This year, Westlake students junior Colton Kincaid and sophomore Marlon Sexton will be playing with their band, The Hunter Sharpe Band, at SXSW, along with members Hunter Pierce and, unsurprisingly, Hunter Sharpe himself.

“We’ve been together for about a year,” Colton said. “It kinda started out with just Hunter [Sharpe] doing his solo stuff, and then he was like ‘Dude, I kind of need a band’, you know? Out of the blue, he texted me and was like ‘Hey Colton, you’re the only good bassist that I know. Wanna be part of a project?’ and I was like ‘Eh, sure.’”

The band will be playing some of their own compositions at SXSW.

“We write originals,” Colton said. “It’s mostly Hunter [Sharpe] who writes all the lyrics, then we show up at practice, he has the lyrics already, someone goes off with a riff, and we build off of that until we have a song.”

This will be the band’s second year at SXSW, and members are eager to be back at the festival.

“I’m so excited to be playing at South by Southwest again,” Colton said. “It was such an incredible experience last year and it’s going to be even more extraordinary this year.”

Anyone wanting to see the Hunter Sharpe Band live can catch them at 4 p.m. March 19 at Whole Foods and at 11 p.m. March 20 at Lamberts.