Last year, Marissa Eddleman got the chance to attend the Austin City Limits festival for the first time ever with her dad.
Little did she know, only one year later, she would be the one up on stage performing at ACL.
This year, on Oct. 9 and 14, Eddleman, along with 10 other teens from throughout Williamson County, had the opportunity to perform covers of songs from Jimmy Hendrix, Harry Styles and other luminaries at ACL — and rub elbows with other stars backstage — as a member of the house band for the Round Rock campus of the of School of Rock, a music school with campuses all over the world.
“It was amazing,” said Eddleman, 15, a Taylor High School student and drummer. “It was definitely exciting. At the beginning of this year, I wasn’t expecting this year to be playing ACL.” Alex Viejo, the director of operations for the Round Rock and southwest Austin campuses of the school, said this was the first year the house band from Round Rock was invited to perform on the Austin Kiddie Limits stage at the music festival.
“It was amazing, and I am not just saying that because they were our kids,” Viejo said. “We just saw the excitement that they had, and they got to go backstage, and they were back there with Hayley (Williams) from Paramore and (Britt) Daniel from Spoon. Just to be in the company of these artists that are world famous, they were freaking out, and it was just an amazing experience for them.”
School of Rock provides students of all ages with individual lessons in everything from drums, guitar, keyboard and vocals, as well as group jamming sessions and performance opportunities.
“We do a one-on-one lesson with them in a room,” Viejo said. “Most of the students are working on the same songs, and School of Rock is like a performance- based music education, so our goal is to eventually get them all in a room together and have a musical conversation.”
Viejo said the house band students are the best students in the school, and they have to audition to join.
“The kids get a lot of amazing opportunities, but our house band is the one we want to have as our best representation out there, and these kids are definitely at the top,” he said.
In addition to ACL, house band students also have had the opportunity to perform at Antone’s Nightclub in Austin and at other equally legendary venues.
Along the way, these kinds of experiences allow for close friendships to be formed and life-long skills to be learned, Viejo said.
“It just shows them great people skills on how to work together that they will use later in life when they are working in an office or in a cubicle,” Viejo said. “It shows them how to work together and listen. A lot of the kids become best friends and it’s just psychologically a great thing for kids to experience.”
