A new band has been gaining notoriety in the Baton Rouge music scene, regularly playing venues like the Atomic Pop Shop, Fred’s Bar and Grill and Varsity Theatre. While they haven’t officially recorded any of their new songs, they are making plans to do so in the foreseeable future.
They’re doing all of this while being undergraduate students at the University.
Finance sophomore Beau Bailey, accounting junior Mitchell Webb, mechanical engineering senior Hoyt Brignac and accounting senior John Lewis have made a name for themselves as a modern rock addition to Baton Rouge’s thriving local music arena.
Bailey, Lewis and Webb met as brothers in Sigma Nu Fraternity, jamming together in their free time. The fraternity and the rest of the Greek community gave Drop-Out Project their first break.
“We had always talked about starting a band, but we just never really acted on it,” Lewis said. “We had an exchange with Kappa Delta, and we were like, ‘Why don’t we play music during the exchange?’ We figured it would be just background music.”
Their exchange with Kappa Delta and connections within their friend group evolved into regular shows at The House Bar in Tigerland. As they played for bigger audiences, they knew they needed to round out their sound.
The band officially started when Bailey reached out to their future bassist, Brignac. The first night with Brignac, the guys jammed and wrote their first song, “Tell Me Why.”
“I worked this summer at a camp, and I led worship there,” Bailey said. “Hoyt came the last week and played bass. He was a good guy, great bass player. I kind of texted him out of the blue and asked him, ‘Hey, man, you want to be in a band?’”
Drop-Out Project has been billed with recognizable local names as of late. They played LouMuzik Live, a Battle of the Bands event at House of Blues, New Orleans on Feb. 3. They played with local bands like Cat Bamboo, Paris Avenue and 16 Bucks with others, and they’re having a blast.
Along with original songs written principally by Bailey, they like to dabble in covers, as well.
“We’re all really big fans of Catfish and the Bottlemen. We cover ‘7’ a lot,” Webb said.
Drop-Out Project is not just a hobby for the men, either, they said. They’re interested in making music into a career.
“It started as a hobby, us just messing around, but people keep liking us and maybe it could turn into something,” Webb said.
Each one of the guys got into music from a very early age. Most have developed skills on the drums, guitar and the keys. Bailey started writing songs while in high school following a sports injury. Their band is the product of a lifetime of studying music.
“This has always been a dream of mine,” Brignac said.