Senior Eric King: mild-mannered senior by day, rock god by night. King, along with Eastern Mennonite High School students Benson Hostetter, and Nathaniel and Christopher Oberholtzer makes up the Christian rock band EmptySet.

The band members all share similar musical influences, like the bands Switchfoot, Relient K and Skillet among others.

“We all really like Relient K a lot and how creative they are with their lyrics and musicality, so they’re a big influence on the way we try to play,” Nathaniel Oberholtzer said. EmptySet plays all original songs, written by King and Hostetter with help from Chris Oberholtzer.

“We have like 15 good songs and more that we’re working on. We have some older bad ones too,” King said. In songwriting, the three listed God and girls as major inspiration.

“Making new songs that are better than previous ones is my favorite part,” Hostetter said.

For music, King plays bass guitar, Hostetter plays guitar and keyboard, Chris Oberholtzer plays guitar and Nathaniel Oberholtzer plays drums and sometimes violin and keyboard. All four of them sing.

The band practices at least once a week, all balancing all their other activities can get difficult.

“There’s always other things I need to get done and I usually have a lot of homework. So, I’m usually either cramming it all in before practice or staying up late after to finish whatever it is I have to get done,” Nathaniel Oberholtzer said.

King has experience with balancing everything, since this is his second band. He previously was part of a band called Goodbye Pluto with other HHS students.

“We were freshmen and had fun but we didn’t practice and it wasn’t serious,” King said. EmptySet was started last year, and has since played around eight shows.

“We got paid once, when we played for our youth retreat, but mostly it’s just been basement concerts for our friends,” King said. Earlier this year, the band played at MennoRock for an audience of a couple hundred and this was their biggest show so far.

Because EmptySet has had a lot of playing experience, shows no longer put much pressure on King.

“I used to get really nervous, for the first shows but now it’s just another show,” King said. For Chris Oberholtzer, playing shows is one of his favorite parts of being in the band.

“Being in a band is my dream, I love writing songs and playing shows. I love packing the van full of equipment and driving an hour to play a show in the crowded van,” Oberholtzer said.

The band has plans for more shows and will keep going strong, even though King is graduating and the other members will still be in high school.

“I’m going to EMU so I’ll still be around,” King said. “It’s not like we’re expecting to be famous but I think we’ll stay together.”