As they stumbled up the stairs of the small outdoor stage to give their best “serious face,” the three members of Pile of Napkins  looked around at each other, laughed, put their hands in their pockets, and posed for the camera. While the serious pose seemed to be their go-to cool boy band look, this group of young and aspiring musicians were some of the funniest and down to earth individuals I have ever met.

​“Would you like to do the interview first or take pictures first?” I asked them as we were walking towards the outdoor patio area with tables and a makeshift stage area usually used for announcements. “Let's start with the interview so we can loosen up a little bit,” replied Zane, the lead vocalist.  

It all started with a group of five high school seniors (Zane Demarest, J.C. Castro, Tino Dimperio, Damien Murphy) who were eager to get out of a senior project. It sounded simple enough; get together with five best friends and come up with a few songs. “Tino’s dad had a garage full of musical instruments so we went down there one day and decided to mess around," says Zane, who recalls how the band went from an idea to a reality. “We had this senior project for high school and we decided to lighten up the workload and make a band,” adds  J.C, “ but we soon had to put aside our friendship and make it strictly business because the band and the pressure was putting a strain on our friendship.”

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"It all started with a group of five high school seniors eager to get out of a senior project. It sounded simple enough: Get together with five best friends and come up with a few songs."

These college students by day and rockers by night, have full time responsibilities. Two of them (JC and Tino) attend Woodbury University as film majors. Making music is their passion, it is what allows them spend days hammering out new songs, and, in the end, their goal is to have an album that they can present as a final product of all those long nights at the studio.

​“We have some songs that are more punk garage type songs and we have some songs that are more electronic and I think it's because we all have different music that we listen to and our influences are different,” remarks Tino.

"A lot of bands, they have a genre that they chose and stick to, but I feel that we just do what we feel like, like, song to song."  

With their new EP, Shitty Music, premiering later this summer, the band has a lot to look forward to within the next couple of months. According to J.C , Shitty Music was: "influenced mainly by the indie music scene we were into at the time...and Halloween. We actually made the song Spooky Kooky Night on Halloween, and the video for it the following day, still in costume.” 

When asked about their music making process, they all agreed that their music was about them being themselves and making music that best portrays that. “As for the making of the songs, the fact that we could record our own music straight to a laptop at home, made the whole process of putting out our own music pretty easy. While making this EP we would kind of just mess around, end up recording a few songs a night and keep the ones we liked," says J.C. Their advice to other bands creating their first album? 

"Have a good time making the music or else it's not worth it, and don't be afraid to experiment with your sound."

To listen to Pile of Napkins, click here.

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