummer of the band, 19-year-old computer science major Matthew Brown, also commented on their spontaneous genesis.
“None of us knew each other before,” Brown said. “It’s awkward trying to get to know everybody and you don’t want to hurt each others’ feelings, but you have to be honest with each other.”
Brown added that the overload of responsibilities doesn’t end at performing live music, but staying involved as social media manager, graphic designer and bookings coordinator.
“You have to become all of these things too,” Brown said. “You do really have to commit every single part of your life into the business.”
Every band member of Siren Party remarked on navigating their own independent schedules: academic and personal. One of the band members, 21-year-old guitarist Juan Esquivel, is enrolled in 18 credit hours and is majoring in physics, a notoriously difficult specialization at UF.
Esquivel said that just this week alone is chock full of responsibilities.
“Three gigs and three exams,” Esquivel said. “[The most challenging part about being in a band] is getting all five band members in same place more than once a month.”
Esquivel highlighted the challenge of creating original music in addition to learning songs to cover at shows.
“Writing stuff is hard when you have five people cooking at the same time,” Esquivel joked. “It’s something that you have to learn how to give some and take some when it comes down to it [songwriting].”
Alex Farmiga, a 20-year-old guitarist studying music and electrical engineering, said music has always been around him since he was young.
“I started piano when I was 5,” Farmiga said. “In ninth grade, I picked up guitar and I was pretty bad at it, but during COVID I was on the guitar grind during online classes.”
Farmiga and Esquivel have both been playing instruments from a very early age on and cite it as being a defining factor in their involvement with Siren Party.
While local bands are special and diverse in their own right, Siren Party set themselves apart by the introduction of what has come to be known as “Siren Fests.”
Advertised as smaller house shows, the informality and quirkiness of the performances has created a special reputation for the bands that performed.
Having organized these shows twice so far since its debut at the end of the fall 2023 semester, the open and welcoming environment of these intimate shows has drawn unprecedented attention to Siren Party and the bands they performed alongside.
The house shows fostered a wide range of local musical performances including those from Therum, Moons for Eyes (Price’s solo project) and the aptly named “Gnomes of Neptune,” who, according to attendees at the first show, donned pointy hats and fake beards.
Brown explains the hesitancy and initial fears from committing to such an undertaking early in the band’s lifetime.
“It was so stressful,” Brown said. “Everyone wanted to do a big house show with other bands as our first show and I did not want that.”
Brown explains that before their first set as a band, the stress was nearly vomit-inducing for him.
“I was like ‘This is a terrible idea, no one’s going to show up,’” Brown said. “Then, it ended up that we had to turn so many people away because the house was full by the end of the night.”
However, for the second Siren Fest, Brown recalled that it was a night and day difference.
“We had grown up,” Brown said. “We were babies two months ago.”
Brown said the relative number of attendees to the individual shows doubled from 170 people to around 350 people between Siren Fest 1 and 2.
After the second show, Brown cherished the special feeling of concert attendees coming up to the band afterwards and personally thanking them for playing their favorite songs.
Jeffrey Carmichael, a 20-year-old bassist for the band, stressed a shared sentiment of the band members: to make a space for everyone, both in the audience and for artists.
These terms are further proven by the mix of electronic, metal and alternative performances that have played at the Siren Fests.
The band has collectively expressed interest in the possibility of a Siren Fest 3, but details regarding it have yet to be set in stone.
“It’s going to be bigger, better, faster and awesome-er,” Esquivel joked.
With several planned shows in the books around Gainesville and at local venues, such as the High Dive on Saturday, Siren Party is also in the process of writing original music to perform at future venues.