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School visit all adds up for Abacu5
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ABACU5, an American rock band comprising of members Samuel Holder (guitar), Jonathan Sprang (guitar/vocals), Cory Martin (vocals), Adam Manning (bass) and Eric Petrinowitsch (drums), visited Shanghai American School in December to support a concert the students were planning.
The concert was called “Winter Dreams,” named after a song that the band’s drummer Eric wrote and dedicated to SAS. Abacu5 stayed for around a week, rehearsing and performing with the students. The band was very excited to visit Shanghai. Previously, they had been playing in and around Dallas.
I did an interview with the band.
Q: How long have you guys been a band?
Adam Manning: Well, Samuel and I have known each other since college where we had a band. After college, we moved to Dallas but had to leave the rest of the band behind. Later, we added Jonathan and then added Eric a year later. Recently, we met Cory online.
Q: What motivated you to start a band?
Samuel Holder: I guess it’s just that fundamental love for music, the rush you get when you’re doing something you love. It just feels right every time we’re rocking onstage, and everything tells you it’s the right way to go.
Q: Why do you enjoy rock the most out of all genres?
Eric Petrinowitsch: Funny that you ask that, because that is definitely not the case for me. Rock has always been a part of my life, but never the cause of it. I’m a high school music teacher who specializes in percussion, and that means I play a variety of instruments ranging from classical percussion to the heavy drum set that I play with these guys.
Cory Martin: For me, it just feels right. When I try bellowing out my emotions, it comes out as rock. Like, I might try writing country, but it’ll still sound and feel like a rock song. It’s a part of me I can’t and don’t want to change.
Q: What kind of thoughts went through your head when you decided to create a band?
Samuel Holder: There are these people who just love music so much that they would be glad to play music on a street corner, but that was not Adam and I back in college. Don’t get me wrong, we love rock and it has basically defined our lives, but we needed a solid foundation on which to start up.
Q: How do you define success and failure?
Jonathan Sprang: I think it’s a little different for all of us, but as a general comment I think that all successes need to be recognized. Every little gig we made, every audition and every performance was a small success that needed to be recognized.
Cory Martin: After having come to Shanghai on such a long shot, it’s hard to know if successes will ever feel the same again.
Q: What obstacles did the band have to surpass to get to where you are today?
Jonathan Sprang: Competition, definitely. There are hundreds of other bands trying to do the exact same thing, and you’ve got to just be the best.
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