November 29, 2023
Spelunking: Ithaca’s Student DIY Punk Band
STORY BY Alefiya presswala / edited by emily trage
Photo courtesy of @caleb_kaufman_photography
Spelunking is a new and upcoming band currently made up of Eze Brown (‘26), Marshall Long (‘26), Bella Joyner (‘26), Lyle Setnik-King (‘26), and Arthur Wawrzyniak (‘26). As they describe it, their unique instrumentation — featuring a bass instead of a guitar, a tenor saxophone, and synth — produces what they like to call a “post-pre new wave hijinks friendship punk sound.”
Alefiya Presswala sat down with Eze Brown, Marshall Long, and Bella Joyner in October to talk about Spelunking’s journey as a band and what comes next for them.
EB: Okay, I’m Eze. I use they/them pronouns. I am an anthropology major. Maybe doubling with an art major soon? I don’t know. And I am the lead vocalist [of Spelunking].
ML: I’m Marshall. He/him pronouns. I’m a politics major, and I’m the keyboardist and backup vocalist for Spelunking.
BJ: I’m Bella Joyner. I use she/her pronouns. I am a music major and I am the bassist for Spelunking.
EB: And then we also have Lyle Setnik-King. They are our saxophonist. (Lyle was unable to join us for this conversation)
AP: Can you tell me a little about the history and background of the band? How did you all meet, where did your name come from, and all of that? What’s your creative musical process?
EB: So we met because me, Marshall and Lyle were all friends —
ML: We’ve been friends since we started at Ithaca last year. And our old drummer knew Bella and was like, “Bella’s an awesome bassist or guitarist,” and we were like, “Oh, awesome!”
ML: The name “Spelunking”... We went through a lot of names.
EB: There were a lot of names. At first, we were Monkey’s Paw, which is too mystical. And then we were My Friend Frankie because of my roommate Frankie. And there's a few other silly ones.
ML: Northeastern…
EB:: Yeah (laughs), something like that.
BJ: (laughs)
EB: We had something with whales, probably. I think when we were naming ourselves, we thought we were gonna be a lot more “new wavy” than punk. We were really taking inspiration from, like, The Talking Heads and stuff like that. And then we decided on Spelunking because one time we were talking about caves and decided that we were really scared of caves.
ML: For creative process…for some of the songs, we have a basic idea of what we want to write about. And that can be something random. Like, we have a song called “Paul Bunyan,” which is literally a song about Paul Bunyan. And the chorus for that is, “I’m too big/I’m too big.”
We usually generally start with the music part first because that's normal. One of our more recent songs, “Stop, Drop and Roll,” Bella was just messing around on the bass and there was this little baseline that she played and we were like, “Ooooohhhh,” and then we made it into a song.
EB: Yeah, we usually figure out instrumentals first, just kinda goofing around. We all have a part in lyrics, but I’d say it’s largely us (motions towards Marshall). It’s usually a word or something we’ve been throwing around. Like our latest song, “Gumball,” I just really wanted to use the word gumball in a song.
ML: We usually practice for about two hours, and we’re not just running through songs the entire time. We have little breaks where we’re just messing around on our individual instruments but we can still hear each other, and so if someone plays something cool, we’re like “Wait!” It’s very free-flowing. We don’t really have a very specific structure to make songs, whatever feels fun, whatever feels good, we just go with.
EB: I also think we’re at worst when we’re not just goofing around. We had this era where we were just taking ourselves very seriously and started running it a little too much like a business rather than just people making music.
ML: At the end of the day, we’re just friends making music. And that’s what is important. Our friendship!
AP: So, I’ve heard around that a possible album might be in the works?
ML: In terms of an album, I think we have seven original songs.
BJ: That’s like the perfect amount for an EP. That could be an album too, it just depends on what we call it. We definitely want to record, we just need to figure that out. But once we do…
ML: Spelunking will be on the map!
EB: Also, our entire process with this is super DIY and if an opportunity arises, we always pounce on it. So much of our stuff is improvisation.
ML: We always write our setlist on random objects. One time, it was a traffic cone. There’s been a coffee cup, a piece of wood, a rock.
AP: You mentioned “pouncing” on every opportunity you get. What’s the duality between being a college student, but also being part of a real band that’s starting to get a lot of traction?
ML: I think that going into it I had different expectations. I was like, “Oh, I’m just gonna play music with my friends and if we get to play in front of people, cool. But I never expected that we’d be playing at Deep Dive or Porchfest.
At the show at Deep Dive, I was talking to one of you two (gestures to Eze and Bella) about how I was so nervous. I was like, “This feels real now.” That was definitely in that time period where we were taking ourselves too seriously. But now that I’ve sort of realized that, like, you know, this is just a fun thing. It’s just awesome.
BJ: We’ve also just gotten a lot of help from other bands that already exist in Ithaca, like the people in Shoptalk. We performed with Microbes at Porchfest. We don’t really know a lot of sound (laughs), but we’re gonna work on it.
EB: We’re DIY!
ML: Also going to a school with such a large photographically…skilled student body is cool because they’re taking awesome pictures for free and we get to see their work and it’s awesome.
BJ: And we get to be good friends with them.
EB: Yeah, that’s the coolest part. Through all of this, we’re making friends. The problem we had before is that we were trying to make a product instead of just making stuff for us and our friends. I like to think we’re not really an exclusive group of people. It’s easy to make friends.
AP: Even then, I’m sure it must be a little intimidating to just go on stage and perform. What’s your backstage process like?
EB: We goof around.
ML: We goof around and for me and Eze, we just have to think of ourselves as the greatest people of all time. Just go out there and think you’re the coolest and just rock it. We also just have to remember that a lot of people in the audience are our friends, they’re not these major celebrities or someone judgmental. I have a background in classical music and I get so nervous for my piano recitals — I just don’t have that here. I think it helps that I’m playing with other people and that if I make a mistake — which I have — then they have my back, and also, most people in the audience don’t notice and don’t care.
AP: I’m really interested that you said you have a background in classical music. I want to ask all of you guys what your music backgrounds are, but also a question to Marshall: What is it like making such a switch from classical to being in a punk band?
ML: The way we work, it’s not like we’re writing our stuff on sheet music, you know? It’s a lot of playing by memory, playing by ear. With a classical background, they just give you a piece and they’re like, “Here you go, play it.” You don’t really talk a lot about the process of making a piece and how to play it and all of that. So it’s been really fun to be able to expand my music horizons and I can feel myself getting better. A year ago if you told me to write a song, it would be awful. But now, it’s pretty decent.
BJ: I’ve been playing the guitar since I was nine, but I never got really serious about it until I was in eighth grade and that’s when I started to do more of a rock and jazz sort of thing. I got into some bands and I started doing performances by myself and then decided I wanted to go to college for music. And when I got to Ithaca, I started doing classical guitar because that’s what my concentration is, instrument classical guitar. And it’s really helped me with my music reading skills. And it’s actually really funny because I’ll have, like, a concert right, like have to dress up in all black attire and go play an entire piece on a classical guitar. And then I go to Spelunking and I just turn up the distortion all the way and play bass. Yeah, it brings a lot of different kinds of music into my life, that's for sure.
EB: Yeah, I also think like, I don't know, everyone has a very different musical background. Like Lyle’s background — I think he played sax in a punk band, but he’s mostly a jazz player. He has a background in improv.
ML: Yeah, I think Lyle, by far, is the best at improv. Like, Lyle is doing improv half the time.
EB: Yeah, we had this song that we wrote and the next day we had a show. I didn’t even wanna send Lyle the song name because I thought it would be funny if he just didn't know that we were playing it. But we had enough faith in Lyle that we just were gonna let him play a song that he had never practiced with or played with us. Mostly because it would be funny, but also because he could do it — and do it well.
For my musical background, I went to a lot of shows in high school and I was a little involved in the DIY punk scene in Atlanta, but you know, I was also in high school. I was a band kid. I played the euphonium.
AP: Awesome, that’s all really impressive. So you guys have mentioned this era where you were struggling and being too serious and it messed with you guys. How, as a band, do you find the confidence to keep going?
ML: There was so much going on and we joked a little about how this has to be divine intervention, like God does not want us to go on.
BJ: We can’t let God win!
ML: I think a huge part of it is like, if we weren’t as good as friends as we were, like I love these people. I love these people. So in my mind, it’s like, why not just keep playing?
EB: I think also having projects that we’re actively working on helps us. We go into practices very loosely. But I also feel like we sometimes have a general idea of what we want to get done.
AP: It’s great to see how you guys motivate yourselves. If there’s one thing you want your audience to take away from your music, what is it?
ML: Hmmm, I don’t know. Be kind. To everyone around you, but also to yourself. Have fun. And don’t be afraid to think you’re good. Don’t sell yourself short.