Last year a group of students from the class of 2018 formed a band for their freshman talent show. Little did they know that it was going to be the start of something long term.

This group of boys, now sophomores, decided to form an official band after they realized that they wanted to keep making music together. Called 6PM, the band consists of six members—Lucas Chun (vocalist), Matt Chun (drummer), Preston Iha (electric guitarist), Timothy Chang (pianist), Zachary Fujita (electric guitarist), and Joshua Fujita (bass guitarist.) Lucas Chun said, “Our band is named 6PM because there are six people and the ‘PM’ actually stands for perpetual motion. I liked this name because we are all in cross country.”

The band mostly goes to Matt Chun’s house to practice for performances. Lucas Chun said, “My favorite [moment] has been the performance at Jalen Sur’s church because a bunch of people from HBA came and we got to watch the movie ‘Do You Believe?.’ It was a very awesome, spiritual night.”

Another HBA-student band is Scarlet Cord, started by Class of 2014 graduate Preston Kauwe when he was a sophomore student. The band describes itself as a “pop-punk” band and currently consists of five members: Kauwe (vocalist), David Nakanishi (rhythm guitarist), Evan Arashiro, (drummer) and Reese Kato (bass guitarist), and senior Joshua Namba (rhythm guitarist). Besides Namba, all the band members are HBA alumni. The band started when Kauwe felt like God was calling him to start a band. He invited Nakanishi, Arashiro, and Kato to join him.

Namba, who joined the band later, has played about 15 gigs with the band. He says, “My favorite was our first time performing at Hawaiian Brian’s. Normally we play at a venue called Station Bar and Lounge, which has a very small playing space. We essentially play in a corner of a room. However at Hawaiian Brian’s, the venue is a lot bigger and so I have much more fun moving around the bigger stage.”

On September 27, Scarlet Cord had their first EP release at Hawaiian Brian’s. The band played all of their originals from their CD and gave out about one hundred CDs to all of their friends and family members that attended the release party.