Jake Pugh, of Mattoon, was driving home one night when he was suddenly inspired.

Pugh saw a Baymont hotel and thought to himself, “‘Hey, I should name my band Baymont.'”

Baymont was not the first choice of Pugh, drummer/vocalist, and his other band members.

“We were actually toying around with the name Captain Gooch and the Shrimp Shack Shooters,” Pugh said. “(We couldn’t) because of Wade (Stark, lead guitarist) – he’s too serious. I wanted to wear this little sailor hat while I was playing drums.”

Stark is another band member of Baymont, but at the band’s Common Grounds performance tonight at 8, Pugh will be playing solo – with the exception of his acoustic guitar.

Pugh was not originally going to perform alone. He said he is unsure why the other members cannot play, apart from Stark.

“(We) have both been on the same page about (how) school has to come first,” Pugh said. “I mean, that’s understandable, I can cover him.”

The other members of Baymont are John Ingram on bass, Paul McDonald on piano and Cookie on guitar.

Pugh said that it is more relaxing to perform with a band than alone, but after the first song, he will feel better about being the only one on stage.

This is not the first time Pugh has performed alone. When he played at the Canopy Club in Urbana, he experienced the same thing.

Before Baymont, Pugh started out in a high school band, The Weak and the Wounded. “That was just kind of like us learning how to play music,” said Jason Hendrix, former bass player of The Weak and the Wounded.

Hendrix now plays for The Bigger Picture as well as Cody McCullough, former drummer of The Weak and the Wounded. Stark also played for The Weak and the Wounded.

“And now, our other bands are probably better,” McCullough said.

Pugh said that people still come up to him on the street and ask why The Weak and the Wounded no longer play and that they should get back together. The band played for about three years before they split up.

“Everybody just started fighting and we thought it was smarter to keep a friendship than a band,” Pugh said. “But (The Weak and the Wounded is) kind of an old memory that’s been forgotten. I mean, Wade and I still play some of our stuff in this band, but we’re not taking ownership of it.”

Pugh said that tonight he plans on performing songs that include “If You’re Reading This,” by Tim McGraw, “Face Down” by the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and a few songs from The Weak and the Wounded.