It’s no secret that the hallways of Staples High School are full of extraordinary musical talent, and it’s certainly no surprise if this talent goes on to make an impact in the music scene.
While Micah Sloat ’00 musically contributed to the movie “Paranormal Activity,” it has been overshadowed by his leading role in the film. Playing the guitar, and singing vocals, his songs were featured throughout the movie.
“Music has definitely taken a backseat as the movie’s taken off. But in the future, I definitely will be working on getting an album out there at some point,” Sloat said.
Harry Rodrigues ’07, better known as Baauer, the man behind 2013 dance hit “Harlem Shake,” and bass behind a track featuring Jay-Z, took a bit of a different route. DJing local events, and getting his music linked on popular music websites, Rodrigues started slow, and began to grow. Five years after high school, “Harlem Shake” hit number one on iTunes and started a dance craze that swept the nation.
Kevin Copeland ’10, Spencer Fox ’11, and Eva Hendricks’11, and Sam Hendricks ’06 joined together in 2011 to form Charly Bliss, a four piece indie band out of New York City, and have been taking the New York City music scene by storm.
Copeland said Eva and Spencer were a year behind him at Staples, writing songs together. They needed a drummer and a bass player, so Eva asked her brother and Copeland to join the band. “Now a couple years down the line, here we are,” Copeland said.
Having their album “A Lot To Say” blow up the indie music scene, Charly Bliss has only gone up. The group recently was booked to play this April’s MACRoCk festival in Virginia and plans to do a small tour in California this summer.
Lead singer Eva Hendricks attributes a lot of her success to Staples Players even though she’s not currently pursuing musical theater.
“Players taught me a lot about the importance of a strong work ethic and teamwork,” Hendricks said. ”It also taught me a lot about constructive criticism, accepting it, giving it, learning from it.”
