“Caroline and Jake” performed in SpringFest last semester. With the beginning of a new semester, Juniors Caroline Nikolaus and Jake Hall performed last Friday as the Dogwoods at Rec Fest in front of a large crowd.

Hall and Nikolaus met in marching band and quickly became friends. At a band retreat Nikolaus asked Hall to play a song she had written for the band talent show.

This music group originally started off as a trio that was made up of Caroline Nikolaus, Jake Hall and Shay Tuttle. Tuttle took off and ended up going back home. This lost to the group broke up the trio. However, Hall and Nikolaus decided they still wanted to pursue musically together and became “Caroline and Jake”.

“I said that we sound good together so we started playing at Monks and some Christmas shows,” Nikolaus said.

Nikolaus studied abroad last fall in Oxford so their group was once again put on hold. When she returned they both decided they wanted to keep playing together.

The group just went by “Caroline and Jake”.

“Besides being insanely busy, we make time to play together because we love it,” Hall said. “It helps that we are great friends, too. We are just kind of becoming more well-known this year.”

Hall and Nikolaus sing a lot of covers as well as some of Nikolaus’s original pieces.

“Caroline is incredibly talented and I am very fortunate to work with her,”   Hall said.

Nikolaus describes their band as simple, kind of folky and acoustic.

“We have a lot of freedom and we bounce off of each other,” she said. “Jake plays drums, banjo and sings. I just play a little piano and sing.”

Hall says he hasn’t gotten around to writing songs but he thinks that he could write song and may write some in the future. He said he usually just learns Nikolaus’ songs and plays them.

Patrick Cason, senior music education major from Dallas, said he’s enjoyed the music of “Caroline and Jake” and was glad they named their group.

“I’ve seen them start out  as fledgling musicians,” Cason said. “It was really awesome seeing their growth as musicians and their growth together and them performing together. Its just inspiring to see how they are able to perform together after such little time working together ” .

“Never before in the history of man have two voices come together and blended so perfectly” said Jordan Sisson, Junior social studies education major. Sisson has watched Hall and Nikolaus play since freshman year and keeps coming back. “What started as hey you can play I can play, you can sing, I can sing, turned into much more. A deeper friendship. Their music draws you in”.

This past Friday they performed at RecFest.

“We had to throw a lot of songs together in not a lot of time, but it was fun,” Hall said. “She is a lot more organized than I am and keeps a list of songs that we can pretty much play at any time and we just kind of threw them together in a couple days and play like a 16 song set. It was a great time.”

The Dogwoods plan on playing shows at Monk’s Coffee Shop on Cypress Street. They are also looking into playing at Mezamiz and Jam Fest.