by Paul Benson
If you were in the cafeteria during lunchtime on November 14th, you might have seen Prevalence performing songs from their new EP, Panic Button. For those who don’t know, Prevalence is a local indie rock band started by Parkland students, Drake Maxson and William Penne. Their new EP was recorded by Parkland’s record label, Perimeter Road Sound Recordings. The EP contains 5 tracks along with a single, “Late Christmas”, which has a music video made by Kevin Lau. November 9th was the release date of the album and since the release they’ve been playing their new songs live at Exile on Main, The IMC Building, and Parkland.
“Will and I had known each other through being in a metal band together called, Not For The Faint Of Heart. Eventually, we gravitated to different music and left the band. A little while later we talked about starting our own project and through many variations and lots of time, Prevalence formed. As for the name, well, that’s a little more complicated. We wanted to name the project with something simple that still had meaning. We went through countless ideas, but finally settled on Prevalence,” Maxson said about the band’s origins. Both members are very passionate about music. They recall becoming attached to music very early on in life. Penne says, “Music has always been my passion. I’ve never felt the same passion for anything else as I have for music. Even at the age of 2, I was requesting certain music for my mom to play so I could run around a coffee table in the middle of the living room. Music has always evoked incredible emotion and response from me, so music has always been in my blood.” Maxson continues, “I started to like music very early on in my childhood, but I didn’t start playing guitar until I was about 12. My passion for it then grew from there. Music has impacted my life immensely. It has given me a way to express myself, a way to let out feelings that are sometimes hard to put into words, and a way to be involved in my local community, which is awesome.” The passion and talent of these two musicians is very clear in the songs they’ve made. The lyrics and instrumentals come straight from the rhythm in their hearts.
“It was amazing working on the Prevalence album! I thoroughly enjoyed working with Drake and Will in the studio for numerous reasons. One being that Drake was already my student in recording class and was already a member of the record label. So, we already had a little bit of experience with each other. I already liked him, I knew how talented he was. So, getting to have him be on the other side of it and be a musician for the label rather than just an engineer, was really cool. Will is also an awesome drummer. Both of them came in so ready for their parts and prepared to play. Will in particular, I think we recorded all the keeper drums for the album in one session, because he was so ready it was like he was just knocking every song out in first or second take, perfectly. So, that’s pretty amazing when you’re working with musicians who are prepped and ready when they come in,” said Adam Porter, Advisor of the Perimeter Road Record label, about working with Prevalence. It was clear that both band members had a good amount of experience working on the record label as members, which really helped them when they were on the other side of the recording process. They were able to spend more time mixing and mastering their album than a typical band would, since they were the lead mix engineers. They were there for a majority of the process.
For those wondering about the themes covered in the new EP, Maxson gives a rundown, “Two songs are about relationship troubles that I’ve had in my past, but the other three are not. ‘Growing Pains’ is about trying to figure out your life in a time of confusion, ‘Late Christmas’ is about seasonal depression, and ‘Black Tie Event’ is about being broke and being mad about it. All of these things combined give off a sense of panic, hence the title ‘Panic Button.’” The songs are very relatable. Who doesn’t get mad about being broke? “My favorite song off of ‘Panic Button’ is probably ‘Growing Pains’ simply because it’s catchy and fun to play live,” Maxson said. “My favorite song is ‘Drift’. I’ve always loved that song, since Drake first played it for me. I remember the first time we played through it in its ‘final form’ and just thinking ‘yeah, this is my favorite.’ I feel like I really get to let go on that song and yell ‘I know you loved me.’ The opening verses and quiet riff has always been fun for me to play around with and getting to do fun things with accents and musicality on that song, and going through the bridge and incredibly monstrous ending allows me to hit the shit out of my drums. That song encapsulates everything that we do well, I think. It’s the best of the songwriting, riff and drum interplay, and headbanging that we do, all in one song,” Penne said about his favorite song. Both songs are very fun to watch live. The small interactions between Maxson and Penne on stage adds so much to the overall performance.
The band recently added a new member: bassist Paul Little. When asked if they are considering adding more members, Maxson said “I think Will and I are comfortable with the size of the band now, but adding even more members has been discussed before. Maybe another guitarist, maybe a violinist. Who knows? Maybe we’ll have an accordion player at some point….” Penne added that they “totally would love to have a keys player.” It doesn’t seem like they’re looking for new members at the moment, but they are not entirely against adding new members either.
They both had positive words to say about being Parkland students. Maxson said, “Going to Parkland has been great for me. It’s given me a chance to learn about stuff that I actually care about in a very hands on way. Not to mention the fact that we recorded with Perimeter Road Sound Recordings, which allowed us to release ‘Panic Button’ in the first place.” Penne said, “I’ve always loved the environment that Parkland has and the people in it. Being able to learn and work in the studio has been an amazing experience for me and has taught me so much, not just about recording music, but about sessions and collaborating, which is something that can’t be taught in a class, but can only be learned through experience. That’s why Parkland’s program is so great. (And of course, my mom being a teacher there for my entire lifetime hasn’t hurt, either).” Overall, Parkland is happy to have such talented musicians. If you are interested in learning more about prevalence, you can find them on social media and almost any music platform – such as Spotify. “If someone wants a physical CD or t-shirt, they can come to one of our shows to pick one up or contact us. I’m sure we could work something out. We also have both of our albums for sale at C/U CD and Vinyl in Urbana and Exile on Main Street in Champaign,” Maxson added.
