Veritas Aims for the Stars

It’s Friday night at the Cambridge Queen’s Head, and Harvard rock band Start, Go! is warming up on stage. Over the lively buzz of conversation, and with the smell of french fries in the air, the five band members jam on their instruments and adjust sound levels.

Finally, 20 minutes after the show was slated to begin, the black-clad lead singer, Chris XX. Powers, steps up to the microphone. “Hello everybody! How are you all doing tonight?” he says. The audience responds enthusiastically.

Powers announces that the first song they will perform, entitled “Honest,” will be available on their EP, to be released by Veritas Records—”Harvard’s only student-run record label”—in January.

He gives a shout-out to Tony M. Spaniola ’10, the CEO of Veritas, who is running the soundboard. Then, he launches into “Honest,” an earnest soft-rock tune.

Two days later, Powers is working on music again. But this time, he is on the other side of the microphone. As chief recording officer for Veritas, he is working with another band, Shy October, in his cozy home studio in Brookline.

As snow falls outside, band members Caitria E. O’Neill ’11, Julie M. Wright ’11, and Luke L. Sperduto ’11 huddle around the piano and work on their song “Odd Results.”

Soon, O’Neill steps up to the microphone to record vocals. Her bandmates take the opportunity to get a little homework done, and Powers jokingly tells them, “Homework is not rock and roll!”

These are just a few scenes in the evolving life of Veritas Records. From performances to album production, the label fills a unique role in the Harvard community as one of the sole outlets for students interested in modern music. With a host of new projects and bands, the label is gearing up for what it hopes will be its most prominent, prolific, and exciting year yet.

THE HISTORY

Veritas began in 2003 as the pet project of Matt L. Siegel ’05 and Dan J. Zaccagnino ’05. In their sophomore year, Zaccagnino came to Siegel with the idea of creating a Harvard record label. Similar labels had been created at New York University and Berklee College of Music, but Harvard was lagging in creating a forum for students interested in popular music.

“There wasn’t much of a live music scene at Harvard but there were a lot of talented musicians,” Siegel said. “What we wanted to do was to give them an opportunity to record professional quality music and reach more fans.”

The Undergraduate Council initially offered very little funding for the project, so Siegel and Zaccagnino raised money from family and friends. Zaccagnino recalled, “When we started, we did all the recordings using our own equipment. We did it everywhere from the practice rooms in Leverett Towers to breaking into the Office for the Arts and recording at one a.m.”

In its first year, Veritas released a compilation album containing one or two tracks from several prominent Harvard bands and then organized a release party for the album at the Roxy Club in Boston. The following year, they recorded a second compilation CD with Harvard musicians.

One of Veritas’ lesser-known contributions was its role in establishing the Queen’s Head Pub. Working with then-fun czar Zachary A. Corker ’04 and Harvard Student Agencies president Daniel L. Rodriguez ’05, Siegel and Zaccagnino organized roughly 10 pub nights in Loker Commons in order to demonstrate interest in creating a social space. Ultimately, the Queen’s Head was created from what Zaccagnino called “an empty place where people met for math tutoring.”

Siegel and Zaccagnino decided to pursue music full-time after Harvard, and they have since founded Indaba Music, a Web-based service that connects musicians around the world and allows them to record music online. The site now boasts more than 100,000 members and is growing rapidly.

“We enjoyed bringing opportunities to Harvard musicians and I think this gave us the opportunity to do that on a much greater scale,” Siegel said.

Meanwhile, the label established a recording studio in the Student Organization Center at Hilles. Current chief Spaniola took over last December.

THE EVOLUTION

Under Spaniola and general manager Caitlin V. Crump ’10, Veritas has entered a period of rapid evolution.

“This year, we’re really trying to focus on booking these bands in Cambridge and recording full-length albums,” Spaniola said.

Another central architect of this expansion has been Powers. With five years of experience as a recording engineer, Powers came to Spaniola last fall interested in joining the label. He began running recording workshops, and met with Spaniola over the summer to discuss Veritas’ direction.

“We all wanted to turn this into a legitimate label where we signed artists,” Powers said. “Once we’d set down that model for the label, we asked ‘How are we going to go about finding the best talent at Harvard?’ We decided a Battle of the Bands would be best.”

Veritas quickly publicized the Battle, and approximately 50 demos were submitted to the label for consideration. Nine bands were selected to compete for yearlong contracts with Veritas.

The bands performed at the Queen’s Head on Nov. 7, and four groups emerged victorious to sign with Veritas: Shy October, The Ben Kultgen Band, Elephantom, and Start, Go!

THE BANDS

The bands exhibit diversity in age and musical style. The one thread that links them all is a shared commitment to pursuing music at Harvard—even though many members say the scene here is almost stiflingly geared toward classical music and a cappella.

Shy October is the only band comprised entirely of Harvard students. Singer Caitria O’Neill said she failed to find a satisfactory musical outlet her freshman year. This year, she visited the Veritas Records booth at the activities fair and said she became intrigued.

“They told me they could record music and help me book shows around the area—that got me really excited,” O’Neill said. She submitted a demo to the Battle of the Bands and was chosen to compete. With a few quick phone calls, she assembled her roommate Julie Wright and her friend Luke Sperduto to form Shy October.

The band’s music is difficult to categorize, incorporating a wide range of instrumentation and unusual melodies. As O’Neill said, “I have a really quirky voice so I write really quirky music.”

The Ben Kultgen Band is led by recent alum Benjamin M. Kultgen ’08, and includes three of his friends from Berklee. Kultgen said he “got a full dose of e-recruiting” in his senior year and “made a very conscious decision” to pursue music full-time after Harvard.

“I’m really lucky that the guys in my band area all professional musicians,” Kultgen said. “They’re just virtuosic, which sort of gives me license to be ridiculous on stage.”

He also looks forward to the opportunities that the contract will afford his band. “We’re really excited to get into the studio and bang out some tracks,” he said.

Elephantom is the youngest band on the label, including three members still in high school. Matt A. Aucoin ‘12 is the keyboardist and sole Harvard student.

“I would certainly characterize our music broadly as rock,” said Aucoin, who also discovered Veritas at this year’s activities fair. “We do a lot of loud overpowering stuff, but we also do a lot of softer, more sensitive stuff.”

Elephantom may be co-headlining a summer tour, organized by Veritas, with Start, Go!

After establishing his managerial involvement with Veritas last year, Powers decided to compete in the Battle with his recently formed band. “The Battle of the Bands was our first show,” he said.

Powers explained that he is focused on the future. “We’re going to try to give music a legitimate go,” he said.

THE FUTURE

Besides recording and promotion, Veritas has a number of plans for the spring. Chief among these is its partnership with Rolling Stone magazine to host “Rock Hard,” a Boston-wide search for the best college bands.

The idea originated with Spaniola, who decided to approach Rolling Stone, a long-time sponsor of Veritas. The magazine responded enthusiastically, and the plans have since expanded to include eight Boston schools: BU, BC, Emerson, Northeastern, Berklee, MIT, Tufts, and Harvard.

In February, each school will host its own Battle of the Bands in order to select its most talented group. On April 10, a winner will be selected in a final round. The event will include a celebrity judge and coverage by MTV, and the winning band will be profiled in Rolling Stone.

As to the longer horizon, the managers of Veritas are always looking to expand their activities and to extend their contribution to Harvard’s music sphere. “We’re really trying to help put together a rock scene,” Spaniola said. “The game plan is just to continue to do this. Next November, we’ll sign a new group of artists and begin from there.”

—Staff writer Evan T.R. Rosenman can be reached at erosenm@fas.harvard.edu.