Photo courtesy of Lillie Hollabaugh

Patrick “Poppy” Geoghan had one goal in mind when he began his freshman year at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music: form a band. A Bachelor of Music in Modern Artist Development and Entrepreneurship was going to help him write, perform and record music, but he had no intention of doing that as a solo artist.

On the first day of orientation, he met a fellow M.A.D.E. major, Spencer Ford, and they became fast friends. He watched Ford perform at an open mic night and knew he had found his lead singer.

“He was gathering us like Infinity Stones,” Ford joked.

One of his professors told him about Jack Dratch, a drummer from Philadelphia that was really impressing people. The three of them performed Chris Stapleton’s “I Was Wrong” at an open mic night and knew they had something special. As they began brainstorming what this band could look like, they agreed that they wanted to add a second guitar player. Another of Geoghan’s classmates, Trent Jones, gave him and Dratch a taste of his skills, and they inducted him into the band without formally sharing the news with Ford. Thus, the origin story of Pump Action.

Ford and Dratch, who initially was a Music Engineering Technology major, switched to Media Scoring and Production after their first semester while Geoghan stuck with M.A.D.E. and Jones learned the business side with a Bachelor in Music Industry. By the beginning of their junior year, the band had been living together and living through a global pandemic that gave them zero opportunities to play shows. They had a heart-to-heart conversation (at a Shake Shack, no less) about how serious they wanted the band to be. They collectively decided that yes, this was a project that they wanted to devote all their resources and energy to.

As senior year commenced, they realized that they all had different ideas of where the band should live post-graduation. They agreed to visit each city on the list - New York, Los Angeles, Nashville - to get a better idea of how it could elevate their music. It took two days of visiting Nashville for them to come to the conclusion that they did not need to visit the other cities.

“I think that it made the path to get from where we were as college graduates, or eventual college graduates, to professional musicians," Ford said.

They had seen friends and acquaintances make Nashville their home base and thrive. The music industry wasn’t a nebulous concept in Nashville; it was an obtainable goal thanks to a city full of people ready to welcome them in.

“One of the things that I found comfort in is having that community here,” Ford said. “Having that community of musicians here that are really, truly very supportive.”

Around the same time as their move to Nashville, their single “Maybe It’s You” caught fire. It taught them a powerful lesson on utilizing the internet as a resource.

“It transitioned us from lovable, music school friend band to people who don’t know us are catching wind of what we’re doing,” Ford said.

What they knew about a traditional path to releasing music with marketing plans and photo shoots seemingly disappeared as a video clip of them playing “Maybe It’s You” at a bar received five million views on TikTok. The song had yet to be recorded, so they dropped everything to get it released. A song that was recorded, mixed and mastered in their living room is still their most streamed song to date.

It seemed like an easy choice to utilize their social media platforms to get the word out about their music, but at the same time it was a philosophical struggle for Ford. He said that his mindset at the time was, ‘I don’t want to be an internet band. We’re not TikTok musicians.’ They have bachelor’s degrees in music. They did not stumble across the ability to play music or write songs. It was difficult to disregard the feeling of people not connecting with him as an artist, especially being the primary songwriter of the band. It took him a bit to realize that if the songs weren’t good, people would not be giving them the chance to be heard five million times.

“Using the internet and using the stupid little internet videos as the catalyst and as the hook to get people in, there’s nothing wrong with that,” he said. “It works, and to forsake that for the sake of being a ‘real artist’ is just not, in my opinion, recognizing the times that we live in.”

2025 is when they plan to execute the next phase of Pump Action. Converting fans into super fans is a high priority for them, and giving them a peek behind the curtain is how they plan to do so. The hope is that giving their audience a better idea of who they are personally will create more investment in what they put out artistically.

“We always say that the goal is world domination,” Ford said. “We’re really trying to put some things in motion to make that happen.”