Edina High School senior Sam Shahghasemi has been dabbling in music since age seven. With experience in guitar, bass, drums, and piano, Shahghasemi plays for the school orchestra, jazz band, and two other bands – The Halogens and Violet Eyes – outside of school. On April 25, Shahghasemi will be playing for Violet Eyes at the final round of Spring Jam Battle of the Bands. The winner of the finals will open the following evening for Spring Jam’s headliner, Mac Miller.

So just how did the band advance to this point? “[Drummer] Mike Green and I had been talking about trying to play at the Spring Jam Battle of the Bands since we saw other student bands play at it last year. About a week before our Winter Break ended, we noticed on the Spring Jam website that we had one week to record a GarageBand demo and submit it if we wanted a chance to compete,” said Grant Marks, a former Zephyrite and current sophomore at the University of Minnesota.

Marks and Green went on to spend roughly fifty hours that week recording drum, bass, and guitar parts to four of their songs as well as a cover of The Black Keys’ “Lonely Boy.” Around this time Marks bumped into Maeve Moynihan, EHS alum and U of M junior, and she agreed to sing for the band and record vocals for a few of their tracks and “Lonely Boy.”

Fast forward a few weeks later, and Shahghasemi is at Taco Bell, picking up a very important call from his brother. “My brother…told me that Grant Marks was looking for a bassist for his new band. And I knew him because he was the TA for my seventh grade math class and he was pretty cool so I decided to join,” said Shahghasemi.

So now we’ve got the band together, but why “Violet Eyes”? “I’ve always been really intrigued with the color violet because in literature and other forms of art it primarily deals with imagination and unrealistic perceptions,” explained Marks. “One day out of the blue Maeve and I were just brainstorming names and we came up with the name Violet Eyes which to us primarily deals with having an unrealistic perception of the world,” he concluded.

According to Marks, the band practices together on average about once a week, but each member has their work cut out for them outside of the rehearsals. “Mike and I write the majority of the guitar parts to our songs and Maeve and Silas Sellnow (the pianist) write the lyrics/melodies. Sam writes the bass parts,” said Marks.

But back to the Battle of the Bands: In order to determine which band will open for Mac Miller come April 25, there are three rounds that each band must make it through. In round one, the Whole Music Club staff chooses bands based on “the quality of music and professionalism of application.” The sixteen advancing bands perform next at the preliminary round, and four winners are chosen by popular vote to advance to the final round, along with a “Judge’s Choice” band.

The popular vote aspect of the preliminary round can be tricky. In the past, where there were ballots to vote for your favorite band, now “they put up this system where they posted a video of each band and fifteen shares of the video equaled one vote,” said Shaghasemi.

Bummed that you can’t make the April 25 show? No fear, as a recording of the band’s performance at the first round of Battle of the Bands is available on their YouTube channel, Violet Eyes. “We have a very unique sound that blends alternative rock with other more melodic genres of music. This makes for a sound that really doesn’t sound like anything else people have ever heard before, and also makes for a sound that really sticks with people,” summed up Marks. Check them out!