The February comprises five Syracuse University students and will be the opening act for Straylight Run at tonight’s show in the Schine Underground. The band is also releasing its self-titled debut album today. The Daily Orange had the opportunity to speak with Ryan Raichilson, senior accounting and marketing major and drummer for the local band.

D.O.: We heard you had signed to a label run by the university, could you explain a little bit about that?

R.R.: Yeah, we’re on a label called Marshall Street Records. It’s completely run by students here in the music industry program. It’s for credit and everything, and they’ve put out a lot of great CDs in the past couple years. Actually, this is our 10th anniversary for the student run label … You can buy them at the book store and online and stuff.

Are you guys excited about opening for Straylight Run as a release party for your new CD?

Yeah, I mean it’s a huge, huge honor to be opening for Straylight. I mean, it’s not necessarily our CD release party; it’s a Bandersnatch show. It’s a regular Bandersnatch show we were asked to open and it just turns out, just by chance, that our album was coming out tomorrow. So it just worked out great.

When do you guys find time to record in between classes and such?

That was the tough part. Initially we recorded an album in Belfer Studios, which is right next to the library … it’s just an amazing place. But there’s the staff there, and it closes at night, and we couldn’t get in there on the weekends at all because there needs to be staff there. So it was literally we were recording in between classes and stuff. Whenever any of us had free time, you know a couple hours in between classes in the week, we would try to meet down there and record as much as we could in that little amount of time. So it was pretty tough.

You guys have a pretty decent following here. What’s it like playing shows in front of your fans at SU?

It’s amazing. We feel so lucky to have people come out, and we see a lot of the same faces at our shows and stuff, so we’re really thankful for that and people coming out. And it’s just a great time. Whenever we play, everyone’s dancing along and people have started singing along and stuff, so it’s just a big party. It’s just a really fun time.

So are there any plans for a tour sometime later this year?

Yeah, that’s all kind of up in the air right now. We just booked a date, March 22, at the Knitting Factory in New York City … so we’re playing that. Mainly right now we have a lot of dates around Syracuse, like we’re playing Wednesday night at Funk ‘n Waffles. After Spring Break we have a bunch of dates. We’re playing Relay for Life, we’re playing MayFest, and I’m sure we’ll play more bars and stuff. But it’s been a goal of ours to branch out to more surrounding communities like Buffalo and Rochester

Published on March 5, 2007 at 12:00 pm