Forbes High School has hosted Sydney based band Loretta for a special performance in the lead up to VANFEST.
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Loretta is Ellis Hoare (vocals), Max Jacobs (guitar) and Nico Scali (keys and guitar), with drummer Daryl Chin lending his talents to Loretta along with a few other bands.
Loretta formed when the guys were studying at The Australian Institute of Music, and Hoare said it's progressed from being that "weird little band" that at first just played covers.
So far, the group has released 10 singles, with their debut single, Come Over, racking up more than 1.4 million downloads.
Their debut EP is due out later this year and the band will be potentially playing some of the songs from the EP at VANFEST.
The band's Max Jacobs said they will be writing as much as they can and see which songs stand out as feature acts.
They will be returning to Forbes in April play in mini-VANFEST as well, which will be the band's debut outside festival.
Loretta's Ellis said one of the reasons they came out to Forbes High on Wednesday was to get people excited for VANFEST.
Max agreed that it was also to give people the confidence that the event is going ahead.
The band are excited to get out on stage at VANFEST and give it their all, and looking forward to the opportunity to play.
While this may be their first outdoor festival, the band have recently come off their headline tour in Sydney, having just recently played a headline show at the Oxford Arts Factory.
Looking back to the formation of the band, Max and the band's drummer Nico, have been playing solo and together in bands since around the age of 13, mostly hard rock and 80s music.
They met up with Ellis in high school who used to play a regular gig in Surrey Hills at Blacksmiths.
Max said he'd show up and Ellis would have an extra guitar waiting for him to jump in and play, usually on the third set.
After a while, they began to do covers and called themselves A Band, as they hadn't settled on a name.
At some point, Ellis brought a demo of the first song he was going to put out as a solo artist to Max who jumped on board to help add to it.
They have moved from a hard rock sound to more indie pop, leaning more to the pop side.
Ellis said it's really fund and great to write good music with the boys and have a good time.
"We definitely incorporate some of our love of our past influences in the live shows. We rock it up a bunch and fresh out a bit, but definitely poppier than when we started out," Max said.
Among some of the other artists they have been listening to recently and they have some inspiration from include The 1975, Love, Jeremy Zucker, Amy Winehouse, Mike Mckewon, Talking Heads, Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys.
Mini-VANFEST is set to take Forbes by storm on April 9, while the traditional two-day VANFEST will return in December.
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