While walking throughout the halls at Pattonville High School, Ethan Massey tunes out his surroundings by blasting familiar songs through his AirPods. Occasionally, he comes across a friend and makes conversation, but he always returns to the comforting feeling of Polyphia, his favorite band.

By the end of the week, he is excited to pitch new song ideas to his bandmates.

“Usually all of us have a couple of ideas by the end of the week; it’s fun to listen and see what everyone has come up with,” Massey said.

Their band, “Unknown Skies”, attempts to practice at least once a week. Rehearsal usually consists of brainstorming and improvising certain rhythms and melodies to see what sounds good and fits what they are going for.

“When practicing, we sometimes try out new things and just mess around and someone will hit a sick freestyle and we immediately write it down to incorporate into a song,” Massey said.

Though practicing new songs and coming up with new ideas can be exciting, complications may arise during a rehearsal.

“There might be a song where someone isn’t as involved as everyone else and that person may feel a bit left out so we have to try to balance it and try to find songs that we can all enjoy playing,” Massey said.

Though they may have problems along the way, their supporters are still growing day to day as the new band continues to grow and develop.

Senior and drummer Nicholas Drayton uses his connections with friends and family to spread the word about their band.

“Since we are kind of new and not a lot of people know who we are yet, I’ve just been bringing it up in regular conversations I have with people so that when they hear ‘Unknown Skies’ they’ll know who it is,” Drayton said.

As they practice and perfect their skills, they are continuously working on getting their name out there and building a fanbase.

Pattonville Alumni and bassist Marshall Carlton said that the band’s goal is that “we want to start gigging at the end of the year for sure, and by then we should have a few originals that we will put out on Apple Music, Spotify, and maybe other outlets.”

Their band has big goals and dreams, but they are just getting started.

With the work they have been doing behind the scenes, and the support they are growing every day, soon, people will be tuning out their surroundings with the familiar sound of “Unknown Skies” while walking the halls.