The local group calls themselves The Color 8. Their name is now familiar to a number of students since their performance Devilpalooza on Feb. 27, but they perform locally almost weekly, building up their fan base in the Valley.
The Color 8 is an assemblage of six musicians: "Kal" Benion, guitarist Jeremy Smith, bass player Ashton Charles, saxophone player, lyricist and vocalist Emmett Nash, drummer; "LeeWater," lyricist and vocalist and "ClevPro," lyricist and rapper. All bring a distinctive sound to the table.
The group performs at small venues in the Tempe and Phoenix area, along with performances at First Friday in downtown Phoenix for a little over a year. Their sound ranges from hip hop, R&B, reggae, and jazz to punk rock.
Benion brought the band together in 2016 after being a part of various groups with different genres.
“I was out doing all these separate projects, so I was like, 'I want to make a group where I can do whatever I want,'” Benion said.
Benion had Water and Nash over to his house where they began practicing and writing songs.
"I’ve never vibed with anyone like that. It was liberating to be like, let’s just make whatever.”
The Color 8 has gained much of a following in these small-scale performances, but Devilpalooza was their biggest project to date.
“We proved to ourselves we can move any crowd, any amount of people,” Charles said. “There was 10,000 in attendance and I think there was at least 2,000 right in front of us, and we were all vibing together.”
Although the band was able to win their way to the big stage and open for #1 on US Billboard Hot 100 artist, Rae Sremmurd, the band emphasizes their humble, local fame.
“After the ASU show (Devilpalooza) I think people thought we were famous or something,” Nash said. “One girl jumped over the gate while Rae Sremmurd was performing and ran up to us and said ‘oh my god I love you.’ We thought she was running up to Rae Sremmurd.”
The group expressed their interest in doing more events affiliated with ASU in the future.
The band believes they have the ability to connect with every crowd because of the diversity in their music, and that anyone can find a sound they are into with The Color 8.
"No matter who you are, what you look like or what you're into, you can vibe with their music," said Bianca Delgado, a freshman exploratory major at the Downtown Phoenix campus.
The group takes pride in their lack of being able to fall under any certain genre.
The Color 8 views themselves as a local band, but they do see expansion to other states such as California and Nevada in the near future.
“First you gotta have your city and your state behind you, we gotta make sure a lot of people in our state know about us,” Benion said.
With the importance of internet media in the current day and age, The Color 8 is working on taking their music beyond just live performances. The band recently got the green light to start recording their EP, and will soon have their music on Spotify and SoundCloud.
You can see The Color 8 perform at every First Friday at 7 p.m. on Roosevelt and 2nd Street.
They can be found on their Twitter and Instagram.
Reach the reporter at Madeline.R.Johnson@asu.edu or follow @maddierosej on Twitter.
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