School of Rock Gives Music Outlets to Carrboro Youth

Alys Traylor: There is the Music Festival next weekend. Are you excited?

JJ Meacham-Helbert: I am, yeah. It’s gonna be fun.

What are y’all planning to perform, if I may ask?

Yeah, so, we started off this year after auditions with 20 songs. Hopefully at least 15 of them will be ready for the show. Our first castings were, *soft laugh* Crazy In Love by Beyoncé [and] She’s Gone by Daryl Hall & John Oates. There’s gonna be some good stuff. 

What are you looking forward to with this run of the festival?

I always love coming to Carrboro Music festival, as well as playing there because of the community and stuff. I’m really excited to perform a bass song, ‘cause I really haven’t played bass in the Carrboro Music Festival yet.

What instruments have you played in the past [at the Carrboro Music Festival]?

Vocals and keys. 

With all of your songs you’re performing, how do you prepare for them?

Man, we practice every Thursday, for 2 and a half hours I think, and we kinda just listen to [the songs] and we play them until we either run out of time or get it right. How the house band is set up this year is that people who are casted on a song, obviously get to play the song for the show, but we have two rehearsal rooms this year because of how many people are in house band this year and, so we have an understudy group for every single song, which means pretty much everybody is on everything, except for not everyone gets to play the stuff.

What have been some of your favorite performances that you’ve seen at the music festival?

Ooo, okay, Slow Teeth. One of the guys, he’s actually the coordinator for, or one of the coordinators for the Carrboro Music Festival. Justin Ellis, his band is always amazing; every band that he’s in is amazing. [And] Jack the Songman, I saw once, he was really good.

What is a favorite song that you’ve performed for [the Carrboro] music festival?  

Last year, I did Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones, and then there’s this really crazy high part, and it was always really fun to play.

Justin Ellis, the School of Rock Chapel Hill General Manager and Music Director, was also the coordinator for the Carrboro Music Festival this year.

“Coordinating the Carrboro Music Festival [is] a crazy amount of work, but it’s really fun for me,” said Ellis during an interview about the festival and School of Rock, “I’m 33 now and I moved to the area when I was 18 to go to UNC, so I’ve been at the festival as a guest and as a performer for years and years and years, and being able to make it I think better and continue year after year is a huge privilege, so, I’m happy to do it.”

“Carrboro Music Festival is my favorite day of the year and I’m so excited that people are enjoying it,” said Ellis, “My favorite part is just complete strangers saying “Hi, thank you for all the work you do.” Because they’re having such a good time, and it’s just fun to walk down the street just hear amazing music everywhere I go.”

Ellis also shared what it was like getting the House Band ready for the Music Festival this year; “[Getting the House Band ready was] a little stressful just because… this is only their second gig of the year, their first gig was two days ago, and this particular band has only been together for 5 weeks, so to get 90 minutes of music at this level performable is a lot of work. But they’re all total pros and I’ve known all of them since they were very small, so I know what they can do which is nice.”

Students can get involved in lots of ways with the Music Festival. 

“Carrboro Music Festival [has] applications open usually in January, February for every year. All ages are welcome to apply; cover bands, original bands, garage bands, you name it,” Ellis said on the topic of how youth and students can get involved, “and Carrboro Parks and Recreation always needs volunteers to help make the festival happen, so that’s a great way that young people can be involved.”