Dayton Diary: Juicebox

“We should start a band.” 

Everyone whipped their heads toward Megan.

“For real?” asked Kolsti.

“Yeah!” She stood up, excited now. “We’re all learning instruments, let’s learn together, then perform a set in the neighborhood!”

Every kid dreams of playing in a band, but could we actually make that dream a reality?

Equipment was limited: a bass drum, snare and hi-hat; two acoustic guitars, one on the verge of breaking; a bass guitar with no amp; a keyboard with no external speaker. But our first songs came together almost immediately.

Three months of nightly practices later, outfitted with borrowed equipment from family and friends and a visit to a mysterious drum master out in Miamisburg, the band Juicebox (a youthful play on ‘jukebox’) debuted in the 123 Stonemill basement — the same one where it began — to a crowd of friends.

I looked around at my bandmates: Claire on electric guitar, Evan on acoustic, Kolsti on drums, Megan on bass and me at the mic. I felt an indescribable sense of pride for our hard work.

Adrenaline fueled our energetic performance of familiar classics, complete with Capri-Suns passed through the crowd during a tuning break (a safer, cheaper stand-in for the juiceboxes our band name promised). Afterward, nobody really left. People stayed, talked, spilled out onto the porch. That, more than the music, felt like the point, and gives us momentum for future shows.

Illustration by Dan Zettwoch.

A version of this article appears in print in the Summer 2026 University of Dayton Magazine, Page 35. EXPLORE THE ISSUE — MORE ONLINE