Ryan - vocals: On a personal level, this pandemic has definitely changed my daily life, especially in my day job as a teacher. Trying to keep students six feet apart has been a challenge in itself, but thankfully our district found a way around that by providing face shields for students to wear while wearing a mask as well when working together closer than six feet. Students have had to become accustomed to silent snacks, mask breaks and making sure to use hand sanitizer when both entering and exiting a room. As a teacher, I have had to wear many hats, including having to become an IT technician. We have some students who have been remote all year and other students who are working remotely when quarantining. Considering all students are learning at the same time and not in cohorts, what this means is teachers are not only teaching to the students physically in front of them, but we have computer screens in front of us to teach to students remotely as well.

We have had to become jugglers to make sure remote students and students in person can access the material equally, fix IT issues that arise and be there to support students’ emotional well-being during this unique time all while teaching.

Aside from teaching, trying to keep our band afloat in the midst of a pandemic has certainly been challenging, but we chose not to give up. It hasn’t been easy, but regardless of the obstacles thrown at us, we found a way to overcome them. Performing shows is one of the most important aspects of being in a band and we found ourselves struggling to find ways to work around the lack of physical shows. Once restaurants started to open up more, the owners requested that all music be instrumental only (meaning no vocals). This was a unique challenge for us and we felt it best to wait until there were outdoor shows again. In order to solve this problem, we decided to tap into livestreams and pre-recorded shows, including a music festival that was purely online this year.

Another challenge we had was filming our music video for “What Are You Waiting For.” It took us three months to complete it due to the pandemic and trying to figure out how and where we would record it. We were also only able to film one person’s part of the video a day due to filming in different parts of Connecticut. In addition, we also had to wait until places started to open up more before we could film all of us together at the end of the video at practice. Overall, we were excited and proud to complete the video, which in itself exemplifies that with perseverance anything can be possible. We had a lot of fun filming it and hope you enjoy it too!

While practicing social distancing, watch our music video for "What Are You Waiting For":