Worst Impressions is a local rock band recently featured in the second season of The Daily Iowan’s video concert series, Headliners. Band members Garret Hinson, Kiley Peterson, Carson Lorenz, Colton Schwartz, and Shane Schwartz sat down with the DI after their performance for a Q&A.  

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Daily Iowan: How did your band form?

Kiley Peterson: I feel like we all started making music individually and differently, but the band formed because me and Garrett were in a different band previously, Part Time Vegan.

Garret Hinson: I had scheduled a show at Reunion for Part Time Vegan in February of 2023 and Part Time Vegan broke up on New Year’s Eve that year. So I really wanted to play at Reunion because it’s a brand new place and really wanted to still get in there, and I thought I can like find people to make it work because Kiley and I had maybe half the songs in Part Time Vegan and we had a whole bunch of originals that we’ve never been able to perform in Part Time Vegan. So Colton had filled in for our last show as bassist at Part Time Vegan because the basis for that band was out of town. And I asked Colton if he wanted to be part of this new project thinking originally he’s going to play bass and he showed up at the first practice with a bass, but with the bass came Shane, and then Colton brought his guitar and then we had a different drummer at first, but Carson actually ended up subbing in our first ever show at the Battle of Bands in 2023. And so then we knew Carson, and when it came time, Carson stepped up and now these are our drummers.

Carson Lorenz: I’m also a drummer for Critical Mass by the way, gotta plug Critical Mass.

What have your career highlights been so far as the band?

Hinson: I’m considering our start date, kind of the Battle of the Bands last year, that was our first show. And since then, we have played at Capital City Pride in Des Moines. We open for Blacktop Mojo, Austin Meade, Flamingos in the Tree, Radkey and Drowning Pool, so pretty big touring bands

Peterson: We put our EP out.

Hinson: And we were nominated for Rock Band of the Year by the Iowa Music Awards. And then we most recently just won the 2024 summer camp Battle in Bands. So it’s been a pretty fun year.

How would you describe your sound?

Lorenz: It’s a mixing pot.

Peterson: We definitely all bring our own elements to it.

Hinson: We’re a little blues rock, a little bit punk, a little bit indie, a little bit metal.

Lorenz: I’m a metalcore drummer, so I bring my double pedal and make it fit.

Are there any particular bands or artists that inspired that sound?

Hinson: For me the biggest two inspirations are probably from like broad spectrum, Queens of the Stone Age and Highly Suspect just because they have such a wide variety of music, and it shows that they can’t really be pigeonholed into one genre.

What’s your experience been in the Iowa City community scene overall?

Peterson: So fun. I met most of everybody at Gabe’s, like open mics and stuff. I feel like the Iowa City music scene is awesome right now.

Lorenz: I moved here two and a half years ago from Sioux City, which is not an art city whatsoever. So an artist growing up in a factory city wasn’t the best, but then I moved here not expecting much and then I went to the IMU Battle of the Bands, and that’s where I met my other band, Critical Mass and then that all kind of led to all this stuff. And it’s really, really good and refreshing.

Hinson: There’s like a lot of people, there’s anywhere from probably 50 to 100 active bands around and they’re all really good, but the one thing I would say is it’s not well known.

Peterson: I grew up here and I didn’t join the music scene until a few years ago. I’ve always done music, I just didn’t know it existed for a while.

What’s your favorite part of performing?

Peterson: The energy, I just like having fun with the people that I care about.

Hinson: It’s an excuse to get my friends to come out.

Colton Schwartz: It’s always something to look forward to throughout the week when we know we’ve got a show coming up. And then for me, it’s the performance but then as much it’s the afterwards, the high fives and smiles and stuff like that, it’s one thing I really look forward to.

Shane Schwartz: I really enjoy the chemistry of the more that you give as a performer, and the more the audience reciprocates that. That’s my favorite feeling in the world.

What do you hope to share with your audience when you perform?

Shane Schwartz: A lot of the times the venues that we play, it’s hard to get a high quality audio experience, so I feel like people are going to remember how we made them feel more than they’re going to remember, ‘Oh, I love the lyrical twist of that’ or ‘I love that certain riff’ because often we can have an unfortunate sound experience, but the conglomerate of how we made you feel.

Hinson: Yeah, having fun on stage and then seeing the audience having fun is like the best thing ever.

Peterson: The energy transfer is cool.

What’s the future look like for your band?

Hinson: We have a lot of shows coming up. Eventually, we’re going to do a whole debut album, but kind of taking our time with that.

Shane Schwartz: Maybe looking at some regional short tours for the summer and fall.

Lorenz: And Soul Shine, that’s what we get into for winning Battle of the Bands. That’s coming up in May.