Bates Makes Waves in Music Industry

When senior Brennen Bates was 12 years old, he quit taking piano lessons and taught himself to play the bass guitar. Following his piano teacher’s directions was not Bates’s strong suit, and playing the bass provided him an outlet to create his own sound.
“Once I started teaching myself bass, I really fell in love with creating my own music, and just playing and performing in general,” Bates said.
Bates first became interested in joining a band when a friend added him to a Facebook group for bass guitar auditions. He auditioned, the judges enjoyed his music and he eventually joined his current band Weathers in August 2014. The other band members include Cole Carson, the drummer from Illinois; Cameron Boyer, the lead singer from Mira Costa High School and Cameron Olsen, the guitarist from Bishop Montgomery High School. Bates helps write songs, plays the bass guitar and keyboard and provides backup vocals.
“I have always wanted to be in a serious band and chase after the dream of being in a successful performance group,” Bates said. “I have always loved music, and as soon as I started [being in a band], I was inspired by the people around me, the people who supported me and myself by finally doing something about my dream.”
Weathers has already traveled across the country to perform. They have performed at Webster Hall in New York City, the South by Southwest Music Fest in Austin, Texas and the Observatory in Orange County. They released their first song, “I Don’t Wanna Know,” on Apr. 22.
Bates devotes 25 hours a week to practicing with the band. He says he has had to learn to avoid procrastination and prioritize in order to have time for both school and the band.
This year, Bates was accepted into the University of Southern California’s (USC) Marshall School of Business, his dream school, but he deferred his acceptance to pursue his dream with the band.
“This opportunity that I have in front of me is something special that not a lot of people get, and I am extremely lucky to have gotten this far at this age,” Bates said. “[Music] is something that I really do not want to let go of and get away from me. This is one of my few chances to actually achieve my dream career.”
Directly following graduation, Weathers will be performing at the Firefly Music Festival in Delaware, and in July and August they will be performing in Canada, Vermont, Massachusetts and Ohio. The band will also release its second single song in June and a full album with RCA Records in early August of 2016. They plan to contact radio stations to get their songs onto local and nationwide radio stations. Later in life, Bates hopes to become an artists and repertoire (A&R) coordinator, a manager or a songwriter. He plans to continue his education at USC later, where he will learn useful information that he can use in the music industry in addition to what he has learned from his experience in the band.
“My favorite part of being in the band is just the music,” Bates said. “It is really cool to go out [on stage,] perform, write [and] hang out with my best friends who are basically my brothers. I really like to enjoy the music because I would not be doing this if I did not find it fun [and] if this was not something I was ready to put my entire life towards.”