Most students in the 1970s probably listened to The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.
But today, students are listening to Friendly Fire.
Friendly Fire is a local San Ramon band that creates metal, thrash, and rock music, always igniting the stage with their electrifying energy, songs and boundless enthusiasm.
The band consists of four freshman, Lucas Chan on drums, Orion Duerrmeier on bass guitar, Mojo Maldonado on lead guitar, and singer Viktoria Lutsenko, who is an artist for The Californian.
The band has been playing together for three months and has only performed three shows so far, but they are planning for more in the near future.
The band rehearses once a week in Chan’s garage and performs at open venues. So far, they’ve played at the School of Rock in San Ramon, San Francisco open mic and the Cal High talent show in February.
At their shows, the band performs music they write themselves, including ones titled “Blubba/Light Up the Sky” and “Crash N Burn”.
Even though Friendly Fire has been around for such a short time, the band members already have high hopes and goals for their future.
“I would like to release an album,” Duerrmeier said. “I would also like to perform at more places.”
Lutsenko and Duerrmeir share the same passion for wanting to release an album and perform at a different venues. Chan also has similar goals.
“I would like to make money off of gigs, and profit,” Chan said.
But while Duerrmeier and Chan have somewhat small goals right now, Maldonaldo is already reaching for the sky and looking at the future of what their band can become.
“It would be a total fever dream to go worldwide, so I guess I would like to go worldwide someday,” Maldonaldo said.
As far as other hopes and dreams, Chan and Maldonaldo would like to collaborate with open artists in the future.
“I would like to collab with anyone really,” Chan said. “I think it would be fun.”
Maldonaldo adds that he would like to collaborate with a particular Cal student.
“I would like to collab with Aly [Kearney],” Maldonaldo said. “It would be cool.”
Members of Friendly Fire said they’ve wanted to collaborate with Kearney, a senior, since they met her when coming to Cal this year. They think Kearney is great at singing and awesome at playing the guitar.
Maldonaldo first got interested in music when he was in a car ride with his dad listening to songs like Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train”. He shared how he loves heavy metal and really admires Slash, the lead guitarist for Guns ‘n’ Roses.
This would later lead to Maldonaldo to get his first guitar for his birthday last year. This would also soon be the start of how the first member of Friendly Fire was born.
The second member was Chan, who first got into music about four years ago.
Chan explains how his dad introduced him to playing drums and his middle school elective wheel class got him into drumming even more.
He said he admires Dave Grohl, the front man for Foo Fighters and former drummer for Nirvana.
Deurrmier found his interest in bass guitar about half a year ago.
“My dad kind of inspired me a little and it’s cool because he was also in a band,” Deurrmier said.
The last member to join was Lutsenko, who has been singing most of her life. She was first introduced to music by her mom and grew up with bands like “System Of a Down” since her mom was a huge fan. This helped her connect with music a lot more.
Sharing their love and inspiration for music is what brings the four band members together as a whole. Members recall how the band came together.
“I´ve known Lucas since like seventh grade ,” Duerrmier said. “I have known Mojo since the start of freshman year.”
Lutsenko said she’s known Duerrmier the longest. They met about three years ago. He then introduced Lutsenko to Chan and Maldonaldo, who recalls how he got the idea of starting the idea of Friendly Fire.
“Boredom, it was just boredom,” Maldonaldo said.
Although Maldonaldo had the whole idea of Friendly Fire, there was a little help on the side from one of their friends, Amiia Lyons.
Lyons helped develop the band’s logo, which helped them create their own social media platform. In addition to creating the logo, Lyons is also a huge supporter of Friendly Fire.
“When I first saw them perform in person, I was pretty blown away”, Lyons said. “I don’t have the best words to describe how excited I was to see their first public appearance.”
Lyons said some of her favorite song she’s seen the band perform is “Crash and Burn”.
“Mainly because it was the first song that distinguished them from any other Cal High band,” she said.