APEAN

ABOUT APEAN

"Apean" name origin:

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The band is comprised of 4 members, two Irish, two South African. The name therefore came about from the combination of the words African and European. As well as that, the word apean has a Spanish meaning to it, and that is to break down or to be on fire, which so happens to be our aim; to break and burn all musical boundaries and encourage freedom of expression.

 

We don't want to simply sing what our audience can say for themselves, but rather to express the unexpressable. We want to bring a whole new dimension to music with our fresh point of view and ideology.

 

We make our own rules as we go along, even if they appear to make no sense. After all, if music made sense, we wouldn't have Rock n Roll.

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Band Breakdown: Lu Buthelezi (Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitar), Stefan Donoghue (Lead Guitar, Keyboard Part-Time), Daniel McDermott (Bass Guitar), Sib Buthelezi (Backing Vocals, Drums & Percussion )

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The story of Apean:

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Apean started with 5 different individuals who loved music and wanted to get involved in the music scene.

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 - Towards the end of 2014, the now lead singer, Lu began being more open about her songwriting, getting involved in many musical projects in school, leading her to getting her nickname: 'The Guitar Girl'. She got some encouragement to take her talent and love for music further from her music teacher, guitar teacher and of course, her friends and family! She had played music for a while, getting her first guitar at 10 and playing a bit of keyboard as well. She had had an interest in singing and songwriting for a long time and had random songs coming to her more and more frequently as time went on. She and her brother come from a musical and singing family, with both parents singing, their maternal grandfather as a music teacher, and music on both sides of the family, so they'd been surrounded by music their whole lives.

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 - The drummer started writing his story as a musician, initially taking guitar lessons with his sister, eventually branching off to the drums, after realising that he enjoyed playing with his bongos much more than playing a string instrument and occasionally playing keyboard in the house. During his first drum lesson, he picked up drums much more naturally and learned very quickly. He then joined the school band in De La Salle College, Churchtown, D14 (called Mustang Salle), where he met and began to work closely with the now bass player of the band, Dan.

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 - Dan had also had a very keen interest in music, with his uncle (a bass player), as his main musical influence, and plays all types of guitars; classical, acoustic, electric, and then eventually bass guitar when he joined the school band. Together, Sib and Dan decided to form a band outside of school before the summer of 2015, while Lu was currently working solo and had had one gig on her own.

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 - Since the two boys were in an all boys school, they decided it would be more interesting to get a female lead singer in the band.

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 - After looking for months they decided to approach Lu, who at the time had advertised for her own band online for a little bit longer than three months and not finding the right fit. However, she decided not to join up with them at that time as she wanted her brother to have his own thing and she was nervous to work with a sibling.

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 - In July 2015, Lu then asked her brother, Sib to join her on stage. After enjoying working with him she then took the offer of being a part of the band that Sib and Dan had been forming.

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- At that time Apean was a 3-piece, nameless band and had found themselves a gig.

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 - But since they decided that they sounded too empty with only one guitar in the band they started looking for another guitarist. And then became a 4-piece band called 3&aBeat.
 
 - They had two gigs together, and by the time they had the second one they decided to go for a name change, changing from 3&aBeat, to Arabian owls (which made no sense to them). They then decided to change to something which made more sense, so they decided to merge their two nationalities (or continents of origin rather), to Apean owls (merging African and European). After a while, they decided to drop the second part of their name, sticking to just Apean as it seemed the most original (kind of...).

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 - Towards the end of 2015, they decided to get a keyboard player into the band. And that's when Sib called is friend Stefan to join the band, who also has a keen interest and background in music, with his grandfather being part of a jazz band, and his cousin, a music producer. Piano was his main interest, however he could play a little bit of guitar as well.

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 - At that point Apean became a 5-piece band. While they were preparing for their first gig as a 5-piece band in a fundraiser in Taylor's Three Rock in Rathfarnham, the main guitarist had to leave the band temporarily due to external commitments.

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 - They then had no choice but to play as a 4-piece band for that gig, with the instrumentation of a guitar, bass, drums and keyboard.

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 - However, they had the same problem again. They just did not like the sound produced from just one guitar, so they encouraged their keyboard player to take up the position of the lead guitarist of the band.

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 - As time passed they were asked to play in De La Salle College (with Lu as the lead singer and Sib as the main backing vocalist) as the school was excited to see the band that their students had formed.

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 - Around May 2016, Lu then searched online for more gigs, and that's when she came across Garageland Ireland.

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 -  They had to progress as a 4-piece band, however, as the original lead guitarist of the band made the decision to not return to the band.

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 -  Apean then had their first gig with Garageland in Workman's bar and club on the 24th of July, 2016, after which Lu encouraged all the boys to try their hand at singing themselves.

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 - They'll be continuing to work with them for the foreseeable future, and will continue writing music together.