The winners of Battle of the Bands attribute their win to a member’s mustache.

The 4-week-old band, the Neutral Tones, beat The Hearsay, The Mondegreen and The Hourly Comrades at the University Board Battle of the Bands on Thursday.

The Neutral Tones is made up of students Ethan Stephenson, vocals and guitar; Chet Vann, bass; Sam Svita, drums; and Tim Gurnig, guitar.

The band also gave credit to Vann’s mustache as a motivating factor in its success.

“Chet’s mustache is the glue that really holds this band together,” Stephenson said.

Gurnig said the bands motto includes Vann’s mustache.

Stephenson is a junior English major.

“That’s what we are about-we are four guys, we have a dream and we have a mustache,” Gurnig said.

Gurnig said the band came together at the beginning of the spring semester when the last member of their band, Svita, transferred in.

“We only had about five or six practice all together,” Gurnig said.

Gurnig is a junior English major.

The idea behind the band started in October.

“It started last Halloween at a music festival with Ethan, and he brought Chet, who mentioned that he plays a mean bass,” Gurnig said.

After the music festival, Gurnig said he had a friend who was transferring in for the spring semester that plays the drums and they decided to join together to form a band.

“We agreed to form the band before all the members met each other, and we made it work,” Gurnig said.

It also helped them to build good friendships, Svita said.

Svita is a junior English major.

“It brought us all together,” Svita said. “Just transferring here and living three and a half hours away, (the band) just made it a more comfortable experience knowing within three weeks I entered a band that has shows and actually taking things serious.”

Stephenson said he believe their friendship helped the band win.

“I think that just the strength of our friendship here, although it is relatively new, is what made it possible to get the songs together so quickly and allowing us to win,” Stephenson said.

The band was not a stable idea until a few weeks ago.

“It started out as a joke, but as the semester went on we got more serious,” Gurnig said. “The first night we were all here we got together in my basement and started making magic, and by magic I mean music.”

Stephenson said the band uses many of his songs right now, but hopes to write some new songs.

“(Gurnig) listened to me play solo and he expressed interest in making a band and asked me to bring some of my originals for the band to play,” Stephenson said.

One of the songs the band started to play was one written by Stephenson while he was in high school.

“This song I had no clue I would be playing with this band actually written in Chet’s basement back in high school and he is actually mentioned in the song as the man in the funny hat,” Stephenson.

Vann said he usually wears a hat and that is how he became featured in the song.

“I still have the hat, too,” Vann said.

Vann is a junior history major.

The band, which plays rock ‘n’ roll music, said they were surprised to win the contest after such a short time as a band.

“I think it really validates what we feel as a band as being potentially successful,” Stephenson said.

Gurnig said the band was not expecting to win.

“We didn’t feel that confident about winning until the week of the show when we added the song that we did,” Gurnig said. “It was after that practice that we felt, ‘well, we are pretty good, we might be able to actually do this,’ but we still didn’t think we would win.”

Before performances the band plays an impromptu version of “Sweet Jane” by Velvet Underground.

“We all got rowdy and sang to it in the changing room,” Stephenson said.

To settle their nerves before their performance, members of the band rode the elevator in the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.

“I was a little nervous while The Well Reds were playing,” Gurnig said. “I was anxious to get on there and play so (Stephenson) suggested we take an elevator ride.”

During their elevator ride they played for other riders on the elevator.

“Two people walked in and we said ‘Do you want us to play a song?’ and they said ‘for the love of God no,'” Gurnig said. “(But) we played anyways.”

Svita said they owe part of their win to the audience.

“I don’t think we could have felt as great as we did on stage without such a great crowd,” Svita said.

Since winning the battle of the bands, the band is just going to work on expanding their song list.

“We want to focus on ours song writing and finding places to play,” Svita said.

The Neutral Tones will be playing at Jackson Avenue Coffee on Feb. 25.

The members of The Neutral Tones said they want to continue building the band and see where it takes them.

“We just want to build up our catalogue so we can have better sets,” Gurnig said. “I just look forward to seeing where the mustache takes us in the months to come.”

Samantha McDaniel can be reached at 581-2812 or slmcdaniel@eiu.edu.