Teachers in a Band?
April 5, 2023
From left to right: Cody Gonterman, Brandon Bond, Jeff Johnson, Natalie Palomo. Not pictured is “Sasquatch” (his nickname since he prefers to be anonymous) from Vancouver who Thündersleet collaborate with. (picture provided by Officer Bond)
Officer Bond, Fair Grove’s School Resource Officer, started a band called Thündersleet during 2020, inspired by bands doing online collaborations during COVID.
Even though Bond started the band, he does not play any of the instruments, but instead is the songwriter and lead singer. Natalie Palomo, Fair Grove’s Band teacher, is a part of the band and plays the drums. Bond commented, “The only teacher that is in Thündersleet is Mrs. Palomo. She has written a couple of the songs and provides percussion and keyboard on some of the tracks. The other members are personal friends.”
When Palomo was asked to join Thündersleet she was more than happy to. She explained, “I am always down for a good time with a band, so when I was asked to help make a ‘fake but real’ rock band, I had to say yes.”
When they first started the band they did virtual collaborations with other musicians. Since they have only met up virtually, other than in the recording studio, they haven’t been able to perform live yet. Bond explained, “Our songs began as virtual collaborations with other musicians, including one in Vancouver.”
He added, “Even our local members are spread out and busy with life. One day we hope to get everyone together at the same time.”
The idea of the band’s name came to Bond one day when he was watching the local news. It was winter, and Fair Grove was having the phenomenon of “thundersleet.” This is a type of thunderstorm, but with ice. Bond commented, “I thought it was a really cool word and that it would make a good band name.”
He added, “I put the umlauts (the two dots over the “u”) in honor of bands like Spın̈al Tap and Mötley Crüe who used them to make their band names look cooler.” He said that the band Spın̈al Tap was a big inspiration for his own band.
Thündersleet has only been virtual; they record and release the songs on Spotify, a popular music app, along with other music platforms. They currently have 855 monthly listeners. “On Spotify (as of March 8th) our top streaming countries are The United States, Italy, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and Switzerland. The top city for streaming is currently Dallas, Texas,” added Bond.