Plastic Lemonade: Ready to rock and vote

A native Athens band with funky sounds, blazing horns and an eccentric vibe will be featured in the 2022 #iVoted Festival.

Plastic Lemonade, the self-described “folk funk” band, is comprised of eight members, six of which are Ohio University students.

On the weekends, you can typically find the band performing in a house or backyard off-campus or at local spots such as The Union, where they play often during the school year. They have also performed at Smiling Skull Saloon and The Eclipse Company Store.

When they are not performing or in class, they are busily making music in their off-campus duplex in Athens, utilizing their kitchen, bedroom, car, garage -- practically anywhere with good acoustics.

Behind the band

OHIO students Nathan Cain and Kyle Willison are the band’s proud founders. 

Many of the members are from Amsterdam, Ohio and have known each other prior to college. The band's ties go as far back as elementary school.

“We tried to make music in high school, but it never really worked,” said Cain.

“We'd get together, and we would have our instruments there. And then we'd be like, ‘you guys want to get something to eat?’ And then we'd go drive around for like, four or five hours,” said Willison.

Though the group remained friends upon attending OHIO, they eventually rekindled their musical aspirations.

The band got its start when during his sophomore year Cain, a music production major, needed to record a song for a class. He then convinced his friend Joe Ash to help with the song. It was the first time Cain and Willison had tried to make music outside of the two of them. 

After putting the song out on YouTube, the band was invited to play a show in Lakewood, Ohio, at The Winchester in April 2021. Though they were not yet a formulated band, the musicians did not want to lose the opportunity and quickly got to work.

“We weren’t a real band, we just put out that song on YouTube. And we were like ‘man, it would be cool to do a show.' So, I asked everyone I knew who played instruments if they would be down to do a show. It was a big ask, but we got together with some people and wrote practically all our music in a month that we played. Most of it was written the week of the show, or the day before the show, and we learned a song in the car on the way to the show. It was a lot of craziness,” Cain reflected. “Then we actually started forming a cohesive band.”

Looking back on that first show, Willison and Cain chuckled at the chaotic nature of it. Between writing last minute tracks and wrangling other musicians, they were able to prepare a set to play. Cain managed to play multiple instruments while serving as the lead singer. They both acknowledge how their sound has evolved since then.

“We started adding more instruments, and different styles,” Cain said. “We started out very flat, acoustic soft, simple stuff, just because we didn’t have time to do anything crazy.”

“Every song that we’ve played has changed a lot,” added Willison.

As they added instruments, new members came with. Their eight-person roster tends to rotate, always collaborating on new sounds and ideas. 

"I love having the chance to create music with everyone and absorb new ideas from each talented member," said the band's lead pianist Mariana Stockman.

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Many of the musicians come from different academic backgrounds. Drummer, Joe Ash, studies industrial systems engineering. Creating music allows him to tap into a musical side that he does not always have the chance to utilize. 

"Plastic Lemonade has been a great avenue for artistic passion for me since my coursework as an engineer is so heavily focused on maths and sciences," said Ash. "Also, as we have recruited additional members to our band, we have definitely become a more well-rounded group, and I think our sound reflects that." ​​​​​

By getting out of the classroom and working on music they are passionate about, the band serves as a creative outlet and stress reliever, said guitarist and civil engineering major Damon Bonar. "It gives me a great opportunity with friends to switch from a singular focus to something else that is just for fun," he added.

Cain is a music production major, allowing the band to utilize the studio in Schoonover Center to record a lot of the band’s music when possible. 

Though the Athens-based band plays often for Ohio University crowds, they have also expanded throughout the state of Ohio with venues in Cleveland, Akron and Kent areas. 

#iVoted Festival

#iVoted is an entirely virtual music festival aimed to increase voter turnout. By sharing a selfie at their local polling place or with their blank ballot, participants can attend. This year, the festival will take place during the Midterm Elections on November 8. There are over 150 confirmed artists performing, with big names such as Run the Jewels, Rise Against, Lake Street Dive and many more.

Cain worked for the festival as an intern during the 2020 Presidential Election. As he continued working with the nonprofit, which had a significant impact on the election’s voter turnout, Cain was promoted to a production adviser. He also served as a booking agent for #iVoted Georgia, a festival focused on the state’s special election, and helped book artists.

Through the connections that Cain made, he was able to help his own band get the opportunity to perform. When asking his boss Emily White what his role in the upcoming festival would be, she suggested that Plastic Lemonade should perform.

Due to the virtual nature of the festival, all sets are recorded digitally. In August, Plastic Lemonade recorded their set from their Athens apartment.

“That was insane, we did it all in our apartment,” said Cain. “We ran, I believe, 24 inputs, mostly microphones. We had four interfaces running linked up together, and 15 or 16 microphones in the house.”

Another aspect of the festival is the #iVoted Festival Podcast which discusses the voting process and surveys musical artists in every state in the country. Episodes gauge what is important to artists, regarding all things from politics to music. Plastic Lemonade will be featured on the #iVoted Ohio episode, representing the band’s home state. 

The band has six songs prepared for the festival, which will coincide with their album release on November 11.

Why the name?

One question band members are commonly are asked is, “why the name Plastic Lemonade?”

Driving around, brainstorming, chatting and grabbing a bite to eat is a common activity for the band. Willison and Cain recount a mundane evening, where they went to get food that the name Plastic Lemonade surfaced.

“When me and Kyle were making music together in my bedroom just the two of us, we made a jazz song,” said Cain. “The night we made the jazz song, we decided to do the classic thing and drive to go get food. We went to Wendy’s and went through the drive-thru. I got a strawberry lemonade, and Kyle got a tropical berry lemonade.”

Willison, who was handed the drinks, asked, “how am I going to tell whose is whose?” Cain responded jokingly to sniff them and when asked what they smelled like, Willison responded “plastic lemonade.”

“We both kind of just looked at each other and said, ‘that’s a good band name,’” Willison said.

The name also intertwines with the themes behind many of their songs, things that do not normally go together but somehow manage to work, which occurs frequently in their songwriting process.

“It’s a big theme in our life everywhere: ‘This shouldn’t work why does it? This should work, why doesn’t it?” said Willison.

Though the band members draw from various inspirations and enjoy different musical genres, they enjoy bringing contrasting perspectives together.

“As far as inspirations for lyrical content, we take a theme of personal life and then we take a theme that is extremely out there and has nothing to do with any of it and we draw parallels between the two,” said Cain. “I think it’s fun to find things that are really different that shouldn’t connect at all and try to find any lines that you can draw. It makes it unique.”

A town for creatives

The two noted that the uniqueness of Athens’ music scene helped the band get to a point where they were comfortable with experimenting and trying new things.

“I would say the Athens scene itself, especially with the venues and interactions we’ve had with people that come to our shows, it’s chill, laid back and fun,” said Cain.

The town’s vibrant musical scene and abundant number of performers help bands like Plastic Lemonade find their sound in a supportive environment.

“I think that sort of helped us get to a point where we’re willing to do new stuff,” reflected Cain. “Like me playing weird instruments and things. Every single time I bring out a saxophone in the middle of a song, the venue just fills up.”

The Athens scene has inspired their creative side more, pushing the band to “look more into the weird aspects,” Willison said.

“Athens loves shock,” Cain said. “The shock of something they don’t expect happening during a show.”

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At a show organized by ACRN at The Union on August 27 to welcome back students, it was clear what Cain and Willison described. The crowd cheered each time a new instrument was welcomed onto the stage mid-set, adding a new vibrating sound to the music. When the band welcomed members of the crowd onto the stage, those in attendance desperately raised their hands to be selected. The band then played an interactive cover of “Float On” by Modest Mouse with those from the audience playing hand instruments along with them. The sincere moment was enjoyed by the band and audience members alike.

Plastic Lemonade can be found streaming on Apple and Spotify ahead of their performance for the #iVoted Festival on Nov. 8.