Written by Jackson Edwards

Music has been the center of my life for as long as I can remember. I was raised on the classics like The Beatles, Metallica, Eagles and Zeppelin as well as contemporary rockers like The Killers, Arctic Monkeys, Arcade Fire and Interpol. Eventually, I sought out on my own to develop my music taste, but I have always been into music. I started my own band in July 2022 with a couple of other Harding students — Beckham King, Jacob Ash, Kyle Jetton and Ian Daughety. Zashed is still going strong, and I’ve loved every gig we have played.

We tried to play a couple of Searcy gigs per year, but surprisingly, Searcy makes it pretty hard to have an established music scene. Searcy doesn’t even have its own venue — in my opinion, that has got to change. It would be so cool to have a single designated spot where all the different concerts could happen. Some of my local friends here are starting their own bands right now with Through Blood, Current Solace, By Mourning and Homer. It would be great if there was a place where they could set up gigs for Friday and Saturday nights. There is Citizen’s Park, but the city does not make renting it out an easy task at all. On top of this, Harding doesn’t make it very easy to set up campus shows either. There are the occasional Campus Life events or Midnight Oil shows, but there is not really a place for a wired, electric kind of show. There isn’t a designated home for louder music on campus. Creating a space for different avenues of musical expression would give lots of students a place to hang out and see cool music on the weekends. Neighboring cities like Fayetteville, Conway and even Jonesboro have bustling music scenes in their college towns. I wish Searcy could have the same.

Little Rock quickly became my go-to city to see music. Vino’s Pizzeria has become like my second home. I can see a really good show with touring bands for $12-$15 any day of the week. Being able to make this happen in my hometown would be really awesome. There is so much space to create and build in the Searcy community, and this would be a perfect outlet to make it happen. I aspire to see Searcy take off creatively in the musical sense like these other college towns, and I believe it would create a very open and positive environment to connect the Harding students that enjoy live music to the concert-going locals. I don’t know if this is something that could ever happen, but I am always looking for ways to make it happen.

Having the ability to rent out a space and rip shows there with all of my friends would certainly make me and others enjoy staying in town on the weekends instead of trekking off to Little Rock to catch whatever shows they have going on. I’m just a wishful thinking college student, so what do I know? I just want to see expressive creativity thrive in my hometown.