The Collective, a competitive all-state music writing group, has accepted three students from Rockwood. Seniors Micah Bounds and Kyle Dean made the Collective.

“[The Collective is] an all-state ensemble similar to the all-state band and all-state orchestra except it’s designed for more modern styles of music. So guitar playing, bass playing, drum playing, songwriting, and producing,” Bounds said.

For their audition, Bounds and Dean had to submit two online recordings of tracks they made.

“One recording is just of something I made myself, so I submitted one of the singles I released earlier this year. [For the second] they gave a chord progression and we had to build a track around that,” Bounds said.

Bounds’ experience in music writing helped him be prepared to audition for the Collective.

“I’ve been writing and recording music for five years. I write music almost every day and every once and a while, if there’s an idea I really like, I’ll go into my studio that I’ve built up over the years and record my ideas until I have a finished track. I’ve been learning and I’ve had the privilege of having great mentors that have been helping me through the process,” Bounds said.

For inspiration, Dean turns to his influences in music to inspire his songs.

“Listening to music constantly I’d say is the biggest [inspiration for me to write music]. [I listen to] a lot of John Mayer, Muse [and] to some Frank Sinatra. I have a certain style but I feel like a lot of that is picked up from [them], especially from John Mayer [and his] acoustics,” Dean said. “Whenever I make a song it starts with a riff usually on the guitar but whether I sit down at the piano or the guitar or something I just play one riff and then my brain explodes and starts.”

Dean heard about him making it into the Collective from Bounds over text and immediately went to tell his parents the news.

“To see them have this place where they can take all this skill they have with songwriting and collaborate with kids from all over the state of Missouri to create this music is really exciting,” music teacher Traci Bolton said.

Bolton was one of the driving forces behind the creation of The Collective and was very excited to see Dean, who has taken her classes for three and a half years, and Bounds, who has been active in the music department, make it into the group.

“I came on board because I love songwriting and we do it in the rock band and in guitar class,” Bolton said. “I’m always about creating original music and so we came together to put this proposal for an all-state honor group that focuses on songwriting.”