As of October 2024, the local band Reform with sophomores Milo Young, Duncan Reilly, Jake Heatherman and Isaiah Wheyland has rapidly gained popularity. Although they’ve had a long journey to becoming a band, their shared determination has earned them many positive outcomes.
Guitarist and singer Isaiah Wheyland shares that while the members began in different bands, they eventually all decided to come together. Once they realized their collective passion for success, the band stuck.
“We’ve been together since the beginning of last year, so around 9 or 10 months,” Wheyland said. “We’ve grown a lot as friends and band members.”
As some of the members share experiences within previous bands, many have inspired aspects of their journey as Reform. Drummer Milo Young expands on the origin of their band name.
“Isaiah and I used to be in a band about a year before Reform,” Young said. “We broke up, and then we kind of ‘reformed’ the band, so that’s we called it Reform.”
Making, performing, and producing music is a complex process that can require many parts. While he already played guitar, now-bassist Duncan Reily learned the instrument just so he could join and balance out the band.
“When we make music it all starts with Isaiah, he plays his guitar part [first] and then Milo [comes in] with the drums,” Reilly said. “Then I add my bass to it and it all comes together.”
While the members share equal passion for the band, they often struggle finding time to play. As all the members are involved in other extracurriculars, they find difficulty in balancing all of their schedules.
“Our biggest challenge has probably been being consistent with practicing, because we would practice every day for two weeks and then not practice at all,” Reilly said. “We play a song and have everything perfect, and then two days later we completely forget the whole song and have to relearn it.”
The band’s first single “All I Need” caught the public eye right away, and soon attracted a multitude of new listeners. Since then, the ban has earned a fan base that continues to increase with their release of music.
“The most monthly listeners we’ve had was 1,500,” Reilly said. “When we released our first song last year it was a hit, so it immediately got us to around those 1,500 listeners. Now, we’re staying consistent at around 300 to 400 monthly listeners.”
While the band is still fairly new, Reilly is already formulating plans for the bands future in the music industry. He is well on his way to accomplishing his ambitions for the band with many new listeners enjoying their music.
“I have some big goals, like to play [at] Soma [and] reach 10,000 monthly listeners,” Reilly said. “I also want to make a good album that we can all work on together and have a lot of people listen to.”
Part of Reforms success sprouted from their ability to captivate listeners with relatable concepts from their songs. With this authentic display of their shared experiences, the band strives to connect to their listeners and offer a source of familiarity
“We love being an inspiration to others around us,” Young said. “We share [our own] stories through our music and appreciate our listeners letting us give them a piece of us in our songs.”
Through new connections and friends they’ve made through making and performing music, the members are eager to expand the bands horizons. For future music, the members hope to incorporate more personal input from each member into their lyrics.
“I’m looking forward to playing more live shows with other local bands,” Young said. “We are also excited to continue finding the type of music we want to play and putting our own style on it.”
