Real Lyrics to Great Songs

Evan Daly helps Camille Renaud, 11, of Davis adjust her keyboard. Cecilia Harris, 14, of Davis plays guitar beside her.

Davis' RockBand University offers young musicians amplifiers, a stage and a clear mission.

"We want to create a music scene," says Mike Clements, 28, the long-haired, granny-shaded founder of the music program for aspiring shredders ages 10-18.

A privately run offshoot of a rock camp offered last summer through the city of Davis, RockBand University distinguishes itself from other kid-rock programs that sprouted in the wake of "American Idol" and the film "School of Rock" by focusing on live music rather than contests or recordings.

Operated by Clements, fellow multi-instrumentalist Evan Daly, 20, and Clements' girlfriend, Sandy Thai, 22, a recent UC Davis grad who runs the office and teaches vocals, the 3-month-old RockBand University covers everything a garage band might need to form and perform.

Grouping students together by age, instrument and musical interest, the program provides an Olive Drive warehouse rehearsal space shielded from noise complaints and offers opportunities to play in public around Davis.

RockBand University students, many of them carry-overs from the summer program, already have played two showcases and will cap the program's current six-week session with a concert Saturday at Odd Fellows Hall.

"We are trying to give them the rock experience – like, 'Oh, we played that venue and that venue,' " said Clements, who hopes to add midsession shows during the program's next session, in January.

Though Odd Fellows Hall and Veterans Memorial Center are not the Whisky or the Fillmore, performing live is performing live.

"Sitting in your bedroom and playing is a lot different than playing onstage," said Daly, who, like Clements, teaches private guitar lessons at Watermelon Music, the Davis retailer loosely associated with RockBand University. "We want to give them as much information as possible to help them become professional musicians."

As one watches youngsters rehearse on the RockBand University stage, many of them gazing at the floor in typical adolescent fashion, "professional" seems a ways off. Yet there always are glimmers of what could be, in an assured guitar solo or in the way a coed, eight-person band – called Public Indecency before its members discovered an existing band had that name – hangs together while performing "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

"You really learn to rely on your band mates" through RockBand University, said vocalist Maggie Ohama, 14, who arrived at the rehearsal space with band mates and pals she met through the program, Christian Anglin and Cecilia Harris, both also 14.

Though Anglin and Harris say the stage can get crowded with eight people – "There is no room to move, and you keep getting hit by instruments" Harris noted – all agree that playing "Teen Spirit" on a real stage, before a live audience, can feel close to, well, nirvana.

"It is the most fun I ever had," Ohama, 14, said of a Halloween show at Veterans Memorial that capped RockBand University's previous six-week session.

Frustrated that his private-lesson students weren't playing live or in bands, Clements came up with the idea for the summer program. When that proved a success, Clements "totally blew my savings and racked up my credit cards" to transform the warehouse space into RockBand University's headquarters.

Apart from its lack of beer and the presence of parents sitting on a couch watching their kids play, the warehouse space looks like a place where a young working band might rehearse. With its cheerful purple walls lined with Metallica and Iron Maiden posters, the space reflects the sensibilities of Clements, Daly and Thai, amiable young people with thrash-metal souls.

Students should know their notes when they show up. The instructors will coach them on everything else, from timing to stage presence.

"They are always telling me to put on my rock face," said Michael Carriere, 15, who on Thursday afternoon played with fellow guitarists Derek Dimond, 15, and Raymond Long, 16, as Daly and Clements filled in on drums and bass, respectively.

"Ninety-five percent of playing live is attitude," Clements said. Hence his and Daly's constant coaxing of students to wail on instruments, posture like rock stars and punctuate numbers with a triumphant cries of "Yeah!"

The instructors, in turn, ensure any youngster who wants to rock and whose parents shell out $245 will be part of a band for six weeks – even if that band is composed almost entirely of instructors.

Such is the case with drummer Davi Gabriel, 12, whose pal had to drop out of the program and whose instrument of choice is harder to place in another band than say, a guitar.

During practice Sunday afternoon, Clements played guitar while Daly handled bass and Thai belted out Green Day's "When I Come Around." Sitting behind the drum kit, Gabriel kept time while deflecting the intense focus of Daly and Clements, who at one point tried to get her to play harder by urging her to envision the snare drum as the face of a rival in her other extracurricular activity, roller derby.

"We will use anything we have at any given moment" to rouse the young rockers, Clements said of his and Daly's motivational methods.

Davi, the mellowest 12-year-old ever to play rock drums and skate in roller derby, remained unfazed throughout.

"I went through the (summer) rock camp, so I am used to the one-on-one attention," she said with a shrug as she waited outside for her dad to pick her up.

Though their students might not immediately match the instructors' enthusiasm, RockBand University, at just 3 months in, already is seeing results.

Davi, her father reports, has asked for a drum kit for her birthday. The band formerly known as Public Indecency might enter a battle of the bands early next year. Carriere, who plays his ax as often as possible through RockBand University and private lessons and who already approximates Guns N' Roses' Slash on "Paradise City," recently joined a garage band, as well.

Meanwhile, Clements, who says his primary financial goal in starting the program was "to not starve," is paying the bills while meeting his goal of cultivating a local music scene. Plus, he gets to jam regularly with Daly, Thai and his RockBand University students.

"I could make twice as much money (just) teaching private lessons," he said. "But this is more fun."