JESUIT PERSPECTIVES • SPRING 2020 35
Gil ’12,
Sullivan ’13 on
the Electronic
Scene
The fast-paced club genre of house music was created in Chicago in the 1980s and soon
became a worldwide phenomenon. Manic house scenes and trend-setting artists have
quickly developed in the house and electronic industries, as their music is played and streamed
Kenny Gil ’12
If you attended Jesuit in 2012,
you may remember Kenny
as the bass player in
hardcore punk rock band
Reveal Renew, which also
featured John Looz ’11.
The band performed at local
venues like The Ritz Ybor and
The Orpheum, but during the
summers of 2011 and 2012, it
toured across the Southeast.
“We were playing non-stop, and we were doing two or three
shows a weekend, every weekend, throughout Florida,” Gil said.
“And we did many week-and-a-half, two-week runs up the east
coast.”
During this time Gil also began working as a sound engineer,
recording with artists from around Tampa Bay. Shortly after he
graduated from Jesuit, he became a full-time sound engineer and
opened Pig Pen Recordings.
Gil worked with a lot of heavy metal bands as well as pop punk,
indie rock, and hip hop artists, and he eventually gravitated
toward house music. European artists like Chocolate Puma and
Gorgon City inspired him to begin making house music of his own.
“I really love the sound coming out of London,” Gil said. “That’s
really been most of my inspiration.”
his legal name) in 2015, and he shut down Pig Pen after three years
to shift his musical focus toward his own work.
Gil has released music on a consistent basis on Spotify, Sound-
Cloud, and Beatport, a platform where artists, commonly DJs,
buy and sell songs. A track he released in October, “Like That,” is
currently his most popular single on Spotify with almost 800,000
Gil is beginning to bolster his streaming stats in places such as
returned to The Ritz Ybor as a DJ, in addition to playing sets at EDC
Orlando and Miami Music Week.
“I always read about making money off of (music),” Gil said, “and
never believed it until the last returns came from ‘Like That,’ and I
Collin Sullivan ’13
As a sophomore at Jesuit,
found electronic music.
Deadmau5 was reaching
his peak, having just
released the LP 4x4=12. Intrigued,
Sullivan purchased
his own equipment.
Audio Workstation, and it
came with this controller,”
he said. “I just started
learning it and messing
around.”
Sullivan taught himself to
use the DAW by replicating
artists such as Deadmau5.
After playing around for a
couple of years, he grew
creating.
“I was kind-of like a nerd
and had a technical mind
anyways, (and electronic
that,” Sullivan said. “It was
more of a programming
thing from the way I saw it.”
Galactic Cruise, in 2013, a
synthesized, 1980s-sounding
record sprinkled with
house elements, then
changed his style to a
slightly darker club techno.
Labels began reaching out
to him during his freshman
year at Oral Roberts
University, and he gained
enough recognition to play
shows in New York City
and Miami Music Week. He
began working with international
electronic labels
and started releasing music
under the name Terrestrial
Access Network. His top
platforms are Beatport and
SoundCloud, where he is
most popular in Russia and
Germany.
“I kind-of veered away
from making techno,”
he said. “I’m focused on
making tracks that people
could casually listen to, but
at same time (play live) if
someone wanted.”
His next project is launching
a record label called
Optical Illusions within the
next few months.
“I think back to when I
was like 18,” Sullivan said.
“You don't know people
and you don't know who
to send (music) to, but over
time I've learned some
good lessons.”
Gil at The Kennedy in Tampa
→ Drummer Patrick Alexander ’12 has played in the indie pop band
Wallysburg since after college. The band released a single called
“The Grey” in February.
→ Violinist Brent Taghap ’12 lives in Chicago and performs for two orchestras,
the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and Unsupervised, a conductor-less
orchestra. He has played alongside Nicholas Kraemer and Yo-Yo Ma.
→ Vocalist Sebastian Botero ’14 graduated from Northwestern in 2019
with degrees in Voice and Opera and in Economics. He works in Chicago
as a research analyst for CDI Global.
→ Electronic musician Jensen Diaz ’15 makes music under the name DJ
JD. In March he played an event at Tangra Nightclub in Ybor City.
→ Pianist Joshua Hamilton ’16 attends Loyola University New
Orleans, where he majors in Music Industry Studies. In addition
to playing piano, Hamilton plays bass guitar in the band of
singer/songwriter Xeno Moonflower and has performed at the
New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
→ Multi-instrumentalist Jordan Vivero ’18 attends Belmont
University in Nashville. He plays guitar and keyboard in his
band, Inkblot, which was formed during his time at Jesuit.
→ Percussionist Freddie Brinson ’19 was awarded a scholarship to
attend Florida A&M by the Voices of Jazz, a band from Dunedin,
and is pursuing a Jazz minor at FAMU.