Building a band is hard work.

For senior Ben Dobbs, it’s taken almost three years for him to realize his dream of creating his own metal band called Jaded Black.

After years of listening to hard rock bands like ree Days Grace, and Down- start. Dobbs decided in January 2015 that he was ready to start a band. He said it wasn’t hard to nd other kids who were into metal, but it was hard to nd people with enough musical skill.

“The tough part was finding people who can play instruments who like to play metal,” Dobbs said.

Before he started the band he began learning to play guitar in October 2015. He then started scouting for potential bandmates. Recruiting a bass player was easy because his brother sophomore Sam Dobbs was interested in playing in a band since he was in the fifth grade.

The next member to join was junior Dee Carreon, who initially thought about being a solo musician. However, Carreon, Jaded Black’s main guitarist, decided to join up with Sam because he thought it would be beneficial to play music with like-minded musicians.

One of the band’s biggest challenges has been finding a drummer. Ben Dobbs, who plays rhythm guitar and is a vocalist, said they thought they had a drummer lined up in October, but complications prevented that from happening. However, he said they won’t let personal problems stop their dream of making their band a reality.

“We really just to have to march forward we have a lot of work to do with our album and all that,” Ben Dobbs said.

The band also doesn’t let lack of training get in their way.

“For the band, I didn’t have any experience playing music,” Ben Dobbs said.

After only a brief time of the band being formed, the band already plans to release their first album in March or April.

Jaded Black has a diverse yet unique style of music that they play.

“The band plays different types of music we call ourselves technical death metal, death metal, prog metal, and a little bit of thrash metal,” Ben Dobbs said.

Ben said playing metal is a great way to express frustrations.

“Currently, it’s just a way to release anger and be creative in the sense that it captures our mental state,” Ben Dobbs said.

While Ben Dobbs is the singer for the band, but he also enjoys the challenge of being a guitarist.

“I decided learning the guitar would be an interesting challenge because I’ve heard so many people have tried and failed so I thought let’s go for it,” Ben Dobbs said.

Sam said Black Metal resonates more with him while death metal is more like Ben’s style. Sam said Burzum was the band that first got him into black metal.

“It was January 2017. I remember hearing a song called “Hibiscus” and just being completely blown away because I didn’t know what I was hearing,” Sam Dobbs said. “At the moment, I do this just for fun though I wish the band will eventually go further than what I envision at the moment,” Ben Dobbs said.