Five St. Thomas students found one another in 2018 on campus and formed the band Melkshake. Now, the band is poised to release its debut album, “At the Drive In,” this summer.

Melkshake consists of senior lead singer and guitarist Nick Falconer, 2020 graduate bassist Jesse Smrekar, senior keyboardist Jake Hoyer, senior singer and guitarist Will Myers and senior drummer Jacob Schiffman. The group met through Falconer, who was independently friends with all of the other members, and came together in 2018, with the exception of Hoyer, who joined in 2019.

“I think everyone sort of brings their own factor to the table,” Hoyer said. “Jesse is probably the most technically diligent musician in the group… Will’s always got a lot of energy on stage. Jacob is a really dependable drummer, which is probably the most important quality you need in a drummer. Nick is like the epicenter for a lot of our writing and especially the production and the refining of songs.”

Melkshake said the group has spent over a year on some of the songs featured on “At the Drive In” and that they are aiming for around nine songs to slot into the finished product. Falconer said the album has a lot of recurring themes and feelings to it.

“It tells a story of a young love, I would say, growing up and a lot of the disappointments that you run into,” Falconer said. “You could interpret it as the death of that picture-perfect life with a beautiful significant other and a great job that you love, what you imagine when you’re a kid.”

With the title, “At the Drive In,” the band is also going for an arc that is similar to a movie.

“It’s supposed to sort of mimic the narrative arc of a movie and that rising and falling,” Hoyer said.

Since double releasing “She’ll Forgive You” and “Forks” as their first splash on streaming services, Melkshake has released seven more songs, including a five-song EP.

When Melkshake released its first two songs, Myers said it was like “a dream come true.”

“I remember telling as many people as I could about it because I had spent so much time in my life wanting to be in a band. So it’s kind of like a fantasy for me, still is to be honest,” Myers said.

When the band released its EP “Raúl,” the members said they wanted to put out a package that someone could listen to and understand what Melkshake is about.

“Those first two songs, we wrote, recorded and released in a few months,” Schiffman said. “(That’s) not a thing we do anymore. It takes us a really long time because we like to sit on it and change things.”

The band said its original name was simply Melk, but they had to change it to avoid copyright issues because another group had the same name. They joked that ‘shake’ came along when Hoyer joined the band; Falconer said that Melkshake used to make a lot more punk-style music, but when Hoyer came in with the riff for “She’ll Forgive You,” it changed their genre.

“We went from being kind of like, an alternative punk band, I guess you could say, to being more just like an alternative indie, rock/pop band,” Falconer said.

Since starting, Melkshake has done shows at college house parties, smaller venues and even St. Thomas Activities and Recreation’s Thursday Night Live. The band members say they’ve done shows with five other bands before and have been able to make friends with some of them.

“It’s the community and the similar mindsets of everyone that they want to be here and meet other people and listen to good music that they possibly haven’t heard of before. That just really makes for a good show,” Falconer said.

With five members in the band, the writing process tends to vary. The band said Falconer will usually come into practice with ideas and the group expands on them.

“Making music is a messy process,” Falconer said. “It’s kind of like learning a new skate trick. You got to try a million times. Or sometimes you get right on the first try.”

Myers said what makes processes like these easier is the fact that the group is very close.

“It’s a team effort and one of the greatest things about this band is that we’re all dear, dear friends,” Myers said. “I would consider them to be as good as basically part of my own family.”

Scout Mason can be reached at maso7275@stthomas.edu.