>>by christina littlefield>>

OK. Moment of truth.

Who hasn't belted like a diva in the shower or used a hairbrush as a microphone? Just as most kids wanted to be like Mike when shooting hoops in the driveway, most also specialized in playing the air guitar like Jimi. Talent or no talent - everyone wanted to be a rock star.

"When I was a child I wanted to grow up to be Mariah Carey," said Courtney Steller, a freshman in both concert choir and orchestra. "Although I don't feel that way anymore, she was my first influence. I liked the way she sung and how much confidence she had."

Steller, like many of Pepperdine's musicians and the professionals who came before her, looks to the heroes of her youth in shaping the image she wants to portray as a performer today.

Even Elvis, Dylan and the Beattles - easily the most influential musicians of all time - were also once influenced by others. They too, were once little boys with big dreams and big idols.

Elvis Presley had a strong grounding in country and the blues, but his first influence was gospel music from the Pentecostal church. Bob Dylan was influenced by folk singer Odetta, country legend Hank Williams and early rock and roll. Even the Beattles started as a cover band doing R&B and rock and roll favorites, recording compositions by 1950s stars Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly before the John Lennon and Paul McCartney partnership first bore fruit. All used these influences to make profound changes and advances in music as we know it, both building on and rebelling against the generation before them, just as classical composers had did 200 years before them.

The image and scope of music has always been in an ever-changing flux as each new artist tries to take what he learned from his predecessors and use that knowledge to blaze his own trail in the music world. For Pepperdine musicians, this knowledge isn't necessarily chord progression or vocal tone. Instead, in a semi-post modern mode of abstraction, Seaver students gleam from their heroes the qualities they most want to emulate. They notice and try to replicate the passion in their heroes' voices, the emotion in their lyrics, the energy in their performance and the honesty that pervades their musical expression. It's not about playing the same notes or singing the same song, it is about capturing the qualities of greatness. For some, their rock idols give them hope that their dreams of stardom can also come true. But the bottom line is always about being real with the music, to quote Tom Petty, or to thy own self be true, to quote William Shakespeare.

"I love anyone who puts their heart and souls into their music. Anything from the heart is great," said junior Elena de Mattos. Now one of Pepperdine's premiere sopranos in the Flora L. Thornton Opera Program, de Mattos wanted to be Sarah Brightman growing up.

De Mattos heroes, like the more than 70 Seaver musicians polled for this story, are an eclectic mix of performers ranging from Beethoven and Bach to Sinatra and U2’s Bono. More than half of those interviewed cited their parents or a teacher as the primary reason they got involved in music, and their musical tastes show it. Students listed more than 101 influences from all genres and eras of music, placing Britney Spears and Eminem on the same platform as Mozart and the Beattles. At Pepperdine, the influences of student musicians transcend generations, cultures, genres and even the particular style of music each student specializes in. The bottom line is appreciating how each form of music can reflect some life-truth or touch someone's soul, not about rebelling against a particular style simply because your parent's liked it,

Senior Grattan Donohoe is one of the many prominent musicians on campus who looks to emulate the passion of an artist's performance rather than his chord progression

"You have to be there to perform, you can't just stand on stage," Donohoe said. "You have to be there to entertain. If you are not there to entertain, then screw it."

The singer/songwriter recently signed a recording contract with Jecarco Records and Entertainment, and is working to take his solo acoustic act on tour post graduation this April.

He is one of many musicians who - while recognizing his influences - is working to blaze his own trail. "If I write anything that even remotely sounds like another song I will just trash it, its gone," Donohoe said. "I try to make my songs as complicated as possible. I never want to walk into a guitar shop and hear someone playing something I've written.

"I want my stuff to be unique," Donohoe continued. "I want someone to hear the first five notes of a song they haven't heard of before and go hey, that's Grattan."

His heroes - Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and Pearl Jam - also made their own way. 

"Pearl Jam - they don't follow a path," Donohoe said. "They keep true to their own sound and keep evolving in it. With so many one-hit wonders, for a band that can keep producing albums and maintain a fan base there is something to be said."

Donohoe said Jecarco is helping him establish his sound and his image to put out his first solo CD, as he is a crossover artist from the labels usual R&B acts.

 Senior Aaron Burch, a drummer in the band aria decline, appreciates honesty in music even if he doesn't agree with the subject matter.

"Alice in Chains is brutally and disgustingly about drugs, but it's really cool that they are completely honest about it," Burch said. "I like honesty in artists if that is the point of their music."

Like many of the musicians surveyed for this article, Burch and his band mates enjoy music from a variety of spectrums.

"The more and more I listen to music, the more broad I get as far as type styles that I like," he said. "… We play Weezer meets Radiohead kind of music, but what we listen to is so all over the board. One guy is into Pink Floyd, some like classic rock, some like everything, Jack (Parmelee) and I love the Beattles."

In addition to the Beattles, Burch enjoys Radiohead, Nirvana, Weezer and Foo Fighters, Burlap to Cashmere, Rich Mullin and Michael Jackson.

"Some I like because they are extremely talented and other I like because they are honest in lyrics or they have an impact on society," he said.

One of Burch's band mates, base player Jacob Parnell, admitted that it was bands like Modest Mouse and Oasis that first made him want to be a rock star while in high school. The band he was in then even tried to imitate Oasis videos.

"They were totally rock stars, and really arrogant about it," Parnell said. "We didn't want to be like them because that wasn't the type of guys we were, but it was great to see how confident they were in their music."

He liked Modest Mouse not because of their talent but because of the way they just pound on the strings. Now he is into Sunny Day Real Estate because of how they mesh together without any one show-off guy.

"They have such a great sound," Parnell said. "They are one of those bands like Queen where there is talent all around."

Burch and Parnell's band, aria decline, have been playing a lot of gigs around the Southland, at Hollywood hot spots such as the Coconut Teaser, The Whiskey and The Joint. The band has adapted its image since most of the group got together, moving away from the punk/ska sound they started out with. Now, with a more mature sound, the group is trying to build an audience.

Basist Matt Dawson, like Parnell, also appreciates talent, but more so he watches other performers because of how they make people feel. Currently on break from school to pursue his music and save money, Dawson said he just has a pure, unadulterated love for music.

"I was never in it for money," he said. "I have always been in it for doing what I love. Like it's said, you do what you love for a living you never work a day in your life."

Dawson first started playing with Burch when the two were in GCFC (Gary Coleman Fan Club), a punk/ska band made up of Pepperdine students and teenagers of faculty members. Dawson had never picked up a base guitar in his life. He had enjoyed music from an early age, but had never thought he could be a musician until he joined GCFC. Growing up on music like Motown, Dawson thought you had to have a great voice to rock star, which he said he didn't have. Then he picked up his first guitar.

"I started paying attention to base players, listening to base in music," he said.

As his playing matured, he rotated bands, playing in the student group B Nutt Orchestra before starting the metal band Threshold with fellow Pepperdiner's Gibb Irons and Garth Overman.

"We try to be different but we almost sound like Tool," Dawson said. "They have the same metal sound but are too talented to touch, its almost like saying you are as good as the Beattles."

Threshold has also been playing a lot of local gigs, and the band is working on a self-produced CD with studio equipment the group has acquired. Dawson said his band tries to push things just to the edge.

In addition to John Coaltrain, who motivated Dawson in his early years, he sees Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers, Les Claypool from Primus and Matt Freeman from Rancid as the guys to emulate - the greatest basist of all time.

"The three made their own sound, definitely," Dawson said. "But on stage they destroy their instruments - not physically - but by playing so hard and fast it looks like it is going to break in their hands."

Senior Russell Kirby looks to his predecessors in the music world for proof there is a market for his rap and spoken word act.

"There is definitely a market for my kind of rap," said Kirby, who is working on a new demo CD and shopping for management. "With guys like Eminem, it is no longer a huge deal for whites to be rapping, and there is a huge market for spoken word."

As a kid, he looked to early rap groups such as Third Base for motivation to keep trying, not as music to cover.

"Never really tried to emulate anyone," said Kirby, whose musical influences range from Mariah Carey, Patty LaBelle to Prince and the Counting Crows. "I tried to do my own thing."

Kirby has done a lot of Black Student Union and Scared Grounds coffeehouses, as well as spoken word venues in the Los Angeles area.

Senior Jeremy Johnson, who writes, arranges and performs music with Pepperdine's Christian A Capella group Won By One, was lucky enough to study with one of music's greats. The business major doesn't plan on pursuing music professionally post graduation, but he said he greatly matured in his song writing this summer while interning with Al Kasha, an Academy Award winning song writer in Beverly Hills.

"I learned a lot from Al Kasha, in terms of writing lyrics so they can be meaningful in the audience," said Johnson, who said his biggest influences come from the British Isles - in bands such as Radiohead, U2 and the Beattles.

"My own stuff tended to be too poetic," he said. "… In terms of a specific message, you have to do lyrics more in the sense of a letter or a conversation, the way you talk to someone."

Senior Annalise Brock also tries to portray the same honest, one on one communication with her music. Her greats include Christian artists Bebo Norman, Jenny Owen and Chris Rice.

"(Chris Rice) is just amazing - especially his lyrics," Brock said. "He just says what a person wants to say but cannot express in words. He says it in his song."

She said that listening to her musical heroes is what keeps bringing her back to her guitar.

"It always inspires me to hear other artists who are really, really great," said Brock, who plays and writes her own solo acoustic music, mostly at Pepperdine's Sacred Grounds Coffeehouses. "It makes me want to pick it up and write."

The Nashville-native plans on just seeing where her music takes her. She said she will probably at least try to pursue it after college, as her father owns a music studio in the music capitol of the world.

Brock sees music as her greatest mode of expression, and as a way of expressing her greatest love - that is, her love in God.

"Everyone needs a way to express themselves and that is God's gift to me to express myself and him and his love through music," Brock said. "As far as who inspires me, who gives me the material I write it is God. I don't just say that because it is a cool thing to say but because it's true."

Whom ever their inspiration of whatever their motivation, all of the student musicians interviewed expressed a great desire to just let themselves come out in their music. It is what they admire in others and what they want to emulate themselves.

It is the same desire Christian acoustic artist Bebo Norman shared recently in a telephone interview prior to his Oct. 3 concert in Smothers Theater, showing that even professionals are struggling with the image they portray.

"The message that is kind of kicking my butt lately is there is no room for dishonesty," Norman said.  "There is no room to be fake with each other, we need to just be vulnerable. There are no walls in honesty, which is a pretty incredible place to start for transformation."

So go ahead, turn that brush into a mike, sing in the shower or play the air guitar.

Just keep it real.

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