Following the end of the 2023-24 school year, Sophomores Dilla Jackson, Ralph Nguyen, Luke Blumm and Douglass English formed punk band “Sum Yung Guys” (SYG)” therefore beginning their journey to the top.

Nguyen, the band’s lead guitarist, said the thought of starting a band first came to him unexpectedly.

“I first thought of the idea while watching an anime called Bocchi the Rock with [Blumm],” Nguyen said. “When he said, ‘dude, we’ve got to be in a band,’ it just happened.”

Nguyen said gathering members for the band was not difficult, but getting them to meet in-person was no easy task.

“Since we had the idea to form the band towards the end of the school year, we didn’t really have any time to actually meet up in-person due to scheduling issues at the beginning of the summer,” Nguyen said. “We didn’t get together until midway through June.”

The idea was received with much enthusiasm from the new members, particularly Blumm who has been looking forward to this opportunity since his childhood.

“When [Nguyen] came to me with the idea, I said that I always wanted to be in a band because my dad was in one when he was a kid,” Blumm said. “[Nguyen] found the rest of the people, and we had the band.”

Although the band was slowly finding its footing and figuring out the details of their idea to form a band, they struggled to decide on what they would call themselves.

“When we started, we were all coming up with band names,” Nguyen said. “We were in between ‘Green Weekend’ and ‘Ralph and the Dirty Mustaches’ but we eventually settled on SYG because we saw a clip of my dad’s old band which was also named SYG, so we decided to steal the name.”

While most of the band members have been playing their instruments for a few months, Jackson has been pursuing the drums since early childhood.  

“I started playing drums when I was nine and joined the middle school band in 6th grade, so I have some experience playing in public,” Jackson said. “In my religion, I play drums for parades and marching bands.”

When the band first met up to rehearse, they covered songs from popular bands including “Green Day” and “Metallica.” Eventually, the group wrote their first original song called “The Police.”

“Originally, [Blumm] could only play simple chords and now he can play barre chords, move around the frets faster and strum faster,” Nguyen said. “I’ve figured out how to tap and improvise better. [English’s] first time playing bass was when he joined the band, and now he just needs to play faster and less choppy. [Jackson] has always been good, but I’m sure that he’s improved, even just by a little bit.”

Bob Nguyen, Nguyen’s father, has been a regular spectator of the band’s rehearsals and has observed their growth throughout the process.

“It’s very loud, but I had a band when I was younger, so I don’t have a problem with the noise,” Bob Nguyen said. “However, I do believe that they have improved by at least 200%.”

Since creating the band, the young group of high schoolers have written multiple songs which they plan on releasing alongside an album.

“In a perfect world, we will finish our first album and a couple more songs by the end of the year,” Nguyen said, “Knowing these guys, we‘ll probably only get four or five done.”

While the band has written their first song and plans for more to come, they are eager to release their music for all to hear. 

“I have the whole overarching story of releasing an album and singles planned, and it has to go in a specific order,” Blumm said. “We’ll get a couple of singles completely written and then we’ll record them so they can be released.”

Jackson’s father is in the music industry and has agreed to work in some studio time for the band to record their songs.

“My dad’s a Grammy award-winning mixer and engineer who has a very busy schedule, so we need to plan ahead of time,” Jackson said.

While the group has made a significant amount of progress, they are looking forward to the next big step. 

“We aim to publish our first single called ‘First Girlfriend’ around late September to early October,” Nguyen said. “We aren’t entirely sure yet because we’re only halfway done with the whole song, but we want to get it out as soon as possible.”