Student uses his band as a way to pursue his career

Tyler Demorest — a music industry major and lead singer of the band Kiven — was once an outcast searching for friends and meaning. But hey, weren’t we all at the age of 12?

Today, Demorest is still searching, but his findings are expressed fully through music. Originally from San Juan Capistrano, Calif., Demorest moved up north at the age of 12, where loneliness manifested itself in melody. The melancholy of his initial transfer, however, was short-lived as he made connections with other musicians.

“One thing lead to another and my trusty old $100 Squire Guitar became my best friend, and I played for hours upon hours,”  Demorest said. “Once school started, I was lucky enough to find that all the kids in my grade started playing music around the same time. We were all quite competitive.”

While playing Little League baseball, Demorest came in contact with Teddy Boldt. Boldt would later invite Demorest to join a group called DES, until the two opted out to start their own group called The Cavalry.

This experiment in heavy metal proved to be therapeutic for its members, as they plucked power chords into maturity. Demorest speaks quite self-deprecatingly about the experience now.

“We had plenty of 15-year-old teenage angst to scream about,”  he said.

Nonetheless, it was through this musical introspection that Demorest came into himself and began to approach music as a career instead of a side project.

“That band is where the roots of my desire to do music for the rest of my life really sprouted,”  Demorest said.

After his admission into USC, Demorest and Boldt brought in Danny Schnair and Matt Cohen to round out the positions in what is now Kiven (Kee-vehn), a rock group dedicated to superb live performance and lyrical pathos.

Kiven released its first EP, Searching for Home, in 2008 and followed it up with Two In The Same in April of this year. This summer, the band went on a sabbatical of sorts in Sonoma, Calif., conveying Bon Iver-esque methods of songwriting.

“We all share the same vision for the group and are committed to making that dream of ours happen,” Demorest said.

When listening to Kiven, each musician seems to be expressing himself separately. No single member is ever drowned out or overshadowed. The layering of vocals and the shifting tempos allow for reliance on one another, and a shared sound that is immersive. The cinematic quality of their music is also apparent. It’s something to get lost in.

But what sets Kiven apart from the thousands of other indie-rock hopefuls in Los Angeles?

With the technology that permeates our society today, people have greater opportunities to cut EPs and even full albums independently of managers, agents and labels. One can record and mix tracks in Logic or Protools, Photoshop a design, purchase a domain and upload a band identity online in a single weekend. Then, without breaking a sweat, that link can be sent to 1,000 or more digital friends, who will “like” and support that endeavor. It is truly the do-it-yourself age.

Yet, although technology creates an abundance of opportunity, nothing is ever guaranteed. If anything, it has only raised the standards for quality and cluttered the desks of studio executives searching for that next big name. We cannot be the generation of entitlement that lives at a manic pace and therefore expects overnight success. Technology opens doors, but it takes more than an open door to construct what stands around it.

In this world, there are two attitudes that people tend to live by: the “rent” attitude and the “mortgage” attitude.

When you rent an apartment, your money seems to disappear into intangible places. An apartment is temporary. A home, on the other hand is permanent. Your mortgage on a house is a tangible investment toward ownership.

Therefore, those who view life in terms of “mortgage” see every job, every connection and every band practice as an investment in the ultimate dream. Those who see life in terms of “rent” imbue negativity into their actions and will likely settle or give up. In an industry defined by luck and timing, attitude should also be accounted for, because it is at the heart of true passion.

For Demorest and his team, every venue is Radio City Music Hall. They are optimistic about the state of the industry, despite drastic changes in the way albums are bought and sold, and are humbled by supportive audiences.

“The exciting part is that the ability to make professional quality music is becoming easier and easier,” Demorest said. “There is still a lot of music that is made every day with the right intentions.”

Nothing is mechanical or insincere about Kiven, which is what makes the group’s live performances so involving. It is passion for the band’s art that separates it, for every time it takes the stage, whether at Ground Zero or The Grove, the members of Kiven are clearly living the dream.

Brian Ivie is a sophomore majoring in cinema-television critical studies. His column, “Dreammaking,” runs Tuesdays.