Photo by Isabella Gaglione for The Lafayette

The Beaver People includes two saxophonists, a guitarist and a keyboardist.

First-semester chemistry classmates Julia Sealing ‘27, Joseph Freeston ‘27, Andrew Manni ‘27 and Carson Belaire ‘27 did not expect to form a band when they got to Lafayette.

“Carson, who’s the guitar player in the group was like, ‘The Beaver People would be a really cool band name,'” Manni said. “We already knew we all played instruments, and we wanted to play so that just kind of became our name.”

The Beaver People made their debut during a LIMS “Jammies” show last semester. Belaire booked the gig a week and a half before the concert — without telling the rest of the band.

“The sort of common denominator’s just the fact that we are kind of spontaneous,” Freeston said. “It’s pretty lowkey, pretty like, ‘Oh, let’s play this.’ It’s very laid back.”

The group had a short time to figure out its identity as a band.

“We had to learn how to play with each other for the first time,” Sealing said. “We had to find songs and figure out how to do different parts because it’s not like anyone writes music for this combination of instruments, so we just kind of had to figure it out.”

Made up of a guitar, two saxophones and the keyboard, The Beaver People have a “mellow” sound, according to Manni.

Performing as a group in front of a live audience was surprisingly easy, according to Sealing.

“It’s kind of funny,” Sealing said. “I would expect myself to be nervous for it, but then I’m usually not because it’s just relaxed.” 

Spontaneity has been a frequent and welcomed theme for the band.

“If Carson didn’t get us that gig without telling us, I don’t know if we would be a band that’s performing now,” Manni said. “It just kind of happened so quickly and we were like, ‘Alright, we have to now, and we don’t want to embarrass ourselves or anything.’” 

While The Beaver People primarily perform covers of their favorite songs, they have also played original songs written by Belaire and Freeston.

“We had been talking about our set, we needed a few extra songs so I said, ‘What about we perform some of our songs?’” Belaire said.

The band’s latest show was a Valentine’s Day set in Farinon College Center, featuring covers of popular love songs. The Beaver People enlisted their friend Jackson Eshbaugh ‘27 to record an audio of the performance.

“Being on the other side of things, but also not being a performer is this interesting middle ground where it’s like, I’m still clapping for them after songs, but I’m also involved in creating a nice atmospheric recording of everything,” Eshbaugh said.

The group has found a good balance between the band and their friendship.

“​​Our expectations for each other are high, but we understand if we have a bad day or something like that,” Manni said. “We’re all just there to have fun.” 

“The Beaver People thing is outside of just being friends,” Freeston said. “It’s also a nice kind of thing we get to do together, sharing music with each other, playing with each other is sort of a form of expression to each other. So it’s kind of cool in that regard.” 

While the future of the band is uncertain, all members are excited to see what is to come.

“This is an experiment,” Eshbaugh said. “We don’t quite know what’s happening yet.” 

According to Belaire, The Beaver People are heading toward big things. 

“The future of The Beaver People? Simply put, platinum record in three years,” Belaire said. “But probably hopefully releasing something on Spotify, I think would be really cool.”