Short Term

A new band named Short Term, composed of Parker McNerney, Ben Beauchene, and Landon Stanley, recently released an album called ‘Flourish.’ They played a release show for over one hundred people at Smyrna’s Carpe Artista building on August 3rd. We sat down with the boys to ask them some questions about touring, their relationships with each other, and their mentorship from Zeke McKinney. Zeke is their fill-in bassist and one of the first people to attend Rock Camp. Ben and Parker met many years ago at Carpe Artista Jukebox Hero Rock Camp and have been best friends ever since. Ben and Landon have been friends since kindergarten, and together, the boys formed Short Term!

Q: How has your relationship with each other flourished™ during and since you returned from tour?
B: We learned what makes others mad and how not to do that. Playing together more than once a month let us become more in tune with each other, and we learned to be conscious of what we’re playing. It feels like we care about both each other and the music.
P: Seeing each other every day helped grow our bond.
L: Since I live with Parker, I know him pretty well, but touring helped Ben and me get closer. I actually started looking at Ben when we played, and that was pretty cool. The Smyrna show was just an overflow of emotion. (B: Yeah, at first it felt like we were just playing music, but now it feels like we are actually a band.)

Q: What was the most memorable place from tour?
B,P, and L: Sheetz!
P: It’s like a Sonic/gas station. Pretty cool. We also played frisbee everywhere we went.
B: We stayed in Roanoke, VA at a house with a dungeon.(L: We played Dungeons and Dragons.) (P: We got up three hours earlier than we had to leave to play.) Also, The Spot, where we played our Chattanooga show, was where it all clicked. We really started playing as a band there.
L: Even though my kick pedal broke, the Smyrna show was really good. The whole crowd was singing along and that was a really cool experience. Also, we ate pho for the first time and it was really good.

Q: How have Zeke Mckinney and Nolan Simmons inspired and influenced you?
P: After every set, Zeke told us what was good and what was bad. It was good to have someone tell us that. He was also really patient with us. He was our band dad.
B: Nolan was like our band mom.
P: He fixed a lot of things that we couldn’t.
B: It felt like he wanted to hang with us; he wasn’t just there to take pictures.

Q: What can we expect from Short Term in the near future?
P: We’re playing Bloodline festival in South
Bend, IN on October 25-26!
B, L: We also have new merch coming soon!
P: We’re probably going to do a three to four day run at the end of the year, as well.

Q. Any closing remarks?
P: Tour was, in one word, epic and immaculate.
B: That’s three words.
L: Tour was awesome.
P: It was great, we learned a lot, and we’re excited to do it more.

Article written by: Isabella Serrano & Macklin Zehr