It all started with a T-shirt and a pizza box.

Jesse Katzenstein, a sophomore in the Bandier Program, was looking for inspiration to name the band he and his roommates hoped to form when he saw a T-shirt that said “Pizza Party” and an empty Domino’s pizza box sitting in his South Campus apartment.

Accordingly, the band was deemed Pizza Party. Its members include Katzenstein and three other sophomores in the Bandier Program: Will Taggart, Will Skalmoski and Eric Zidar.

The band formed at the beginning of this school year after Katzenstein, Skalmoski and Taggart decided to live together and start a band in their apartment. Zidar joined the group soon after.

“We have all of our instruments and everything, our amps and gear set up in the living room,” Katzenstein said. “The best thing is we can literally walk outside of our rooms when we wake up on a Saturday or Sunday morning and just jam, and it’s the best feeling in the world.”

The band has performed in front of an audience only once prior to this semester, but will be headlining a performance at the Westcott Theater on Feb. 13, and performing at Funk ’n Waffles on Feb. 26. Skalmoski said the shows the band plays this month will be important for its progress.

“We’re most excited to see where we stand at the end of the month because this all came together really quickly,” Skalmoski said. “We’re really excited for our potential and hope we can get a group of people that like seeing us play.”

The band’s sound, self-described as “party rock,” stems from the group’s rock influences. Zidar is the only member of the band with the sole responsibility of drumming. The other members switch off between singing and playing the guitar and bass, though Katzenstein occasionally plays the saxophone as well.

Taggart, who plays guitar, described the band as very collaborative, particularly in its songwriting, and said the group also performs cover songs like “Roxanne” by The Police, “Take Me Out” by Franz Ferdinand and “Last Night” by The Strokes.

“We’re fusing (the covers) with a little bit of our own Pizza Party magic and making them a lot of fun for our audience to jump around to,” Taggart said. “We just try to have a lot of fun onstage so that the audience can feed off of that.”

Although Pizza Party currently has not released music, Taggart said the group hopes to record in the studio located in the Belfer Audio Archives on campus and is currently writing original music.

Taggart, who has been performing regularly since middle school, also said performing with Pizza Party is a way to relax.

“It’s almost like a complete release from the stresses of everything else in life,” Taggart said. “By having this musical outlet where we can just make music, performing is like continuous ecstasy when you’re on stage.”

Zidar, who plays drums, said he encourages people to come out and watch Pizza Party perform because of the connection the band makes with its audience.

“The best part of performing is connecting with the crowd,” Zidar said. “We jam really hard.”

Since Pizza Party started through friendship, the group spends a lot of time together on and off stage. Skalmoski, who sings and plays bass, said the band members have grown to understand one another quite well musically.

“It’s euphoric because I’m with some of my best friends in the world, and when we play together, it’s cosmic,” Skalmoski said. “It’s like (we’re in) this other universe playing together. We all know each other so well that we can anticipate what each other’s going to play before we even play it.”

Published on February 10, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact Isha: idamle@syr.edu