***KUTX Artist of the Month is powered by PNC Bank***
By Jeff McCord
Forming a band in college is about as common as taking English 101, yet few of them go beyond the occasional frat party. Fewer still last as long as the bass player wrecking the drummer’s car.
Yet since 2021, West 22nd has been omnipresent on campus and beyond, routinely making weekend gig excursions, drawing crowds to shows as far away as Los Angeles and Atlanta. They’ve released an EP and numerous singles, their latest the pop-fueled driver ”Hangman”. Their single “Sunburns” has garnered over a million streams on the DSP’s.
The five members of West 22nd – their name invokes the narrow over-populated streets of UT’s west campus neighborhood – are all still students at UT, at least until next May. Yet they’re about to join the ranks of superstars like Dua Lipa on the ACL Fest stage. Their bio describes them as “the first all-current-UT-student band” to play there. A lot of modifiers, but still – impressive.
It’s not just that they’re young, it’s the logistical challenges they face. Like, you know, classes.
“It’s not always perfect in school and time management ends,” says Gabe Acevedo, guitarist for the band. He and lead vocalist Logan Madsen write West 22nd’s songs, and have joined me over Zoom.
“Just last weekend,” he says, “we were playing a show at Mississippi State, so we had to leave Thursday night. Anyone who’s got Friday classes misses those. This weekend we’re going to Denton, recording a little bit. So we’re missing Monday there. It takes a lot of coordination at the start of the semester. Everyone needs to find out when their exams are, how many classes they can miss, making sure if we have to miss a class, we’re not hurting anyone’s grades. We try and work with our professors, and I’ve been amazed how UT has been able to support us. [We were part of] that Battle of the Bands, the Longhorn City Limits (huge free concerts at UT home football games), we did the South by Southwest Hook ‘em House party. So many ways that [UT has] supported us and promoted us. I don’t think that’s very common for a university to be that involved with live music. I think that just really speaks to UT and Austin specifically.”
Then there’s that other logistical hurdle college students face: parents.
“We’re all very fortunate to come from good families that raised us to have big ambitions, go to a good school and get a great education,” says Gabe, finessing his answer to a certain audience. “We’re very happy we’re finishing at such a great school and getting a really valuable degree. On the other side of that, it takes a lot of convincing to our parents to show them this is something that we can make a career. I think the music has spoken for itself and really gotten a lot of their support; seeing how we’ve been able to grow while in college.”
That’s the kind of jargon you hear from musicians twice their age who have done thousands of interviews. But West 22nd seems to have skirted almost every pitfall common to young bands. Logan and Gabe are both finance majors.
“The band is really a startup,” Gabe explains. “We’ve learned a lot about how to manage cash. It’s very expensive, especially when we can’t go on a consecutive tour and we only have the weekends available to go to one show and come back. We’ve tried really hard to try and manage the money we’re making and use it the right way. We haven’t paid ourselves much at all. We’re very fortunate to have support from our parents while we’re in school. We’re trying to grow [the band] into a sustainable business so we can continue operating. Hopefully things get a little easier once we graduate and we’re a lot more free to buy or lease a van and go on a full tour, which we’re planning right now.”
“It takes a lot of hard work,” Logan concurs. “We played so many shows this last year in Austin, around 55. We’re trying to get as many shows as possible under our belts, making authentic music that is original.”
West 22nd is both Logan and Gabe’s first band. Yet listening back to their earliest singles, their work is remarkably professional.
“We never wanted to put out any music that didn’t sound fully professional,” Logan says, “with a real producer. The first producer we worked with is Chris “Frenchie” Smith. He helped us a lot, we learned so much from him. Now we’re working with Matt Pence. We just released our new single with him. They’re just unbelievably talented and they really know how to do a song justice.”
Their instincts played to the business end as well.
“Our big goal this year was to play ACL Fest our last year before we graduate,” Gabe confesses. “We knew how it worked with C3 owning a lot of venues in Austin as well. So we tried to play and sell a lot of tickets at those venues and make good relationships with the people booking there, so maybe they can spread the word. This past winter, we would be emailing [C3] every month. ‘Hey, here’s a list of updates. We’re going to Atlanta and Denver next month. We’re releasing a new single.’ We had no idea if they were really interested in what we were saying or not, but then in the spring, they reached out and gave us an offer.”
If all this translates to a successful career in anything as tough as the music business remains to be seen. But at the moment, West 22nd seems to be making all the right moves.
“A lot of people are really buying into this,” Gabe says, “and we feel very confident that as we put out more music, everything else will just follow. We’ve been very organic in our growth so far, and that’s made us very comfortable, knowing we can develop a loyal fan base and avoid being a flash in the pan viral moment.”
