Most high school students dedicate their time to sports, clubs or a job. However, the members of Moon Rules Apply decided to dedicate their time to making music to perform around Oswego.
The band is made up of Oswego High School freshman Andre Holman, junior Logan Stogentin, and Oswego East High School freshman Ryan Weaver. The band’s music taste is inspired by ‘90s grunge and rock with Holman as the band’s singer and guitarist, Stogentin as the band’s bassist, and Ryan Weaver as the band’s drummer.
Weaver and Holman had worked together for multiple years before Moon Rules Apply, including in two previous bands, and have come quite a long way from their beginnings.
“We’ve been writing originals kinda since we started—I mean, it was slow obviously, and we started mainly with covers, like most people kind of do,” Holman says. “We just played this show in Chicago at this place called the Extraordinarium, and we had a half-hour set that we were able to fill with all originals and two covers.”
The band members dedicate certain amounts of time to their craft, while also trying to balance other aspects of their life that take time and energy.
“It’ll usually be like a three-to-four hour practice. We’ll try to get songs that we’ve been working on kind of finished, or at least continue to work on them, and then we’ll record stuff and we’ll set aside certain days for new songs and stuff and recording [them],” Holman explains.
Both Stogentin and Holman have taken guitar lessons with the School of Rock program. The band tries to practice a few hours a day.
Balancing school and a band specifically can be a challenging task, but the band members of Moon Rules Apply set aside time for both.
“It is all about management.”
Logan Stogentin
Holman and Stogentin’s hopes for the band are to get a solid fanbase going, and then ideally would both like to move forward with the band while also pursuing music careers.
“I like music a lot, and I think it would be really cool to have a career in that, making money and doing what I like,” Holman says.
In order to expand their fanbase, they have performed all over Oswego, including last year’s Prairie Fest, as well as at Oswego Brewing Company.
“Gigs in West Chicago are coming up,” Stogentin says. “We did one in Chicago two weeks ago.”
On top of performances, the band recently recorded a single on May 5 titled “Hate It,” which it hopes to release sometime this summer.
“We do plan on just recording the entire EP sometime soon,” Stogentin says.
If you are interested in finding out more about where and when they perform, you may follow their Instagram: @moon_rules_apply_band or the members individual accounts: Logan Stogentin (@logan.stogentin), Andre Holman (@andreh_85), and Ryan Weaver (@ryan.w.drums). They also have a website that has videos of their performances and other information.
My name is Austin Lamb and I am a senior at Oswego High School. This is my third year with 42Fifty, and I can't wait to get back into writing and reviewing. I greatly enjoy playing and listening to music, as well as writing. I've always been interested in writing, especially about things that can be critiqued and looked at subjectively. I play the guitar in a band with my friends and primarily listen to metal music but enjoy and appreciate all genres. I hope that my editing abilities, writing knowledge, and leadership skills will pay off for the publications.
