Finger on the Pulse: Johnny on the News Podcast

JOHNNY ON THE NEWS.

Photo taken by Christina Cadorette on the "Etruscan Woman" Statue between LAC and Vail.

Johnny on the News is a new band formed by four LSC students. The band is made up Jeff Stevens and Trevor Gross on guitar and back-up vocals, Brian Lacharite on keyboard, and Kaleigh Crowely who sings front and center.

The name of the band was originally a filler name. It was started after Jeff Stevens screamed Here's Johnny during a rehearsal and it stuck: "I originally wanted the band name the news but apparently that's too Huey Lewis for people so we just kind of took The News and Here's Johnny and made it Johnny on the News." keyboard player Brian Lacharite said in an interview

Starting back officially during Family and Alumni weekend at Lyndon State College, Johnny on the News was just an idea in the minds of Brian Lacharite and Trevor Gross's radar screen last spring semester: "We have kind of been brainstorming it all Summer so we just finally made it happen, brought in some of our other friends, and hopefully looking to expand." said Lacharite.

They then recruited the last two members of the group: Sophomore Business major Kaleigh Crowely and Jeff Stevens a Junior Music Business major. "Right around the time that Brian and I were definitely like yeah lets do this, It passed through my mind--who was really going to sing the songs?" Trevor Gross said expressing concern over who would cover the vocal stylings in the songs.

 He goes on to say in the interview that he Kaleigh Crowely had popped up in one of his classes and it turned out she had "an amazing voice" according to Trevor Gross. Jeff Stevens was introduced into the band the same way as Crowely. A similarity shared between all the band members--they have all had a class with Trevor Gross.

The final member of their crew was Christina Cadorette. Trevor Gross had enlisted her to be the band's manager after he had a few classes with Cadorette like the rest of the group had and appeared at a few M.E.I.S.A Meetings.

This new band who hasn't even been together a full month but already played their first live gig on Monday October 10th in ASAC 100 at the Vermont Benefit Bash. Among the cover songs they preformed were: Wilco's You and I and Adele's Someone Like You. 


Before the concert they played one small show at the Lyndon Outing Club where they sang mostly covers and premiered their two original songs: Unfortunate Truth and Man's Best Friend. Their future plans inclue writing more originals and fade out the amounts of cover songs preformed.

Johnny on the News is still looking for a drummer. They have a few people they are audioning but a spot int he group still remains. The band jammed with Ohanga Freddie Losambe on drums at the Vermont Benefit Bash in their rendition of Are You Gunna Be My Girl.


When asked where they would like to see the band in the future guitarist Trevor Gross said: "We have a lot of ideas within the group. We really want to get that line-up full."

In regards to the same question Lacharite piped in: "We'd like to really ramp up playing shows starting local, smaller venues and then kind of branch out into doing regional shows and then eventually do a full-fledged tour kind of across the nation."

Photo taken October 5th by manager Christina Cadorette

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