Cat Jones | Managing Editor
From left to right: Karl Metts, Jim Russell, Nick Barnhart and Tim Davis. || Photo by Terri M. Venesio
Every year, students from City College graduate, taking their passions to new levels. Some go on to four-year universities, some find jobs in the professional world and some take their skills and make great art. In this issue, we explore the paths taken by three alumni: two started a metal band and one moved on to attend NYU.
“There’s always a bottle of scotch in here somewhere,” jokes 31-year-old Karl Metts as he gestures toward the shot glasses tucked in the wall of recording equipment. In an oasis of industrial concrete and razor wire known as the House of Hits, four friends, known by night as the band Silvara, congregate every Monday night over a shared love of metal, camaraderie and quality whiskey.
From the looks of their practice studio, it’s easy to see that they’ve been honing their skills there for years. Recording equipment lines an entire wall. On the other side of the studio, a small couch is nestled between two Tetris-like piles of amplifiers. Two drum kits are tucked away in opposite corners, one next to a tall, homemade shelf the band fondly refers to as “the Bass Castle.” Posters of Iron Maiden, Amon Amarth and the band’s various other influences adorn the walls alongside the room’s most supremely-metal decoration: The pelt of a moose, shot by the bassist’s uncle in Finland in the ’70s.
Brotherly banter never ceases as the band, which has evolved quite a bit over the last 10 years, navigates through the stacks of expensive equipment to pile together on the couch. The one remaining original member is Metts, whose first aspirations to start a band came about as a teenager in Davis after he learned to play guitar.
“We were a bunch of junior high kids,” Metts remembers, as he leans back on the couch and rests his head on the moose pelt’s foot. “I think I was in eighth grade when I convinced some of my friends to buy instruments and play them with me.”
So Metts and his fellow budding metalheads started the band Silvara, whose name is an homage to the Dragonlance book series, which, upon referencing, sends them into a symphony of raucous laughter and guttural voice imitations. Eventually they all graduated from Davis Senior High School and Metts was accepted into Sacramento State University’s program for music. After two years, he realized that studying classical guitar wasn’t his passion and decided to enroll in City College’s Audio Production Program. So he ventured down the path of music’s technical side along with his old friend Jim Russell, who would later become Silvara’s bassist. While they were there, the program taught them everything they needed to know to enter the world of music production and recording.
Metts, who now works as a sound technician for Electron Pro Audio, refers to live sound as his “bread and butter,” and says, “I pretty much earn a living from the education I got at Sac City.”
“I still remember the conversation I had with Karl,” Russell recalls, flashing his signature impish grin. “We were sitting in City Café, and I just said, ‘Yes Karl. I will be in your band now.’ I didn’t ask. I just told. ‘Now I will be in your band.’”
Through mutual friends, the two of them met drummer Tim Davis, now 32, who was attending UC Davis at the time, and began practicing and writing music together. Metts and Russell both write the majority of lyrics, which are, for the most part, politically inspired.
“Not a lot of love songs, though, being a death-metal band,” laughs 31-year-old Russell. “Wouldn’t really matter anyway, since it mostly just sounds like the beginning of an MGM movie, you know, like lions roaring!”
With only one guitar player in the band, the sound they were able to produce in their live shows wasn’t as full as they wanted it to be. However, they didn’t want to sign just anyone onto the project.
Barnhart has played with Silvara since 2009. || Photo by Terri M. Venesio
In 2009, they met Nick Barnhart, a 23-year-old guitarist who was working as a sound technician at Sophia’s Thai kitchen, a bar in Davis where Russell works as a bartender. They connected over their musical tastes and decided to bring him into the band. Since they added the flavor of Barnhart’s guitar, the band has been playing shows in both the Sacramento and Davis areas.
This semester, after a season of working live sound at Sophia’s, Barnhart has also become the third member of Silvara to be involved in City College’s Audio Production program.
“I wanted to delve more deeply into the technical aspects of it, and all the theory behind it, and get some basis for the recording side of sound engineering,” he says. “I had the Sac City program on excellent recommendation from more than a couple of people in my circle of friends, and it’s turning out to be awesome so far.”
But no matter which path the band takes, the four members will continue to look forward to the one time during the week in which they can all take a break from their nearly polar opposite schedules to create something they love.
On their MySpace page, you can find a passage that reads, “No unsigned band has been around longer. Silvara is a project that started as kids learning to play instruments that has evolved into a refined metal machine, whose members strive to create the greatest metal mega hits ever.”
Keep watching for local shows and their recordings online in the coming months until the metal beast that is Silvara releases their new album.
For many, compromise is inevitable in life. Plans change, people grow and dreams are altered. But for City College graduate Peter Crosta, settling was never an option. At 17, he was bitten by the big-city bug and realized he wanted to end up in New York City.
Peter Crosta edits for Mainline in spring 2009. || File photo by Terri M. Venesio
Now 22, he is enrolled at New York University and living that dream.
Oddly enough, New York City’s magical allure found its way into Crosta’s heart after a love affair with a certain group of infamous women. “This is a bit embarrassing, but Sex and the City was what sparked my interest initially,” he says. “From there I became obsessed with anything that accurately depicted New York, and I fell in love.” A few Ella Fitzgerald records and a lot of cosmopolitans later, his dream was cemented.
After graduating from Davis Senior High school in 2006, Crosta enrolled at Sierra College in hopes that he would be able to transfer to New York University after two years. However, things didn’t run quite as smoothly as he hoped. In 2008, while applying at four-year schools, he was diagnosed with type-1 diabetes. As one can imagine, this threw off his life plans for a bit. Temporarily defeated, he decided that the closer, smaller city of San Francisco might be a more practical choice.
“NYU was my dream school, but I was upset about the recent diagnosis, so I convinced myself I should stay close to home. That’s how I ended up enrolled at University of San Francisco,” Crosta says.
However, the decision was instantly regretted. “I was miserable for about a month until my mother told me I didn’t have to go, and I could just spend another semester in community college and apply for NYU for the next year. So I enrolled at Sac City.”
Once at City College, Peter made the most of his situation and took advantage of every opportunity the Journalism Department had to offer, working for both the Express and Mainline as an editor.
“It seems like most classes at four-year universities bury you in academic reading and test you on how well you can recite it back. All my classes at Sac City were about giving me the tools to do something, and then grading me on how well I did,” he remembers.
The tools City College gave Crosta were put to good use because in 2009, he received his letter of acceptance to the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University.
In the fall of 2010, he moved into an apartment in Manhattan, where he reveled in the delights of the city lights, rich culture, and a farmers market around the corner. He is currently experiencing a different kind of culture in NYU’s study abroad program in Prague. With his degree in Media, Culture and Communication, he plans to work in the field of public relations and live in the city he loves for the rest of his life.
