By Deanna Lee, Staff Writer //

High Point University students Eric Meehan and Mackenzie Fisher, along with Univer- sity of Ohio student Joey Freeland, came together to make an album called “Eb n’ Flow” released earlier this year. It has opened so many other doors for students to do personal creative projects outside of class just out of the love of what they are doing. When asked about where the idea originated from, Meehan said, “People have this ridiculous idea of carpe diem and it seems they get lost in day-to-day things. Slow down and do something worth remembering.”

The name originates from an album Meehan was previously working on before but never finished. “Eb N’ Flow” is an album that expresses different aspects of its central idea and in a sense, paints different parts of the same pic- ture. The name sums up the entire theme of the album saying that time is going to move on with or without you. The album digs down much further than just simply lyrics and melodies. It wraps itself around a central idea.

Meehan is a freshman at HPU this year as a communication major with a focus in electronic media. Al- though he has played music all his life, he started taking it more seriously as a freshmen in high school. His musical inspirations include guitarists Slash of Guns N’ Roses and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, but for this album, he turned to other genres such as blues, jazz, classical and psychedelic rock to formulate the music.

Though several states away, drummer Joey Freeland got involved from working with Meehan on music this previous summer through the internet. Meehan would produce his music using drum samples, put it on websites and one day Freeland messaged him saying that he liked what he was doing and wanted to be involved in it. Since then, the duo has collaborated in making multiple music tracks. Fisher is also a freshmen here at HPU this year. She is a double major in both music and communication who has worked on other recording projects in the past and even has a song on iTunes. However, this is the first project she has worked on at HPU with other students.

Meehan and Fisher met through mutual friend Jordan “Teddy”Dallan and ended up having a music class together this semester. When working on the project, Meehan knew that he wanted a female vocalist due to that fact that he felt it would add more to the concept he was creating and he wanted to try a different melodic range. When it came to this project with Meehan and Freeland, she was more than happy to contribute vocally.

Nearly all her life, Fisher has been involved with music, so this was a perfect opportunity to explore further into a love that started when she was young. Meehan and Fisher took about four or five hours one day to go over lyrics and musical concepts.

As with any project, there were complications. On Meehan’s end, it was everything from writing the lyrics, to the production of the actual CDs. This required him to block out the world for about a week in his dorm to write out the concepts in his head. He didn’t want to write anything really obvious, anything really expected of him to write. When it came to recording, Meehan set up his single dorm into a small recording studio where he produces and mixes all of his music. The closets serve as booths to isolate the instruments and the vocals.

Freeland’s biggest obstacle was just the distance. Since he is farther away, he had to listen to the track Meehan had sent him and add his own piece to the music through the drums and send it back. Fisher’s only complication was that she did not want to ruin the vision in which Meehan had for the album, but the two clicked musically, creating the memorable six track album.

When you step back and look at “Eb N’ Flow” as a whole, it is an album created by students with a shared love for music coming together. It was not an assignment in their class, but a side project that took hours upon hours to create and it was in their free time which gives it the depth that many albums seem to lack nowadays.

As far as any future albums, Meehan says there is perhaps one in the future, but for now he wants to take a breath from making another album to give more time for the creative process. Fisher expressed that she would be than happy to work with Freeland and Meehan again which lets us know that their music making days are far from over.

The entire “Eb N’ Flow” album is available on YouTube along with other videos Meehan has posted in relation to his music. If you love original music and want to hear an album that contains a deeper meaning beyond its lyrics, I heavily recommend listening to this album and I am look- ing forward to many more accomplishments from Fisher, Freeland, and Meehan in the future.