6April 2011 Hi Times Issue 7 Vol. 102

Young musicians leave their mark and share their new music on tourBy Anjelica OswaldCopy Editor

Chase Coy is a twenty-year-old musician hailing from Greenwood, Indiana. His first full-length album Picturesque was released in June 2010 and features “If the Moon Fell Down,” a duet with Grammy Award-winning singer-song-writer Colbie Caillat. He is currently on tour with Jimmy Robbins and will be touring with Kill Paradise later this month. His new album Indiana Sun debuts on April 12. Take a listen and enjoy. Check out the full interview on thisisjelli.tumblr.com.

Q: How long have you been writing and playing music?

A: “I've been playing guitar for about ten years and writing songs for about four.”

Q: What first inspired you to begin?

A: “I just love music and writing and wanted to try my hand at making the same kind of music that has had a big impact on my life.”

Q: What instruments do you play?

A: “I play guitar, piano, banjo, bass, melodica [key-flute], harmonica, harmonium and a bunch of other useless and ran-dom things. They are some fun instruments to play [laughs].”

Q: What inspires you to write such beautiful lyrics?

A: “I just like to examine life and the world around me. Specifically, I like to look at relationships, because I think that a lot of the growing we do as people happens in our rela-tionships with others, whether it be a romantic relationship, or family or friends, or whatever else.”

Q: What is your favorite part of

Spring break is a time when teenagers get to relax, take a break from school and have fun. Some teens and their fami-lies go on vacations during spring break. A lot of popular locations are Florida, Mexico or somewhere warm to go to beaches. Some students like to go to Colorado or somewhere cold to ski or snowboard. “I love going to Vail to snow-board. A lot of people would prefer to go to somewhere more to lay on the beach, but I would rather it be cold and snowing so I can snowboard all day,” said senior Trent Fara. A lot of teenagers stay home during spring break. It is best, if someone stays home, to make sure that another friend is staying home as well. This is good so that they have some-one to hang out with. Depending on the weather, teens can do fun activities out-side. Some activities include going to the beach, playing catch, going on a bike ride, going for a walk, playing tag or playing an outdoor sport.

Some of these activities can only be played with more than two people, so teens should just gather up the neighbor-hood boys and girls and have a fun day outside. Sophomore Taylor Lebo said, “I have a lot of friends in my neighborhood, so if it is nice out during spring break then we play outside on my golf cart or play on my volleyball court.” If the weather is not cooper-ating, then kids need to find things to do inside the house or go out somewhere. A lot of teenagers these days like to play Xbox or Wii. Other things to do are play board games, watch movies, do puz-zles or go on the computer. Sometimes just getting a bunch of friends together and hanging out at someone’s house for a movie day is very relaxing. Or if the teens want to get out then they could go to the movies or go out to eat. Junior Tyler Mrozinski said, “I love going out to the movies and out to eat with my friends. It is something that is always enjoyable, and it is something to do instead of being bored at home.”

Fun opportunitiesavailable duringspring vacation

performing?

A: “The coolest thing about live performances to me is the fact that the music means different things to everyone in the room, but for the time when it's being played, we're all connected by the song. I think that's pretty neat.”

Q: You hear of artists collabo-rating but never meeting, so did you get the chance to meet Col-bie when you collaborated with her on “If the Moon Fell Down”? If so, how was the experience?

A: “Since I produced the whole album, I did get to work with her in studio on two different occasions. She is totally laid back and a breeze to work with in the studio. She is completely humble and amazingly talented to boot.”

Q: Who would you love to col-laborate with?

A: “There are so many talented musicians out there that it's really hard to answer a question like this, but I'd love to work with some of my influences-- William Fitzsimmons, Rocky Votolato, or maybe even Nick Drake if he was still alive.”

Twenty-one year old singer-songwriter Jimmy Robbins hails from Raleigh, North Carolina. Some tough life experiences in-fluenced Jimmy to begin writing music. Jimmy’s songs are filled with relatable lyrics and upbeat tempos. Since he first began, he has toured with musicians such as the Scene Aesthetic and Mitchell Musso. He is currently hard at work on a new album and hopes to release it shortly.

Q: How long have you been into playing and writing and performing?

A: “Well, I started playing gui-tar when I was seven or eight and started writing songs at eleven. I played my first show at

a school talent show at twelve.”

Q: Who or what inspired you to begin as a musician?

A: “Well, eventually, I grew to love great singer-songwriters like Elvis Costello and Tom Petty, but originally no one per-son got me into music. Music was sort of just a way to escape life and away to express things I didn't know how to otherwise.”

Q: Favorite part of performing?

A: “Connecting with people. Every night on stage you have the opportunity to affect some-one's life. If you play a certain song or make eye contact at the right time you can really make someone happy.”

Q: Favorite song to perform?

A: “Right now it's probably "Turn it Up," because that's the one the most people know [laughs]. It's very fun when people can sing along. My fa-vorite to sing in general, though, has to be one of the new ones I've written that hasn't been released yet.”

Q: Pre-show ritual?

A: “I always do pushups before the show. I think it helps me get rid of jitters.”

Q: Are there stories behind your songs?

A: “Always. My songs always come from very real places for

me and each one takes me back to a pretty specific moment.”

Q: Weird fan moment?

A: “Any fan moment is kind of a weird moment. I am such a nerd in real life; it blows my mind that people want to take pictures with me [laughs]. It's super flattering. There are won-derful folks out there.”

Q: And lastly, how about one fact not known about you?

A: “Hmmm... I'm allergic to almonds. I don’t think anyone knows that. I don't technically know it, but every time I eat them I cough so I'm just assum-ing. They're too delicious to not be eaten though.”

The movie Battle: Los Angeles is the newest released action-packed apocalypse film. The opening scene begins with news broadcasters frantically warning the city of the newly fallen me-teors that have been striking LA. From that scene, the movie flashes back 24 hours to before the attack. The director now has the viewers glancing upon a beach scene. Staff Sergeant Nantz (played by Aaron Eckhart) is doing push-ups and sit-ups on the beach. The movie is then cut to a new scene, with the spotlight on Captain Harris (played by Ne-Yo) in a floral shop picking out flowers for his upcom-ing wedding. The first 15 minutes of the movie are spent introducing the new characters. Wonder when the action kicks in? About 20 minutes into the movie, the audience gets a brief view of the coast of Los Angeles from afar. Machine-like aliens are lined up, arising from the ocean and flying through the sky, shooting and bombing people on the beach. Without spoiling the whole plotline, I will admit that this movie is full of action, and well made. Un-like recent apocalypse movies such as 2012, this movie is set just on Los Angeles. Running at around 90 minutes long, about three-fourths of the movie is spent in full out alien versus man battle. I really enjoyed the movie because even though the scenes fly by at rapid speed and the movie flashes back and forth between the main characters, the movie is quite easy to follow. For a fantastic Friday night, a dinner and a movie is a spectacular choice. Nothing says “Movie Date” like 90 minutes of rag-ing gunfire, flying robot-aliens, collapsing buildings, cars blazing on fire and city wide panic.

By Alex SaliwanchikStaff Writer

A movie that must be seen By Sarah FisherStaff Writer

Photo provided by Jessuca Earnshaw /Photo provided

Jimmy Robbins (left) prepares for the release of his new album. Chase Coy (right) sits with his guitar.