Written by Tabitha Redder
One rising junior in the Honors College lives a busy, prolific double life as a musician.
West Meyers, junior in accounting and finance, performs at Potbelly Sandwich Shop in Euless, Texas, on November 30, 2018.
Photo by Tabitha Redder
West Meyers majors in both accounting and finance, and while his dedication to academics is apparent in his on-campus roles in the College of Business Goolsby Leadership Academy and competitive director for the Esports club, his passion for music is apparent when he raves about blues.
“I thought about majoring in music when I got here, but I just feel like the kind of music I play comes entirely from the soul,” he said about choosing his academic path. “You can learn about that without taking classes for it.”
Meyers said he pursues business because it interests him, but ideally, he’d have a career in music.
“I decided to go for business because I think it’s a very practical degree. I think it’s something that will help me, and it’s still something I’m interested in. I decided to say, ‘I’ll just do music outside of class,’ and that’s worked out very well for me,” he said. “I’ve thought about ways to maybe do business with recording studios or record labels, and that would be an interest of mine, for sure.”
For now, he studies during the week. Then, he jets to a music gig every Friday after class where he plays original pieces and covers musicians he admires, most of whom are all decades older than him. He scored a gig playing live music at a restaurant chain during the lunch rush, one in Southlake and another in Euless.
“A couple of my original songs are straight blues. Some of them are blues rock and some of them don’t have ties to blues at all. I love playing people like Stevie Ray Vaughn, Albert King – B.B. King is great as well – artists like them. Fats Domino, even,” Meyers said. “He’s kind of considered rock-and-roll, but I think old rock-and-roll and blues go hand-in-hand, so I love playing that kind of music. It’s my favorite.”
Meyers’ musical talents are expansive but said his instrument of choice is guitar. He plays six-string electric guitar and dabbles in acoustic and bass. He also plays drums and a bit of piano, and of course, he sings.
“I haven’t gotten very far with piano,” he said with a laugh. “If I ever get the time, I’d love to continue exploring that, so I’m still a beginner at piano.”
His passion was surely curated by his early life in a music-filled household.
“My oldest brother loved Bob Dylan and this band called Ride, which is almost a psychedelic-rock-shoegaze kind of band. My middle brother loved the Beatles and music like that; Classic rock. My dad loved blues and classic rock as well,” he said of his early music influences. “I grew up listening to that, and I took to it.”
He reminisced about one particular Christmas in which his parents surprised all three brothers with gifts that would birth Meyers’ passion for music.
“I may have been younger than the first grade, and my brothers were older than me, so they got full size guitars while I got a smaller, beginner’s acoustic guitar.”
From there, his mother urged him to play his first public performance at his third-grade talent show. He said he wasn’t too focused on guitar until middle school, though, when he discovered John Mayer.
“Early John Mayer is a lot of pop stuff, but he started playing blues about 2005. I started listening to that,” Meyers said. “Things he plays on the guitar are incredible, and I really connected with the songs he wrote around that time.”
He said he forced himself to learn Mayer’s songs, and his skills improved because the material was challenging.
“That’s when I started taking music more seriously, learning songs that were more difficult and finding songs that not just my brothers or my dad listen to but things I listened to, and I listened to more than they did because it was stuff I could connect to and relate to,” he said.
Years later, he’s no stranger to public performances, and he appreciates his weekly lunchtime gigs.
“It’s cool sometimes to go out and play for people who are not there to hear you, and are not there to even – most of them don’t even know the restaurant has live music – So it’s very refreshing to go in there and play for people who have no idea who you are and honestly don’t care about what you’re playing,” he gushed. “Every now and then, they’ll drop a dollar or two in your tip jar and say, ‘This is fantastic! You’re really talented, and you made my lunch hour so much better,’ things like that. It’s really great to hear that, and of course, to just take a moment and relieve some stress, to do what you enjoy doing for two hours, which is exactly what I’m doing when I play.”
In college, many students are stressed, and Meyers is perhaps juggling more than most.
“I look at it in the sense that I’m getting a lot of cool experiences, I’m learning a lot and I’m challenging myself,” he said. “When I get into the professional world as a business graduate, I’ll have experience in high stress situations. I have experience with the more rigorous workload.”
However, he said sometimes class, extracurricular activities and music do feel overwhelming at times, but he can manage.
“I think the important thing to realize is if you’re doing something you enjoy, and you have the time for it, and you’re not so stressed out that you can’t handle it, then I think it helps you to take on that much. Especially at our age where we can handle all of it, I guess. We won’t be able to do that forever,” he said. “I do take on a lot, and it does get hard, but if now is not the time to take on that challenge, then there is no time to face that challenge. I welcome it, and I actually enjoy taking on that responsibility.”
He joined the Honors College as a freshman, and appreciates what it has offered him throughout college, including the rigorous course load.
“I figured it was going to be the thing that helped me stand out when I graduated, and now I have a few things that will help me do that. It was just another opportunity I wanted to take and make the most of,” he said. “Now, I think it will be a good addition. It’s not the only thing I’m doing, but it’s still a very important thing that I see helping me in the future.”
Looking ahead, he plans to record original music with a little help.
“This guy walked into the shop while I was playing one day. His name is Chris Thompson, he’s the drummer of the Eli Young Band, which is a very popular country band. I’ve been in contact with him,” Meyer said, his excitement almost tangible.
Meyers said Thompson saw his talent and urged him to record, but his workload this semester hasn’t allowed it to happen just yet.
“Whenever I finish, he’s going to try to take me under his wing and see what the recordings sound like and get them worked on and things like that,” Meyers said. “I don’t think I needed the music degree, although the more time you spend exploring music and the more time you spend expanding on it, it definitely makes you a better musician and gives you new perspectives to explore your music with. I think that I’m writing stuff that people are enjoying.”