Velvet Green Brings “Junk Funk” Music to Athens

Members of local band Velvet Green. Photos by Michael Cobb and Nate Swanson

Helen Widman

A set stage overlooks the empty black and white checkered floor of the venue. A keyboard, guitars, drums and microphones sit in silence. The audience trickles in as musicians position themselves behind their instruments. Stage lights cast pink, blue and green tints on their faces. The members of Velvet Green take a deep breath before they begin their set at The Union.

Velvet Green, a local band formed in 2018, is composed of six members: drummer Shea Benezra, guitarists Sam Debatin and Harper Reese, keyboardist Liam McSteen, bassist Mitchell Spring and vocalist Cora Fitch. All members, except for New York native Benezra, met each other while attending Athens High School.

Guitarist Sam Debatin

“Sam and I have been playing music since my freshman year of high school,” says Reese, a freshman at Ohio University.

Since the band’s first gig during the Halloween block party last year, Velvet Green has made a name for itself in Athens.

This fall semester, the band played two house shows in late August and played three out of four weekends in September at The Union, including an opening set for Freak Mythology, a psychedelic funk band from Cincinnati that has gained a loyal following in Athens.

Velvet Green’s hour-long set featured a mix of original songs and covers, ranging from crowd-pleasing classics by The Beatles to Ariana Grande’s spunky pop song “Side to Side.”

“Sometimes you just have to give in and play Ariana Grande,” says McSteen, a sophomore at OU.

The band played at the 2019 Yell Like Hell Pep Rally on College Green on Oct. 10. The rally usually brings in hundreds of people each year.

“Yell Like Hell was definitely a different vibe than we are used to,” Reese says. “The crowd wasn’t too engaged, so there was kind of an awkward empty space in front of where we were playing. But the sound and mixing were great. Overall, the gig went well.”

Reese says the band does not have any upcoming shows as they plan to focus more on writing and recording original material.

Between the bandmate’s six different schedules and two different schools — Fitch is currently a senior at Athens High School — Velvet Green is no stranger to chaos. The musicians claim that the most challenging part of being a band is synching their calendars.

“I think that honestly last year we were really focused on trying to be really…tight and organized and refined,” Reese says. “This year, we just relaxed a lot.”

Over the past year, the musicians have focused on figuring out how to collaborate better as a band. Through their efforts, they realized the band’s stage setup is crucial to their show’s atmosphere.

“We show up with six people and not that much equipment, like a keyboard’s kind of big and two guitars is kind of a lot of space and drums,” says Debatin, a sophomore at OU. “Then, these stages that people built for us [at house shows], we are all just cramped. But we realized that that’s where we play the best [is] when we’re just almost touching. It’s just…closer, like we’re one.”

The band attests that spending time together before shows is crucial for its performance.

“If there’s one of us that’s not into [the right mindset], we make sure they get into it,” says OU sophomore Benezra.

Drummer Shea Benezra

Despite spending much of their free time together, the musicians say that they never truly tire of one another, though they do have “loving fights.”

In addition to having a close-knit relationship on and off stage, Velvet Green believes the band’s interaction with the audience and other artists is key to a successful show.

“The audience is integral to the whole process. They are the most important part,” Reese says.

Velvet Green encourages interactions with its fans. It is not uncommon for Benezra to take a break from drumming for one song so he can go down and dance with the audience, as seen during their Sept. 27 show at The Union.

Velvet Green’s current fan base is comprised mostly of friends and the members’ parents, who frequently attend shows to support their children. Though the band has only been together for nearly a year, it has seen rapid local success.

“We’ve actually started getting more people that we don’t know to come to our shows,” Fitch says.

The band recognizes and appreciates the importance of playing in a smaller town, where it can get more exposure to audiences.

“Even coming from New York, I feel like Athens is uniquely cultured…and that is what fosters music appreciation,” says Benezra.

Velvet Green credits a lot of its exposure to the first annual Battle of the Bands at The Union on Nov. 16, 2018.

“Last year, we had a few really new bands, and Velvet Green was one of them,” says Ally Campbell, president of AllCampus Radio Network (ACRN). “So, I think the audience [was] really excited to see them because they hadn’t really had a chance to see them before.”

Campbell, who helped organize the inaugural event, adds that it was largely successful.

Vocalist Cora Fitch

“It was an insane turnout that none of us really expected,” she says. “So, that was really cool to see how our idea of helping local musicians get their stuff out there sort of translated into the community.”

Although Campbell says Battle of the Bands has a strict no repeat-performance policy, she says that they will likely host Velvet Green at another ACRN music event.

As its exposure continues to grow, one of Velvet Green’s main goals is to produce and perform more original music as well as release its music on streaming services like Spotify or iTunes. The band has a growing collection of original pieces like “Mr. Miller,” “Randy Mode” and “Spill the Tea.”

“We probably have a full album’s worth of stuff, but it’s not all done, or it’s things that we don’t really want to put out there yet,” Fitch says.

The band’s current songwriting process consists of building onto each member’s random riffs or strums to produce full melodies.

“A lot of [songwriting] is just kind of sitting around and usually it involves being slightly depressed and being mad at each other,” Debatin says. “And then, eventually, the good vibes come out of our sadness for a minute. You have to have a momentary sadness to remind yourself that you’re happy.”

Ultimately, the band members hope to become more familiar with each other’s diverse musical inspirations and individual techniques as well as continue to perform for the community and its local music scene.

“We love doing this,” Fitch says. “We appreciate that you support us and come to our shows.”