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RM chats with the Raleigh band post-show.
Anyone can be in a college band. But not anyone can keep it pushing past the days of house show bookings and “Valerie” covers. When Harvey Street kicked off five years ago at an NC State frat party, they played with an array of members and barely had a band name. But it didn’t matter—fans still hold great stake in grainy Snapchat videos and memories of that first performance.
Now, post-grad, Harvey Street has performed relentlessly across the U.S., headlining four tours and opening for indie and alt-country frontrunners like Futurebirds, Flipturn, Winyah and The Stews.
“Our current booking agent reached out to us in late ’23, early ’24 and asked ‘hey, you guys wanna book a tour?’” says drummer Josh Burgess of their post-college career. While the first round of shows—particularly the performances further away from Oak City—were “really, really rough,” the band maintains it’s the only way to cut your teeth in the music industry.
“Sometimes you are only playing to ten people, but what made us realize it’s going to work for us is when those ten people started enjoying themselves,” adds guitarist Jackson Reed. “It’s hard to win over an empty room, so when you start doing that, it’s a good sign good things are coming.”
Harvey Street is all over the map in more ways than one. The band finds musical influences and idols everywhere, including in each other: “I wake up every day and try to be more like [vocalist] Jerome,” jokes Reed—but the allure of Peach Pit’s sound seems to drown out the rest.
Sonically, the Vancouver indie-rock band’s influence is already evident in Harvey Street’s guitar work, and vocalist and guitarist Jerome Bermudez maintains he’s trying to lean more into Peach Pit’s songwriting style—detailing strangely specific events invoking largely relatable emotions. “That’s something I am trying this time around with new songs,” Bermudez notes. “How can I be more specific, yet still general enough?”
Continuing in their usual style, the fivesome is unwaveringly hitting the road again across the Southeast after a quick Raleigh pit stop for a Live After 5 performance at Moore Square—finishing out the year with a final hometown(esque) show at Cat’s Cradle Dec. 3. But regardless of where they go, it’s clear Raleigh rides hard for Harvey Street.
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