Live music echoes through the streets and venues of Austin as a group of students play for crowds in hopes of hitting the big time.
West 22nd members Logan Madsen, Gabe Acevedo, Jeremy Ancheta, Jet Beck and Tyler Kerch made their mark attending the University of Texas.
Their sound is a rock umbrella with different influences from The Backseat Lovers to Cage the Elephant.
“We like to call it a carousel rock,” Acevedo said. “We don’t really know what it is, and the carousel kind of goes around and it has a little bit of everything on it. You can hop on the unicorn or the sports car, but it all takes you around the same way.
“There’s a lot of different influences that all come together, and when we write music, we don’t try and write a specific kind of song. We just let whatever comes out happen and put it all together.”
West 22nd wrapped up their headline tour for their debut album, ‘Nowhere to Be,’ this past summer.
“It was honestly all that we could ask for a first tour,” lead vocalist Madsen said. “A lot of great memories, a lot of good shows.”
Rhythm guitarist and back-up vocalist Acevedo said the band tried to customize one of their songs as they traveled.
“‘Road Trip’ is fun because we changed the Austin, Texas line to whatever city we were in,” he said.
It all started for West 22nd when Ancheta met Madsen in 2022 in their freshman year at UT-Austin. Acevedo was in class with one of Ancheta’s roommates.
“I scouted him at the food trucks,” Ancheta said. “He was doing an acoustic cover of ‘Fade into You’ by Mazzy Star, and it was pretty good.”
The name West 22nd connects to a street on the university’s West Campus where the three played. The rest of the band was formed through fliers.
“UT supported us a lot,” Acevedo said. “During South by Southwest, they would host the Hook ‘em House at our favorite venue, Antone’s. They also do a Longhorn City Limits before football games — we got to open for Midland, and we did Forty Acres Fest.”
The band played about 50 shows in 2023, Madsen said.
“Some of them were bigger crowds,” he said. “Some of them were absolutely tiny, and only our management was there. But every rep built up to this national tour, and it was a great time.”
All the hard work led them to become the first all-student-led band to perform at Austin City Limits last year.
They always try to bring maximum energy to every gig, Acevedo said, and they are seeing new fans each time.
“On our end, we always try and do the same thing,” he said. “But hearing new fans in new cities we’ve never been to that also sing the words, that was shocking to us.”
Balancing being students and musicians posed some challenges.
“We definitely missed a good bit of class,” Madsen said. “We had to talk with our teachers and make up a lot of assignments and definitely grind more than we should. We crammed before finals and stuff, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
The band felt like they had to release an album before graduation to feel like a legitimate band, Acevedo said.
“We’re all committing to this very heavily after school; this isn’t just a college activity for us,” he said. “It was very important. It was definitely ambitious. We recorded and released everything in a four-month turnaround, which is pretty fast in this industry. We’re really happy with how everything came out. It took a lot of hard work.”
Before recording, only three songs had been fully written and performed, bassist Beck said. The others were acoustic demos.
“We all just worked it out, freestyled a lot, and pieced it together right there in the moment,” he said. “Then, when we had to tour and play these songs live, we all had to go back and relearn what the heck we just did in the studio.”
They crediting their live performances, for maintaining their own sound, Madsen said.
“We have a great time on stage,” he said. “I feel like we just have a good vibe, and I feel like we make people comfortable when they’re at shows, and it’s high energy. It’s very dynamic. Our set used to just be only bangers all the time, but now, since we released our album, we have more dips and rises in the set.”
To capture who West 22nd is, coming to a show is the best way, Acevedo said.
“Have fun with us, and sweat and just dance with us,” he said.
West 22nd will hit the road again, starting Oct. 14. They will play some venues before joining supporting Sun Room. The nearest show will be in Baton Rouge at Chelsea’s, Nov. 18.
For more, visit west-22nd.com or west22ndband on social media.