Lions' Digest Winter Issue 03 2020

14 | WINTER 2020
in the Jazz bands and extracurricular musical
activities so that’s kind of how we met—the reason
we became a band was—Mount Nittany has this
thing every March where students can make groups
to perform at the lobby when students are coming
in for the school day, so we decided to do that, and
we decided to become a band after that.
Joshua Carlson(JC): We also got the
opportunity to play at the beginning of the 7th
and 8th grade band concerts as well, so that just
helped to kickstart it.
Where did the name come from?
If you were walking downtown at Arts Festival
last summer, you might’ve had the chance to hear
the Brass Rats playing at the square by Beaver
Avenue. A brass band made up of one 8th grader
and five State High students, the young musicians
drew quite the crowd. Several weeks ago, I had
the chance to meet them over a Google Meet and
discuss their origins, rehearsals, performances, and
much more.
How did you guys meet and ultimately get
started?
Adam Hallacher (AH): We were all in Mount
Nittany Middle school, and we all participated
JC: When we were doing Music in our Schools
Month at Mount Nittany, we said “oh shoot, we
need a name,” so I came up with “band rats” and
then I think it was Adam or Daniel who said “wait
no, we should be the Brass Rats.”
So outside of the school performances, where/
when else have you guys played?
BY ETHAN JONES
AH: Yeah, so one of our greatest influences
are the Lucky Chops, which is a brass band based
in New York City, and they go around busking,
which is playing outside and leaving out a hat
or case for people to drop money into, and