Carson McLeod and Jake Patterson sit down in front of the piano. They both start to hit the keys playing their new song “Schoolboy in a School Church.” They have just formed a new band called Fresh 19. Their hands flow across the piano as if they were one person. They begin to sing, and Jake busts out bars of raps over and over again. They now have their work cut out for them if they want to continue making music, but they know they can get it done.

“We just thought the same,” says Carson when asked about writing music together.

They have both been playing piano since first grade when they were taking piano lessons. Jake then got a guitar about a year ago, and has been writing music ever since then. Carson and Jake met in preschool at St. Luke’s and ever since then they have become the best of friends. You can see it in Freshman Hall. They are constantly hanging out together.

“I got my guitar and I would just play around and then I started writing my own songs, maybe half a year ago over the summer, that was when I found my passion for it, and then we started working on songs,” Jake says. Their first song was a massive hit with the freshman class and even some upperclassmen talk to them about it. The song was written partly at their houses and some of it was written at Regis. They recorded at Regis in the practice rooms in the PAC, but transferred it to a Mac at home.

“We recorded it on an iPad at first, which was pretty sketchy,” says Carson. Then they transferred it from the Mac to the Soundcloud music app.

“The best part,” Carson says,”was when we just hit that button, that publish button, and then the plays and likes were just rolling in, and everybody loved it, and we were just getting messages.”

They continue to write and they say they are constantly working out beats and lyrics in their heads trying to figure out what sounds the best. They say that this is probably going to be their favorite song just because it is their first.

“We got a lot of hypotheses about who it’s about,” says Carson. Even they weren’t really sure who it was about, but they did say what the subject of the song was.

“So it’s about like the schoolboy, he has his girlfriend right, but he shows up in the school church and has the two sides,” Jake says, “he acts like he’s all about her, but to be honest he’s really just a jerk to her.”

Their song and music in general, was a way to escape from what is happening around them. When they sat down at the piano they just instantly were in a different place. You can tell by just the passion they have that they will always be transported to another place when they play their music.

The Surprising Science Behind What Music Does To Our Brains, a study done in 2015, says that musicians have a different brain activity when playing music.

When asked about the study, Carson says,”Oh yeah I think that that’s totally true because when we were thinking about the thought process of going through and what the beat should sound like and what measures should we put it in and how fast should the song be. It just takes so much thought process, and it’s not just a no brainier to just throw some chords and some words together.” Their next song is set to release any time now. They are ready to release it, but they want their fans to wait just a little longer.

“We’re waiting for the right time I don’t think that we are going to make any changes to it, but just expect a little bit more of us,” says Jake,”not so much the first song jitters of pleasing, it’s more of our song.” They have a guest singer in their new song so be ready to hear a new voice added to the mix.

“I think it will actually be our last girl song and then we’ll move on,” Jake says.

“Yeah every girl thinks it’s about her,” Carson adds.

They do not want to write a song about every girl who wants one because that would just take too long. They said that when they were writing the song that they had some disagreements when writing but it was nothing to resolve them. Carson and Jake were a little nervous when they first started writing music, because they thought people would not like it. Now, they do not care what others think.

“I mean who cares music is art it’s not anything else,” says Jake. The greatest advice they said while writing music is to get out there and have fun.

“Do it!” says Carson,”I think people just think about it too much and how they should go through with it, but you don’t need a lot of fancy equipment, you just have to do it.”

Jake adds,”Just be your own person and create your artwork through music.” They both agree that the first thing you have to do before you write music is to just go into it with no regrets and an open mind.

They are now ready to continue in their music careers and plan to write many more songs. They were always in their comfort zone, they were comfortable performing in front of me. It was like they were talking in the halls. They have a killer confidence that will surely follow them throughout their years at Regis Jesuit.