Boy band making a name for themselves

A friendship filled with the passion for music founded the all boy band Oh! Calamity.

The pop-rock band recently signed with an independent record label, Just Music, and will soon release their debut single titled, Perfect Stranger.

The band is made up of three Jeppe High School for Boys learners and one member is from Hoërskool Menlopark.

The band members are Brandon Holz who plays the guitar, Luka de Wet on the drums with Reuben Pieterse on vocals and Josi Goncalves the bass guitarist.

The group shares the same taste in music and they are gifted musicians with a natural flair for producing.

The EXPRESS asked the boys why they started a band?

“We all wanted to find a way of escaping the idea of being stuck behind a desk all day, every day for the rest of our lives. All the necessary pieces of the puzzle fell together at the right time.

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“Luka and Brandon met at school and got going with the help of Luka’s dad, and from there the rest came quite naturally.

“We always talk about how lucky we are that the right people have always been around at the right time for us and it was a sort of chemical reaction that ignited the spark in us and began to drive us to be the best that we can be,” said Oh! Calamity.

The band’s catchy name was inspired by an All Time Low song called Oh, Calamity!

“We’ve always been a huge fan of All Time Low and have taken a lot of inspiration from them in the time that we’ve been playing together.

“When we were looking for a name, I heard the song and figured it would make a cool band name.

“We played around with the punctuation a little and embraced the exclamation mark, which is a bit of a nod to Panic! At The Disco,” said Brandon.

Brandon composes most of the bands material and said he writes about everyday issues and that people are his muse.

“I always try to write about the things that I’m feeling the most strongly about at the time. It’s important to write for a purpose, even if that purpose is just self-expression.

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“A lot of our stuff up to this point has been about people in my life – people that I’ve loved, people that I’ve been angry at, people that have hurt me or anybody that has made me feel anything real.

“You can say things in songs that you can’t always say to a person’s face,” said Brandon.

With the type of songs the band sings, the EXPRESS asked them what they would want people to take with them after listening.

“We would like people to be able to take comfort in our music. That is what it’s all about – giving a bit of you in a way that people can relate to in their own way.

“At the end of the day, you want to be the soundtrack to the happy times and the safety net in the not so happy times. Hopefully, we can help people get more in touch with themselves,” said Oh! Calamity.

The band is inspired by different bands.

“We love Fall Out Boy and 5 Seconds of Summer for their ability to stay relevant but also stick to their roots. We have always admired bands like Twenty One Pilots for their sheer genius and courage in pioneering a brand new sound.

“From a songwriting perspective, we’ve drawn on the styles of writers like Jack Antonoff of the bands Bleachers and Fun and Ryan Tedder of One Republic, among many others,” said Brandon.

The band said they have not always considered music as a career but they have always known that music would forever be a part of their lives and when the opportunity represented itself the band decided to give it all they’ve got.

The band made their mainstream live performance debut at the Oppikoppi Festival earlier this year, where they were warmly received.

The band will be playing at a charity festival at Baileys in Bedfordview on March 31 and they will be hosting a Oh! Calamity concert at the same venue on April 14.