Good News! College Campus Happenstance
Good News! is a Tufts campus band consisting of Lucas Cohen, Jonah Kreitner, Cole Menchel, and Jack Wish. In some ways, it is the perfect example of college campus happenstance coming together to form a cohesive sound. The coincidences throughout their story make their formation into a sort of Rom-Com—the stars always aligning for them. Lucas speaks on how he pieced the band together and how they joined to form their unique sound.
The band works at Ivy League fraternity shows to raise funds and support their music. They have a few songs out already but are currently working to release an EP, tentatively titled “Too Fast,” in the coming months.
So, if everyone could introduce themselves, what’s your name? What do you play? Where are you from?
Lucas: My name is Lucas. I am from Manhattan, New York. I found these guys through Tufts. I’ve been playing in bands since I got to college, and this has been the most recent sort of iteration of the group, and it’s been about, what would you say? Two years? Yeah, probably about two years. Yeah, I play guitar, and I sing in this group.
Jonah: I’m Jonah. I’m also from Manhattan, New York. I met Lucas through some mutual friends, and we started jamming together. And I play keyboards and violin.
Cole: I’m Cole. I play drums in Good News. I actually graduated from Tufts this May, but I’m still in the Boston area, so we’ve just been continuing to play. And yeah, Lucas kind of put us all together. Lucas cold-called called me while I was out getting frozen yogurt with friends, and I got a call, and I stepped outside, and he’s like, we’re gonna be in a band together. And I’m like, okay, cool. Sometime later, I got introduced to everyone. And yeah, it’s been really fun. Two years is really cool.
Wish: I’m Wish. I play bass. I played bass in a couple of bands around Tufts, and then Lucas reached out to me. After their last basis, they parted ways. I joined, I think, last March or April and graduated last month. Stoked to be here and playing with these wonderful guys.
You’re all coming in with your own preference of sound, so how would you describe what you are playing now and how that happened? How did you guys take a bit of everybody to make your current sound?
Lucas: I was to give it a small synopsis of each player. Jonah is doing the five-year Tufts New England Conservatory program as a jazz violin major. So, his background is in theory-oriented jazz. I don’t speak for you.
Jonah: No, you’re killing it.
Lucas: Haha, so yeah, theory oriented, coming from a place of musical knowledge. Then, I was introduced to Cole through a video of him playing “Give it Away” by the Red Hot Jelly Peppers, and he was killing it, like absolutely murdering it. He had a shirt off. Sticks were flying. It was incredible. And then that same day, I called him. I was in a guitar shop working in New York, and a kid came in. He sounded good. And I just got to, you know, talking with him, and he said, showed me a video of his band, and Cole was the drummer of his band. And I said, Oh, this guy’s great. Like, what’s his name? Oh, it’s Cole. He goes to Tufts. And I was like, literally, get out of town—small world. So I was like, he’s mine now, and I would categorize Wish as almost a funk player. A lot of funk influence, nice, sloppy bass lines, and myself, I just like, I write a lot of songs on my acoustic guitar, and then I bring them to the band. Then, everyone has their influence. We have this collaborative environment wherein I write the lyrics, which are about my life and stuff. But they wouldn’t be the same without each person’s part. And that’s how it collaboratively works.
How would you describe, like, the Tufts music scene?
Cole: I would say even in my sophomore year, I lived in Wren, which is made up of suites stacked on top of each other. But Jonah lived in the suite above mine, and I would often hear, music coming from above my dorm room. And, wow, those guys sound good, like, I could play with them. And it turned out we ended up playing together, which is, I think, one of the highlights. It’s a small school in a way that, like, we just, like, kind of met each other and crossed paths, like, a ton of times before we even became a band.
What capacity are you guys playing in right now, and what are your six-month goals?
Lucas: Well, I mean, for right now, we’re recording our capstone album or more of an EP. Do we even know what it’s called?
Cole: Too fast, perhaps.
Lucas: Yeah, we might call it one of the titles of the tracks, but it’s a four-song project, and these are songs we’ve been playing live for, you know, about a year now, and we have played gigs together as Good News! for about two years. We did like the Lower East Side of the Manhattan circuit for a long time, venues that we’re really grateful to have played, and small places like Bowery Electric and Purgatory. There was this venue called Heaven Can Wait. We used to play the De Lancey Hotel. There’s a venue that’s now closed, like a great New York, free venue where you just get tips in, like this bucket that they pass around called Rockwood Music Hall. Since closed, we’ve also played venues in Brooklyn, like Our Wicked Lady. So, when I first started, it was all basement shows at Tufts. The first show I ever played with a band was in a basement, and it was that way for my freshman and sophomore years, just like community-organized events, people saying, I’m having a party in my basement. Do you want to play a cover show? And that was like, that was it; I was grateful for the spaces where people would like to want to come, and whether they were there for my music or our music or not, it didn’t matter. Like people were standing there. I was holding a guitar. I had friends with me who were just having a good time. And then over time, it turned into more of, like, we’re all so passionate about this, we should definitely spend the time being both passionate and enjoying ourselves and, like, with productivity as well. That’s where this album came about.
Cole: I would say our four-month goal is to record these songs, finish them, and put them out before the rest of us graduate in May. It’d be cool to leave tufts, like putting that album out, and seeing how that goes. And we’ve been, well, while we’re writing the album, we’re working with two, two members of Bermuda Search Party who are producing the album with us, Leo and Macklin, they’ve been really helpful and really cool.
Is there anything about your band in particular that you feel is a key tenant to you, like something that you guys have as a group?
Lucas: I think for me, like, the purpose of this band is first and foremost to like, share the music, and express emotion and make the people who are listening to the music feel something. The reason why I go to any show, to see any live music, is to feel things. The reason why I’m inspired to perform by other performers is so that I can evoke that same emotion within somebody else that was evoked within me. What Good News! does well is that the general population of attendees of our show has fun. We do like two different types of shows. We do our original shows that promote our original music at venues that we book and stuff like that. When we play venues in New York, it’s all original stuff. But on the side, we need money to finance things like merch and recording and marketing music and things of that nature. So we have a collective band fund comprising cover shows that we do at different fraternities and sororities. We’re actually going to Dartmouth tomorrow to play at a fraternity.
I bet that’s a funny crowd.
Lucas: Yeah, it’s a two-hour cover set and the songs we play. I love playing them. But its my worst nightmare. But I will say that it’s worth it because it helps fund the band’s finances. It helps promote the original music If anyone is having fun and they can attribute the fun that they had to watch Good News! play, I’m not upset with that. So yeah, we’ve played MIT a few times; we play at Sports Houses at Tufts.
You said you are inspired by other artists who make you feel some type of way when you see them. So, who has been one of those moments where you’re like, this is how I want to make people feel?
Lucas: For me, there’s this one artist who’s now become a close friend of mine. He just recently graduated from Berkeley. His name is Benji Jimenez. I went to a show in a basement in Allston to see someone else, and he was opening. And he, you know, blew my mind. All the musicians were unbelievable. His songs were unbelievable. And I approached him after the show, and I said, dude, we need to be like friends, and I need to know everything about you because that was insane. And we just became friends because he’s just a dude. He’s just a kid in college. So, you know, watching his performances has been such a significant influence. And that’s one good example. He’s like a songwriter with some talented musicians behind him. And I hope to do that with my talented musicians as well.
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