From Sarah Lawrence College across the USA, indie pop group Whitworth leaves friendship and joy in its wake.

Just 30 minutes outside of New York City sits the quiet suburban campus of Sarah Lawrence College. Sarah Lawrence is a small liberal arts school with a majority female student body. Sarah Lawrence students are unique, artistic, and at times intense, especially when it comes to music. The music scene is a big part of life on campus, and student bands can be heard playing throughout campus almost every weekend. Sarah Lawrence students are not afraid of screaming, dancing, and fangirling over their favorite bands; even though they probably see these students all the time in the Barb (our campus center) without thinking twice. In the case of Whitworth, these four SLC boys turn into rock stars when they take the stage for a show on campus. Their dreamy, indie pop sound and wistful lyrics feel like the memory of a summer spent hanging in the grass with your friends. I can’t help but smile when watching their music videos, which are visually beautiful and show them messing around in a way that can’t be scripted.  

The band has one full album and a bunch of singles out, and has done two tours around America with their Sarah Lawrence friends as crew. Whitworth was the brainchild of Owen Whitworth Ragland, a producer and musician who came to Sarah Lawrence from St. Louis. Two years ago, Owen dropped out and moved back to St. Louis to focus on the band, while the rest of Whitworth is still at Sarah Lawrence or has graduated. Whitworth consists of senior Dominic Mauro on the drums, senior Elijah Melvin on guitar, Sarah Lawrence grad Ross Spellman also on guitar, and Owen Ragland singing and playing the keyboard. I spoke to the band about their happy memories, hopes and dreams for Whitworth.

Tell me the story of Whitworth!

Owen: I came to Sarah Lawrence having already put out some singles that I made in my bedroom in St. Louis, and when I got to college, I was trying to figure out how to form a band. The first time I played with a version of Whitworth, it was in the music building, Marshall Field. I was with 10 people, including Dom and Elijah. And we just, like, jammed, and I sang for the first time in front of people. And it was incredible. So I kept asking anyone who was down to come to Marshal Field and keep jamming. And Dom and Elijah kept showing up. And then I thought, I could actually gig with these guys. 

Ross: I joined the band later. I was playing a solo show in Marshall Field, and the band stayed back and helped me clean up the equipment. And I was in a really good mood cause I had just played this awesome show, and they asked me, do you wanna join Whitworth? And I was like, sure. And the next day, I was eating lunch with Owen and Elijah. And Owen’s like, oh hey, I forgot to tell you, in like a week, we’re all flying to St. Louis to go record a record. You should probably be there. So I went to St. Louis with them.

Owen: And after that we played a bunch of shows on campus and in the city. I was thinking, maybe we can actually do this more consistently, and we started to talk about touring. And I decided to leave Sarah Lawrence after my sophomore year, partially so that I could plan our first tour. We went on our first tour literally the summer after I dropped out. We took, like, three sedans across the country, and we went to everyone’s hometown so we would have a place to stay. During the year I went back to St. Louis to work on producing our first album, Earth to Dreamer. And that next summer we went on our next tour, driving this awesome school bus with a stage attached to the back that I found on Facebook Marketplace. 

How do you make your songs?

Owen: So far, it’s been me writing most of the music, but I have folks write their own parts if they want to. And I also produce the stuff that we put out, which definitely gives the songs their bedroom-y, synth-y sound. I wrote a lot of the songs on our album Earth to Dreamer during or right after COVID. A lot of the lyrics are connecting the dots between COVID, and how incredibly fun college was. So, like, some of the lyrics are kind of angsty, about being stuck inside and depressed, mixed with messages about hope and optimism. I’m definitely trying to write optimistic music, because I feel like there’s a lot of downer music out there that doesn’t necessarily imagine a better world.

What are your musical influences? 

Owen: Day Glows, Flying Lotus.

Ross: Steely Dan, Still Woozy

Owen: Yes!

What are your favorite memories together as a band?

Dom: For me, it’s the time we spend together right before we leave for tour. Getting packed and loading the gear feels like that giddy night before Christmas. Especially for our last tour, when I saw our school bus pulling up and I got inside, I couldn’t wait to be on the road with my best friends. It’s an amazing feeling, like there are endless possibilities, and we can take on anything as long as we are together and we have our bus.

Elijah: My favorite memory is this one time, when we were driving through Utah, and I made fun of Dom for not putting on his shoes before getting off the bus. He genuinely attempted to hit me with his shoes in some random parking lot in Utah. That was pretty funny. Oh also, there was this time that Ross put a joint in front of a bee and it started flying really slowly. 

[laughter]

Ross: The most memorable thing that happened with the band was when we were on our last tour. We were driving from Portland to Arcadia, and everyone else had left the bus to film at these sand dunes, so I was on Elijah babysitting duty.

Elijah: Hey!

Ross: We were driving through the Redwood forest, having a great time, when Elijah’s water bottle flew out the window. And he’s like, that’s my favorite water bottle, pull over I gotta go find it. So I wait for like, a half an hour, and Elijah doesn’t return, and I start freaking out, cause we have no service. I decide to drive back and forth throughout the whole forest looking for him. And literally an hour after that, he walks out of the woods like bigfoot, telling me about the awesome hike he went on. So that was pretty funny.

Owen: Mine was when we were filming our World War Music video. I had this silly conversation with Dom, where I mentioned that I knew a guy who owned a tank. I was like, what if I could get this tank for a music video? And we actually did get the tank for the video. And I just remember, getting on top of that tank and looking down at Ross and Elijah and Dom, and then just seeing pure terror on all of their faces. They were like, holy shit, we’re actually doing this. And that was the scariest thing. And I think about that a lot now, because that’s kind of what Whitworth has felt like. Like, we all talk about doing insane things like touring the country, but then we, as a band, actually do these things. We all just have to look at each other and say, well shit, we’re here now, we’re actually doing this one way or the other.

How do you guys stay friends despite difficulties like distance and stress?

Owen: We’re still really, really close even though I’m in St. Louis. We have all learned to keep in touch as much as possible. We are constantly on and off the phone. The biggest thing I’ve learned is that it’s really important to be very, very honest. There’s not a lot of space for sugar coating things all the time. And when we are together on tour, we are forced to put up with difficult things together. Being on a bus isn’t always glamorous. It’s also important to maintain our friendships outside of the band context and just joke around.

What do you think is the Future of Whitworth?

Owen: We’re all sort of like, trying to figure out how to be physically together, because it’s hard to constantly fly places to see each other. But I think the future of Whitworth is definitely going to involve a lot of touring, no matter what. And we are still making music together even though we don’t live in the same place. We just dropped a new single called Friends, and we are gonna be playing South by Southwest soon. We’re also planning another tour right now. So the future is looking bright.

Dom: In the time that we have been long distance, we have all grown a lot musically and in our friendships. We’ve also gained experience navigating the industry. I’m really excited to see what we are capable of when we all graduate and are able to be together and push this thing as hard as we know we can. We are really just getting started.

Do you have any final thoughts? 

Owen: It’s important to work with great people. A solo career is cool, but being able to collaborate with friends is such an important part of making art. My takeaway from being a part of Whitworth is just find friends and hold them close, because that’s all we have.

You can follow Whitworth on Instagram, watch their videos on Youtube, listen to them on spotify and apple music, or go to their website.