In our recent feature on Scene SC with Mike Mewborne of The Lovely Few we talked about some things that didn’t make that article, but were still really interesting and relevant. We reminisced on early shows, and playing music with people from high school, and if students ever recognized him as a musician. It’s always cool to think about, because more often than not, it’s hard to find a group of “music” type friends to play music with in high school. Sometimes you get lucky and meet like minded people with the same taste in music, but more often than not that doesn’t happen. Mewborne mentioned growing up in Swansea he played with John Vail and Alex Roberts, covering music that was popular in the day, but laughable looking back on it. Vail and Roberts both play rock music in local bands, Vail an incredible guitarist who plays in several metal bands, and Roberts in local band Cover of Afternoon. I have a similar story, having played one show in a Creed cover band. I know I know, it’s embarrassingly hilarious, but you do whatever you can do to get on stage and play music sometimes, especially when you’re 15.

Luckily for Mewborne he found likeminded musicians through his church group and played in a well respected and much loved early 2000’s local band Tigerbot Hesh. That led to talking about early shows for that band, some playing for only a couple of people and that feeling like “is this really worth it?” Well, yeah it is sometimes, because you never know who those few people are.

“Tigerbot Hesh was my first band that did any serious recording and played out with any regularity, and that got me in touch with a lot of different people.” said Mewborne. “I’ll still meet people who remember that band. Tyler (Morris of ET Anderson) and I were talking after their last show, and he remembered seeing us after we played somewhere out in Chapin, you know, it’s just weird because I remember playing that show, this is just, why are we here, there were just one or two kids there, but who those one or two kids are it matters in the long run. Maybe I feel that way because I’m a teacher, but it’s cool that I’m still sort of seeing fruit from that.”

I feel like most musicians have that story. It’s such a common one when you’re a music kid in a small town, searching for anything you can. Of course, times have changed and it’s easier to branch out and connect with the internet now.

This weekend The Lovely Few play shows in Charleston and Columbia with a space theme coined “A Night at the Planetarium.”