Keep your ears open, Columbia. There’s a new indie pop rock quartet on the scene.
Que Será Será formed in 2012 and has been performing often in the downtown area. Drummer Andrew Jernigan and guitarist Kyle Berry met at Conundrum Music Hall and hit it off musically, so they began practicing and writing songs together. Bassist Mitch Thompkins joined the group a few months later, and guitarist/vocalist Katie Leitner joined the mix soon after.
A friend of the group came up with the name, and it stuck.
“The name means ‘what will be, will be,’ and so I kind of wanted to musically play off of the idea of the name as much as I could,” Berry said. “We are multiple personalities and multiple perspectives, so I like to give a musical representation of those things. Songwriting, for me, revolves around that.”
Genre-wise, Que Será Será is a little bit of everything.
“There’s a blues element. There’s a hip-hop element. There’s a classic rock element. There’s a lot of classical influence,” Berry said.”
Leitner describes it as “indie pop rock,” but it’s “a combination of our influences.”
Que Será Será cites everyone from Debussy to Freddie Mercury as musical heroes.
While the band is new on the scene, its members have been making music on their own for years. Leitner has been singing since childhood, taught herself how to play guitar around age 13 and is studying music education at USC. She’s no stranger to the local theater scene either, playing various roles at Trustus Theatre and Workshop Theatre. However, this is Leitner’s first time being in a band.
Thompkins started playing in the orchestra in sixth grade and played bass in some bands in high school, but he hadn’t pursued “anything serious” until now.
“I’m an engineering major, so I don’t spend a lot of time in the music building,” he said.
Jernigan has been making music for a while.
“I’ve been playing drums for about 11 years,” Jernigan said. “I also sing and do other things.”
Berry’s experiences are varied. He began playing violin in middle school and then became interested in choral singing in high school.
“I went into college on a music scholarship when I realized I could sing a little bit,” he said.
Like Leitner, Berry is a music education student at USC. Both are also members of the USC Concert Choir. Berry does the majority of the music writing, but each member adds his or her own ideas to each piece.
“I spend an hour at the piano every day,” Berry said. “Just with my own noodling and listening to music, I usually, in that time, over the course of a few weeks, find something I like.”
Leitner and Jernigan share lyric duty, too.
The group will play two shows this weekend, and each will differ in mood and tone.
Que Será Será will play a 45-minute set at El Burrito as part of WUSC’s Wussy Jamboree Saturday. Listeners will be able to hear every song the band has written, and Thompkins said it will feature more “emotional” songs than Sunday’s shorter, “high energy” set at New Brookland Tavern.
Music begins at 1 p.m. at El Burrito Saturday, with 10 bands taking the stage. Admission is $5 for those over $21 and $7 for those under. Que Será Será takes the stage at 6 p.m.
Sunday’s New Brookland show begins at 8 p.m. The group is playing with Junior Astronomers, Muscle & Bone and Slingshot Dakota.
Tickets are $8 for patrons over 21 and $10 for those under.
To listen to Que Será Será’s tunes, visit queserasera.bandcamp.com or facebook.com/queseraseraband. The band is planning to release a full-length album this summer.