Direct from Forbes: The Holy Smokes light up the University music scene

It was 10:30 on a Tuesday night the week before Thanksgiving, and the Forbes coffee shop was packed.

The lights were turned down low, and small candles burned on the tables. Students were still wandering in from a recent study break, bringing with them tortilla chips and Fun Dip, and those who came in a little later had to remain standing because all the chairs were already taken. Several freshmen shot pool on the other side of the room.

At the back of the coffee shop, Rob Morris '03 and Brian Perez-Daple '03 jammed on their guitars. The pair remained sitting most of the time, and people in the back of the crowd craned their necks to watch as the two guitarists played their duet. Morris, wearing a Forbes sweatshirt, propped one leg on the other knee and tapped his foot to the beat.

At one point, Perez-Daple stood up to play the Beatles' "Blackbird." Later, he and Morris went into a lively rendition of Green Day's "Basketcase."

Morris and Perez-Daple weren't singing lyrics, but the audience recognized the songs and enjoyed the combination of two guitars and the intricate solos.

The two musicians looked over at each other from time to time, silently communicating during their duet. They smiled at the crowd and appeared very at ease in the spotlight.

Robert Bradley '04 was one of the many audience members who enjoyed the performance. "I was so wrapped up in the music that I lost three [pool] games and then proceeded to win the next three after they stopped playing," he said.

Perez-Daple has been playing guitar for five years, but originally had different aspirations. "When I was in first grade, I wanted to play the drums but my parents wouldn't buy me drums," he said. After begging them unsuccessfully for a drum set, he decided he wanted to play the guitar instead.

"Finally, when I was in ninth grade, they were like, 'Alright, we'll buy you a guitar but if you don't practice, you're dead, and we'll take it away from you and you'll have to pay for it and all sorts of horrible things,' " he said with a smile.

That, however, has not turned out to be a problem.

Morris, on the other hand, started with the piano when he was about six years old. "I played for about six years and steadily got more and more sick of the practicing and just the music I was told to play in general," he said.

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He switched to the guitar around eighth grade, and he has been trying to play in bands ever since. "I was in a heavy-metal band when I was in eighth or ninth grade. Teenage hormones were still raging, and we were pretty terrible," he said.

Morris said the success of a band depends on its members. "It's generally the chemistry of the people that makes or breaks it," he said.

Morris and Perez-Daple lived on the same hallway in Forbes their freshman year. Their RA put a map on the wall with photographs of everyone in the group placed over his or her hometown. Perez-Daple noticed that Morris was holding a guitar in his picture.

"I was like, 'Oh man, this guy puts his picture up there with a guitar — he just wants everyone to know that he plays guitar,' " Perez-Daple said. "He probably sucks — can't play anything but Bush."

Then one day Perez-Daple was walking by Morris' room and he heard him playing. "I was like, 'Oh wow!' " he said. "So I knocked on the door and he was really good and I asked if he'd like to play sometime."

Ever since, the two have been getting together regularly to play. Last spring, they performed at the release party of the Forbes Literary Review. And they got the recent gig at the Forbes coffee shop through its manager, Alexis Frasz '03. She lives on their hallway and hears them play all the time, so she asked them if they would be interested in performing in the coffee shop.

Perez-Daple and Morris are in the process of adding two new members to their group — Justin Garretson '03, a drummer, and Caleb Bonilla '03, a bass player. They have also named themselves The Holy Smokes.

Garretson has played the drums for about seven years. Before that, he played the piano, saxophone and trumpet. He attended various summer music camps and played with many groups, including University, public and private ensembles. "In other words, I didn't teach myself in my garage," he said.

Garretson recently got a new drum set after a long delay. "It took two months but the drums have finally arrived and are all set up in the Forbes practice room now," Garretson said.

Bonilla said it is easier for the group to practice now. "It was amazing to see how much progress we made once we had the drum set," he explained.

Bonilla said joining the group was fairly easy. "I came and played, and we liked the sound and we kept on playing," he said. He has been playing the bass guitar since he was in seventh grade, and he also plays six-string guitar and, occasionally, piano.

The four practice together once or twice per week. Once they have had more time to build their repertoire and rehearse, they plan to play at the eating clubs and other local venues.

They have already found a creative way to perform for the first time as a four-man group. "We actually fit drums and bass and guitars inside my room," Morris said.

"We had ultraviolet lights and all sorts of stuff, and we had a whole four-piece band in Rob's room and we just rocked the world," Perez-Daple said.

Perez-Daple and Morris said though they appear to be completely at ease while they're performing, they do get nervous sometimes. Their gig at the Forbes coffee shop was not very intimidating for them, however. "I think the atmosphere tonight was really laid-back," Morris said after the show.

Perez-Daple agreed. "It was friends mostly, and we know they're not going to be like, 'These guys suck,' " he said, chewing on a Pop Tart.

They said they like to pick popular songs that will appeal to the crowd. "We had a great time with the Green Day song," Perez-Daple said.

Perez-Daple and Morris both acknowledged the conflict that sometimes arises between devoting time to the band and the University's academic demands. Because Princeton costs more than $36,000 a year to attend, there is not always a lot of money left over for musical equipment. Instead, they said, they borrow money from their parents to fund their purchases.

As Perez-Daple said, when looking for a new guitar, "I feel like I'm my mother shopping for clothes — she's always like, 'Get the one that's on sale.' "

The other, larger decision that Princeton undergraduate musicians must make is what to do after graduation — take a regular nine-to-five job or pursue a record deal. Morris, who is debating between music and psychology as his major right now, said that if offered a record deal, "I'm definitely planning to drop everything in a second."

Perez-Daple, who is deciding between politics and the Wilson School, is more conservative. "I'll tell whatever company I'm going to work for, I'm going to take four months off and I would record, should I for some reason be graced by a record executive," he said. However, he added, "I wouldn't drop everything here for something that I'm not sure about."

Morris also thought it would be possible to juggle both a regular job — or studying, if the opportunity came soon enough — and life as a recording artist. "A lot of companies have a certain degree of leeway in their deals," he said, leaning back in his chair. "People manage to do a lot of things and still stay in school."

Last Saturday night, the group hosted its first performance with the new name and Garretson's new drum set. The band set up in Perez-Daple's room, playing for a hallway full of people. They had blacklights and wrote glowing messages on the walls with Tide, and their audience members drew glowing tattoos on one another's arms with highlighters.

Perez-Daple was standing near the doorway, playing his guitar and belting U2's "Mysterious Ways" into a microphone. Morris and Bonilla jammed behind and beside him, and Garretson drummed from the back of the room.

A few songs later, they broke into Van Morrison's "Brown-Eyed Girl," and everyone in the hallway started dancing.

These moments are what the band members enjoy the most. "That's what's really fun," Perez-Dale said, "playing for people."