Xylitone can’t stop playing music. Even as each member tells his story during a Friday night rehearsal, the other members strum popular songs on guitar, improvise melodies on piano keys or thumb strings on an electric bass.
The band, made up of two UF students and one UF graduate, has a show tonight at High Dive and was contacted by RUB Entertainment to open for of Montreal Sept. 25.
Lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist and songwriter Tepu Khan and bassist Brent Billington met through The Staff, UF’s all-male A Cappella group. Khan met keyboardist Bryant Nguyen through a mutual friend, and the trio formed Xylitone in August 2011.
The band is primarily alternative rock, Khan said, but the range of musical backgrounds each member brings creates a lot of “ambient influences.”
Khan, a 20-year-old anthropology student, calls himself the dreamer of the group. He speaks with his hands, gesturing through his life as a musician, which includes singing since the age of 4, starting guitar in sixth grade and being in and out of bands throughout high school.
He didn’t start songwriting until he got to college, but it’s his favorite part now, he said.
“I feel privileged to channel emotion and inspiration into songs,” he said. “I pick up my guitar and it just comes to me.”
Slapping the strings of an electric blue bass next to Khan is Billington, a civil engineering alumnus and self-proclaimed realist of the group who brings an entire spectrum of instrument experience to Xylitone.
Billington, 24, learned to play piano by ear at a young age and took the skill all the way to high school jazz band, where he became a first-chair saxophonist.
In college, he and his roommates formed a joke band called Jakit, where he picked up bass.
Throughout his musical evolution, Billington has sustained a knack for wind instruments.
“When it comes to penny flutes, I am a god,” he said.
As Billington spoke, Nguyen, a 21-year-old architecture major, quietly played fragments of jazzy songs on a mahogany-colored keyboard, a setting suitable for a candlelit dinner.
He is considered by his bandmates the glue of the trio, holding everything together with the technical nature he gained from 12 years of classical piano training. Jazz also influences Nguyen’s playing, he said, which infiltrates the band’s overall sound.
Although a record label hasn’t signed the group yet, Xylitone has built a Gainesville fan base, playing in local venues during the past year.
The show tonight, which begins at 9 p.m., is exciting because two other local bands are opening for Xylitone rather than the other way around.
Opening for of Montreal is exciting as well, according to Khan. The event, which has almost 700 attendees on Facebook, will expose a huge audience to Xylitone.
“That is the biggest opportunity that’s come our way so far,” Khan said. “We would have never thought we would open for a legitimate recording artist.”
The band also has an EP called “Live to be Lost” and a subsequent single, “Reinvent,” both available on Spotify and iTunes
Usually Khan writes a song’s skeleton, which consists of the lyrics and chord progressions. The band is a democracy, Khan said, so if Billington and Nguyen don’t like a potential song, they don’t go forward with it. However, if approved, the members write their instrument parts over the basic outline, and the chords become a song.
Sometimes, writing doesn’t happen in such a controlled manner.
“Reinvent” was born in the studio when the song the band was originally recording wasn’t working, Khan said.
Regardless, the band members agree the transition from rough outline to finished product is always a privilege.
“When we hear the difference between the rough recording that Tepu would make and give us to listen to and what the final product is, it’s quite a leap,” Nguyen said. “I love hearing that.”
The trio has accomplished a lot in a year, but Khan said they’ll never become complacent.
“This band is all about getting better,” he said, a motivation that is fueled by the strong bond that exists between members. “These two guys are my best friends.”
And that connection is apparent. When the band was rehearsing “Far Away,” a song written by Nguyen, Billington played the exact bass line Khan heard in his head.
“This is how we know when we finally click,” he said. “It’s like Wi-Fi.”
They continued playing, Billington closing his eyes, Nguyen leaning in and out of the keys and Khan tilting his head toward the ceiling, singing out.
“This is what we want to do,” Khan said. “Live life making music. That’s the dream.”
Bryant Nguyen, Tepu Khan and Brent Billington form the band Xylitone. They will be performing tonight at High Dive at 9 p.m. and also Sept. 25 in UF’s Rion Ballroom as the opening act for of Montreal.
