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High school band finding their niche
Viki Gonia
Updated: April 15, 2013 10:14AM
If there are two things I love, it’s discovering new music and meeting young, motivated people who do cool, awesome things.
Enter Community Service, a band comprised of three Lyons Township sophomores: Jimmy Kourafas, 15 (guitar, vocals); Max Romero, 15 (bass, vocals); and Steven Rejdukowski, 16 (drums).
Kourafas and Romero started playing together in 2009, and Rejdukowski joined the group during their freshman year.
“We have a hard time classifying our genre of music,” says Kourafas, adding that if pressed, they’d classify themselves as indie alternative rock. “We don’t play very heavy music as some alternative rock bands do.”
Band members also write their own music and lyrics, the majority by Kourafas.
“We all play the songs together as a band and all add our own touches,” he said.
Some songs written by Romero will soon be added to their repertoire. They have around nine songs, five of which are completely finished and are still working to perfect the others. They are getting ready to record these songs and more on an album, which they’ll be releasing sometime this year.
They will be recording and releasing at least one song at the end of March.
If you’ve got a teenager, or listen to WXRT, you may recognize some of their influences: Modest Mouse, The Shins, Two Door Cinema Club, Young the Giant, Jukebox the Ghost. And most of you should recognize The Beatles as an influence. (I’ll admit I was believed to see a band amongst their influences that made music prior to the year they were all born, and prior to the year that I was born, because I was feeling a bit old there for a minute.)
Community Service is looking to book some shows this coming summer, and are booked to play at the Congress Theater on April 14 as part of a showcase of up-and-coming Chicago bands. I got turned on to them by hearing them play at Moondance Diner in Burr Ridge around the holidays. These are some talented kids.
Their immediate goals beyond recording their songs are to “get our music out there for people to listen to, to develop a larger fan-base and to keep writing and recording,” says Kourafas.
Music has long been a part of the lives of Community Service.
“I have always wanted to be a musician and it’s always been a part of what I do,” says Romero.
“It wasn’t until I started playing the guitar, and later the drums, that I really thought for sure that music was what I wanted to do,” says Rejdukowski.
Kourafas has loved music since he was little.
“My parents really encouraged me to strive toward very practical careers, so I felt pressure to try to focus my time on other things,” he said. “Then when I started writing my own music I began to realize how much I love it and that I don’t want to do anything else.”
Jimmy’s parents might want to throttle me for saying this, but jeez, I wish I’d realized the same thing when I was his age.
Romero and Kourafas have been friends since the third grade, and had talked about playing music together ,eventually starting when we were about 11. Romero met Rejdukowski in a class at LT and that’s when they formed Community Service.
You can find Community Service on their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/TheCommunityService.
Readers can contact Viki Gonia by leaving a message at (312) 880-8550 or by sending an email to doingsnews@pioneerlocal.com.
