Avery Owens | Staff Writer

Two musicians who share the same first name also share a passion for recording sound and having fun.

Dallas junior Ben Coleman and Ben Simmons are the permanent members of Sack Lunch! the rock band. Together they have been in the music making business for almost two years now.

“We are a band who wants to have fun,” said Simmons.

With roughly 443 monthly listeners and over 18,000 streams on Spotify, the band has steadily grown over the past two years. Today, they are transitioning into new genres of music.

“The first few songs that we released were more strictly rock. Now we’re moving towards less rock and more indie pop … a little bit more psychedelic,” said Coleman.

Simmons graduated from Baylor this past December and is staying in Waco, his hometown, to make music and work at Pinewood Coffee Roasters. Coleman and Simmons both sing and play guitar.

“We switch off vocals [and] we both play guitar. I’ve tended to take lead guitar while Ben is singing,” said Simmons.

When the band performs live, friends of theirs help out by playing different instruments.

“[The two of us] are the band and everything recorded has been us,” said Simmons. “In the two shows that we’ve had, Michael Schmitz has played drums, David Misloski has played synth and Owen Buntin has played bass.”

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the band has not been able to do live performances, but Coleman and Simmons are taking the future of the band one day at a time.

“We just want to make music that we would want to listen to and have fun,” said Coleman.

In the next year, Sack Lunch! has a few plans.

“We’re gonna be releasing some singles and we’re working on hopefully releasing an album by then,” said Coleman.

Their newest single, “I Don’t Feel Like A Man Just Yet,” was released this past Friday. It can be streamed on Apple Music and Spotify.

“It’s our most high-energy song yet,” said Coleman.