By Rae Brown

Put three Eaton High School students in a shed, give them instruments, passion and camaraderie and instead of feeling claustrophobic, a band is formed.  The band, East of Eaton, consists of students Dominic Pierot (16) on guitar and lead vocal, Manny Pinkstaff (18) on bass and Leland Blackman (16) on drums. Pierot says the band started out just “jamming” to music in a tiny shed packed with boxes, bags and musical instruments, and then decided to officially form a band.

The band name was suggested by Pierot’s dentist because all of the band members live east of Eaton. East of Eaton plays “the genre of music.” Instead of classifying themselves as a certain genre, they want to appeal to all types of audiences  The band has performed in four gigs,

and one paid actual money. Pierot said that, for the band, money isn’t an issue because they “just like playing music and its fun.”

However, not every aspect of the band is fun. Pierot says the band is a lot of hard work, effort, and time. The band practices every Tuesday and Thursday evenings and uses the time to learn songs, master their instruments and work to unify their sound as one group instead of three different instrumentalists.

In the future, the band will be performing at the school talent show at the end of March. Pierot said that although there are currently only three members of the band, they wish to have more. He hopes to have a backup guitarist, keyboard player, and any other instrumentalist that could benefit the band and help them play music. Although, East of Eaton doesn’t know what the future holds for the band, but it hopes that they will continue to share their love of music with the community.