Each state has its own internal music scene, and Washington is no different. Usually formed by young adults, these scenes foster diverse communities rallying under the sounds of less mainstream music. High schoolers are perfect candidates for this, with friends and classmates joining to express themselves to a world new to them. Angsty and deep-cutting lyrics, performances at underground venues across northwestern Washington, and the expression of young minds being able to bloom in tandem with their musical talent.

One of these many minds is from a band by the name of “District Forgotten,” consisting of four members, seniors Collin Akers, Cael Crump, Cameron Neal, and David Cartwell who joined later in the band’s life. These four kids perform genres including math rock, noise rock, and screamo, and have played 6 shows. They started performing at a small bar Aker’s parents owned in Concrete, Washington. Soon, they moved from performing at friends’ houses and small bars to being signed to a Seattle-based record label by the name of “Friend’s House Records.” There, they began to perform with bigger artists based in the Seattle area. Akers cited one of his favorite shows being where they opened for another band called “Circa 40.” “It had the most energetic crowd in all of our shows. It had the heaviest mosh pits we’ve had at our shows, and probably the most people at the show,” Akers said. From this show, they’ve carved themselves into a “small Washington kind of emo-ish scene,” Akers said, and with that, and their constant love for their art, have made great friends and openings for themselves to take on further in life.

Another band I had the pleasure to interview is by the name of “False Horizons,” which has been together for a few months now. It consists of six members: Kelan Emrick, Joshua Gent, Alexander Hirano-Holcomb, Rian Francis, and Zachary Lane. They play metal covers, mostly in the rock metal genre, as Lane tells us it’s his first band, though he’s been playing the drums since the age of seven. They formed because they wanted to perform in the Arts Assembly this year. While they do only cover songs for now, John said that he “Can definitely see songwriting being a future. Some of the guys want to play more technical stuff in our band . . . I’m more into the 80s, classic stuff.” While not having the same larger sphere that District Forgotten has, they still perform for mostly smaller crowds, one being their singer, Francis’s grandfather’s garage, as their grandfather had a band himself.

Bands big or small work quite the same in their complexity as well as the dynamic with band members. They can affect and make someone feel emotions that a titanic artist had made too. Art is impactful as long as it has thought and drive behind it, and I can tell from experience that these bands mentioned have it in droves.