Las Vegas Weekly

Musician High

Ever feel like the entire local scene came through Green Valley?

Vince “Beans” Campillo, Afghan Raiders

Flip through Green Valley High yearbooks from the years 2000-2007, and it's tough not to spot the trend: Many of the faces involved in today's Vegas music scene were on that same campus ... even if their hair looked a little bit different in those days.

Afghan Raiders, A Crowd of Small Adventures, Holding on to Sound, The Higher, Twin Brother, Caravels, The Clydesdale, Hungry Cloud, The Pines, The Skooners, HaleAmanO, The Soviet and the Onset, The Rooks, America Yeah—they've all got Green Valley grads in their midst, which can make attending a local show a bit like attending a high-school reunion. Good thing most everyone got along back in the day. "We all had similar likes, and we stuck together," says Holding on to Sound bassist Zabi Zaqshband, one of the GVHS crew. "That was our hobby, we'd ditch school to go have band practice."

As for why Green Valley High—whose concentration on music was no more intense than on any other elective — produced such a deluge, various theories abound. Might the size of the student body had something to do with it? "I think it has to do with competition," says Mike Weller of Hungry Cloud and A Crowd of Small Adventures. "There are almost 4,000 students going — there were like 900 in my [graduating] class. We just had to stand out."

Or maybe it's just been a strange yet consistent coincidence. "In the '80s in LA, Slash and two of the dudes in Red Hot Chili Peppers went to the same high school; sometimes it just happens that way," says The Higher's Robert Ragan.

As for this GVHS product, I'm thinking there might have been something special in the drinking fountains. Too bad I always carried bottled water.

George Foskaris of Caravels / Adam Grill of Twin Brother

Paige Overton of The Clydesdale / Robert Ragan of The Higher

Angel Ramirez of The Rooks / Jordan Rosenthal of HaleAmanO

Mike Weller and Jackson Wilcox, both of A Crowd of Small Adventures and Hungry Cloud

Justin Van Cleef of The Soviet & The Onset / Zabi Zaqshband of Holding on to Sound