Donna Collins
If you are looking for a chilled, laid back instrumental set, then two high school boys, who formed the band Pluvious, are making impressive inroads onto the live music scene and are dreaming big.
In fact, the future looks very bright for the young Swakopmund acoustic duo that has been playing the local circuit for the past three years, in between their studies. With their easy going, polished instrumental repertoire, which offers relaxing background sounds for any occasion, Pluvious are starting to become noticed and more sought after. The lads are Dean White on his Ibanez, and Jonathan Ulrich on a Fender guitar, who first met through a music teacher at school, and have been playing the coffee shop, hotel and pub circuit ever since.
With Dean playing mostly rhythm and Jonathan on lead, their blend of modern pop songs, and some old time classics, sets a melodious tone enjoyed by young and old. “Music is a personal connection to us, and we are hoping to get as much experience and exposure as we can,” they say, adding that they aim to expand their performances and do more shows. With around 40 songs on their play list, Pluvious can keep you entertained for a couple of hours. The boys are still on a small amp system for the intimate gig settings and even do complete unplugged performances filling a room with a pure guitar performance.
“We wanted to find a name for the band that was both interesting and relatable,” they reply regarding the origin of the names with Dean, adding, “Pluvious means rain lover, and as we know all Namibians love the rain, we felt this name connected well to all people of this land”. Dean further goes on because they perform without a singer at this stage, this limitation if you want to call it that encourages them to be more creative with their guitar playing techniques, which indeed they are.
Finishing school at the end of this year both, their biggest dream would be to play gigs in South Africa and Europe if they get the chance.
“We don’t have any big projects lined up this year, but will continue performing at our regular venues, and have even written some original songs, which we would like to record for an EP,” they says.
“A recording will come later once we get more serious about which direction we are going in, and when Pluvious develops into a bigger persona with more concert value, and not just background music.”
Both boys say they would love to make music their career, but have no interest in going to any Music College, or studying music through a university. Although Dean holds a Grade 8 Trinity College drumming diploma, finishing school at the end of this year is going to present challenges for these two serious musicians, who want to fulfil their dream of expanding onto bigger stages, and are also up for being pulled in as session musicians. Nevertheless, if the music career does not take these two talents to places they want to go, plan B would include Jonathan studying medicine and Dean turning to web designing.
Meanwhile, they still have big dreams to follow, and are young, budding performers in a country, which is going to offer them a lot of scope and a great platform upon which to grow.