Battle of the Bands: Opportunity for homegrown talent

By Anna Heqi­mi | UConn Jour­nal­ism
Feb. 11, 2024

“If we had it your way, had the house to your­self,” Dylan Hrin­da sang. A glance toward Adam McDon­ald and both start smil­ing, then laugh­ing. Every­one stops play­ing briefly, all smil­ing toward one anoth­er. Then they start again.

Hrin­da sings the same line and McDon­ald and he smiles again, this time con­tain­ing their urge to chuck­le. The group con­tin­ues to play their fan-favorite song “For the Record.”

In the tiny town of New Hart­ford, CT, with a pop­u­la­tion shy of 7,000 peo­ple, four friends who all — for the most part — met in high school, became the band Ruby Left­step. Rehears­ing every Wednes­day in a small base­ment in Hrinda’s house — a string of gold lights on the ceil­ing illu­mi­nat­ing the space.

Posters of Nir­vana, Jer­ry Gar­cia from the Grate­ful Dead and a large poster of Led Zep­pelin show the band’s appre­ci­a­tion and ded­i­ca­tion to rock music. On the ceil­ing, beau­ti­ful­ly pat­terned tapes­tries hang by their cor­ners, allow­ing the cen­ter to slight­ly hang. The vary­ing tapes­tries, from ros­es around a skele­ton to a green-pat­terned piece with ele­phants, leaves and tri­an­gles make one’s eyes wan­der with curios­i­ty to see all the tiny and intri­cate details.

Rehearsal begins with the group’s song “Remain­ing,” an emo­tion­al song that evokes feel­ings of melan­choly or self-reflec­tion.

When the final notes die away, band mem­bers cri­tique one anoth­er.

“You’re very bass‑y,” McDon­ald says to Thomas Buse­mey­er.

Buse­mey­er adjusts his gui­tar in response.

After anoth­er song, the band begins to prac­tice “Shut­eye,” their yet-to-be-released tune.

“The build should be super-high-ener­gy,” Eddie Dahill sug­gests after the first run.

Hrin­da pro­pos­es that it should be a slow pro­gres­sion into the super-high-ener­gy part.

A con­sen­sus is reached quick­ly, and prac­tice pro­ceeds.

The band formed ini­tial­ly with Hrin­da and Dahill. The music school they attend­ed put togeth­er shows, and Dahill and Hrin­da were a band in one of those shows.

“We had a real­ly good time play­ing those shows, I [mes­saged] Eddie and was like ‘Eddie, do you want to do this all the time, for­ev­er?’ And he was like ‘Def­i­nite­ly,’” Hrin­da enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly recalls.

As with many local bands, oth­er mem­bers cycled in and out before McDon­ald and Buse­mey­er joined.

When Dahill and Hrin­da formed the band, the next step was to decide on a name for it.

“We were try­ing to fig­ure out what to do for our band name and we were just throw­ing out words, Dylan and I. One day Dylan came in and he was like ‘Left­step’ and I’m like, ‘what is that?’ And he said he didn’t know, it sound­ed cool,” Dahill recalls.

Hrin­da said Dahill asked him if some­thing should go before “Left­step.” Hrin­da agreed and thought of his dog Ruby. Ruby Left­step was born.

“[The name] means noth­ing and we think it’s cool,” Dahill said.

Pro­gres­sion is the band’s goal. “I’d love to be tour­ing, I’d love to be on a label,” McDon­ald said. “I want a bathrobe and slip­pers that have the Ruby Left­step logo.”

In addi­tion to being devot­ed to Ruby Left­step, each mem­ber has oblig­a­tions out­side of rehearsal. Hrin­da works full time as an elec­tri­cian appren­tice. McDon­ald works full time at a music dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­ny. Dahill is an intern at a record­ing stu­dio and a senior sales asso­ciate at a music store. Buse­mey­er teach­es at that same music store.

The band rehears­es every Wednes­day in prepa­ra­tion for a big event — the annu­al Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut Bat­tle of Bands.

Buse­mey­er, a junior at UConn major­ing in polit­i­cal sci­ence, lis­tens to WHUS — UConn’s com­mu­ni­ty radio sta­tion — and want­ed the band to expe­ri­ence the com­pe­ti­tion for fun and for the chance to meet oth­er bands.

When the com­pe­ti­tion was held at the UConn Stu­dent Union ball­room on Feb. 3, 2024, six bands, includ­ing Ruby Left­step, took the stage.

Each band per­formed once dur­ing the bat­tle. The prize for this once-in-a-life­time oppor­tu­ni­ty? A stu­dio ses­sion at WHUS radio, award­ing the win­ner the oppor­tu­ni­ty to play live on the air­waves.

On the ceil­ing of the cam­pus ball­room, lights of tiny green stars shim­mer. A cres­cent moon and a slow­ly mov­ing, red cloud-like effect add to the atmos­phere of the space. A merch table to the right of the stage allowed atten­dees to sup­port the band they love.

Through­out the night, a sin­gle bal­loon was kept afloat by those attend­ing. As the night pro­gressed, that sin­gle bal­loon became a bunch.

Besides atten­dees vib­ing to the music, danc­ing and hit­ting bal­loons, the sud­den yet peri­od­ic for­ma­tion of a mosh pit pro­vid­ed an extra adren­a­line rush as guests enjoyed shov­ing each oth­er around in a human cir­cle as fast-paced tunes play.

Each band per­formed four songs, and after half of the bands moved on to the sec­ond round, they strove to win the audi­ence over with only one song.

After Ruby Left­step per­formed four songs, McDon­ald asked the audi­ence, “One more maybe?” The crowd salut­ed. “You have to vote for us!” 

Ruby Left­step was picked as a final­ist along with The Jawns and Dying Under the Influ­ence. The com­pe­ti­tion inten­si­fied.

Using their own tac­tics to gain audi­ence engage­ment, Ruby Left­step, tells the audi­ence to get on the floor and on their mark to all jump up, pri­or to per­form­ing “Shut­eye.”

“One, two, three.”

Every­one jumps, and the fast rhythm of the song brings on a wave of excite­ment. Fast danc­ing and head-bop­ping con­tin­ues through­out the entire tune.

As soon as the final round fin­ish­es, a QR code allows the crowd to place their vote for their favorite via mobile device. But the QR code vot­ing was incon­clu­sive because of the large num­ber of peo­ple in the crowd. Sophia Cur­ran, the WHUS Event Coor­di­na­tor, asks the crowd to instead cheer for their favorite band.  

The Jawns. Cheers.

Dying Under the Influ­ence. Some­what loud­er cheers.

Ruby Left­step. The loud­est response from the audi­ence.

Ruby Left­step is the win­ner.