Schools
4 January, 2023
Stars in sight for The Phosphenes: School kids make a name for themselves on Spotify
THREE St. Columbans College students – Toby Vinton, Reece Depasquale and Rosie Bowman – formed their alternative rock band, The Phosphenes, in the early months of 2022 and have just released their first demo recordings on all listening platforms, including Spotify.
Titled “Loose: the demos”, their first EP comprises six original rock songs curated by the band over the last year: Loose, Summer Be Mine, Growing Up, Self Confidence (Lack Of), Enemy #1 and Without You.
The group spent a whole day at Airlock Studios at Camp Mountain on December 6 working with sound engineers to record these songs – an experience they described as “pretty surreal”.
With Toby on the drums, Reece on the guitar and vocals and Rosie on the Bass, the band takes influence from 90s rock bands, including The Living End, The Police, Nirvana, Blur and The Cure.
After only meeting each other at the start of 2022 in the St. Columbans school band, The Phosphenes said they were so excited about their “first real recording experience”.
Throughout the year, the group played at least twice a term at school, typically performing 40-minute sets.
This year The Phosphenes are hoping to start gigging at local venues and getting more songs up on Spotify.
“We just want to share as much of our music as we can,” Toby said.
Both Toby and Reece will be completing year 12 this year, and Rosie will be in year 10.
After graduating, all three of them plan to study music at university and one day “get famous”.
“If I could play music for the rest of my life that would be awesome. The best thing ever,” Reece said.
