Ciara Carroll, the drummer

Rock, indie, alternative, jazz, pop, sophomore Ciara Carroll can play it all. 

Carroll is actively involved in the music department at LFHS and beyond. Within the school, Carroll participates in the band program with percussion and is the sophomore representative for band leadership. Her love for music transcends just percussion instruments; however, and she is also an active singer and member of the Bel Cantos holiday choir at LFHS. 

Aside from the classical side of music presented at LFHS, Carroll further demonstrates her love for music with the rock and alternative rock bands she is in including Verdant.

Verdant consists of four sophomore boys (Adler Hermann, Robert Medica, Jack Taylor, and Tim London) along with Carroll. Carroll is the sole girl and plays the drums for them. Carroll has played the drums for Verdant in the LFHS Talent Show along with the CROYA Battle of the Bands that took place over the summer.

“Verdant formed pretty early into freshman year. I became friends with Adler through School of Rock. He told me he had a temporary band situation, and that he needed a drummer. I said I would do it as a joke. But, then we actually became a band since then,” said Carroll.

Carroll’s involvement in bands does not stop at just Verdant. Carroll is also a drummer for a band called Demiromantic and a newly formed band with three other girls. At the moment, Carroll is involved with a total of three rock bands.

“For Demiromantic, it’s Sheila Falls, Sydney Rubinstein, and I. We’re all friends so I thought it’d be fun to start a band. I made a groupchat with them and we began coming up with names. We started practicing last year, and worked towards performing at the Talent Show,” said Carroll.

The goal for both bands was to perform at the Talent Show, but the bands have since performed at the CROYA Battle of the Bands. At the Battle of the Bands, Carroll and her fiery red hair were on stage for the majority of the performances as she performed three times throughout the night. 

“[My sister] Fiona and I played with Sylvia Kollasch for Battle of the Bands. We’re not an official band,” said Carroll, “but if Sylvia ever needs anyone to perform with her, we’re always more than willing.” 

While the drums and percussion are Carroll’s main instrument of choice, she also plays a variety of other instruments including the bass, guitar, keyboard, and she sings as well. 

“For all three of the bands I play drums and sing backup vocals. At School of Rock, I try to play all of the instruments I can because they have other drummers that can play the drums instead,” said Carroll. “Recently, I’ve been playing the bass and keys too.” 

Carroll has been an active member of School of Rock since the 8th grade, when she wanted to pursue music again. When Carroll was around six years old, she first began School of Rock with her sister Fiona. 

“My parents were signing up Fiona and I for music lessons and asked us what we wanted to do. I chose the drums because my parents always compare me to Animal from the Muppets, because he also has a lot of red hair,” said Carroll.

Carroll stopped being as actively involved in music in middle school because of the lack of music programs. 

“I was discouraged from doing music. But in the 8th grade, I wanted to do drums again so I had my mom sign me up again for School of Rock,” said Carroll.

Since the 8th grade, Carroll has been rocking out behind the drum set with her fiery red hair on display for all of her audiences to see. Her love for music can be seen from afar especially due to her involvement in School of Rock, the LFHS Music Department, her three rock bands, taking AP Music Theory as a sophomore, and from her even being the CROYA Music Chair.

“I went to a few of the meetings last year and Casey Hippel really helped me get involved in CROYA and he told me about running for the music chair position since a lot of people involved in music at CROYA had graduated,” said Carroll.

For the future, Carroll hopes to pursue a career in music in any way that she can, especially if she can major in music business management or musical performance. Her passion for music is apparent for anyone that meets her, and like her parents once compared her to: Ciara Carroll truly embodies Animal from the Muppets when she’s playing the drums.