Many students participate in extracurricular activities, but one soon to be graduating senior just released his debut album. Ryan Maki the lead singer of The Modern Echoes had his album release party this past Thursday (November 30) at a brand new venue known as “The Underground” located in Downtown Las Cruces.

The name of the band’s debut album titled “1940 Princess Jeanne,” was written by Maki and his bass player Matt Detmer. The album didn’t happen overnight, but has been in a work in progress since the summer of 2015.

 “We [Detmer] originally had a cover band,” Maki said. “After that broke off, Matt and I just kept jamming out together.”

All the jamming ended up making them extremely close and they began to write songs together. The seven songs on the album are some of the first songs written by the duo.

“1940 Princess Jeanne isn’t just an album, but a place I spent a lot of time in,” Maki said.

Maki lived inside the house on 1940 Princess Jeanne Drive for seven months and rehearsed music in the house for about a year and half.

Some of the inspiration that came with the songs on the album come from Maki’s personal experiences in life and love. Maki believes one of the best written songs on the album, is “The Sixth”.  The song is about falling out of love with your once significant other and opening up to a potential new lover.

“It’s such a diverse song.” Maki explained. “I wrote it in her perspective, and then the pre-chorus is my perspective. The second verse is basically me talking to that new person and falling in love all over again.”

Once all the songs were written it was time to get started on the record.

“We wrote all these songs and realized we needed a drummer,” Maki explained. “The guy we originally picked to be our drummer, Isaac Rivera, moved to California.”

Luckily for the band, Rivera was able to record all of his parts before departure of the group. The recording of the album first began in the spring of this year (2017).

The band had to take short hiatus on completing the album do to lack of funding. According to Maki, the funds needed to record in the studio was $1,300, another $1,450 for mixing and mastering of the album, and CD production had a price tag of $400. The Modern Echoes could have easily chosen to use a cheaper/more affordable recording studio in Las Cruces, but felt like they would not be getting their money’s worth.

“We chose to use Borderline Recording Studios in El Paso, Texas for the record,” Maki said. “We didn’t want to cut ourselves short and we knew the sound we wanted would be cleaner if we went to Borderline.”

They originally were able to gather enough funds to record once again and only had enough money to record for six, eight hour days in the studio. It took them three months to collect all the money and figure out a schedule time to be back in the studio. Maki even used a $1,000 scholarship he received from the Sigma Chi Fraternity to pay for recording costs.

After recording the album, the realization of actually finishing the record for distribution became a reality, and the band faced a new challenge. The funds became scarce and the thought of not completing the album for its release was now on the band member’s minds.

“So we finished recording the album… we just didn’t have the funds to cover mixing/mastering costs, distribution/packaging costs, and merchandise costs,” Maki expressed.

With little funds they had to think fast. The Album release party was already scheduled to be on November 30, 2017. They ended up starting a Kickstarter to help fuel the funds to complete the album. Kickstarter is a company that helps artists, musicians, filmmakers, designers, and other creators find the resources and support they need to make their ideas a reality.

“We had a goal of raising $1,500 by November 11, 2017,” Maki said. “It was all or nothing. If we didn’t meet our goal, we would lose all the money donated and there would be no album.”

Fortunately, The Modern Echoes were able to receive the funds needed in time and now all they had to worry about is playing at their album release party.

Maya Weisinger a concert attendee who just so happened to hear about the show from her barista at Milagros, found out about the album release party only hours prior to the event.“I just moved to town and I think people should really come out and support their local artists,” Weisinger said.

“People should really come and support their local artists,” Weisinger preached.

No matter the music The Modern Echoes only do what they do, because they love it.

“It’s a passion for us,” Maki said. “I just want to be able to bring people together.”

The band expressed that what they wanted from all of this was to give people memories that would last them a life time.

“Whether you buy a shirt, CD or poster,” Maki said. “I want them to remember that they lost themselves for a second.”