As the lead singer of the band Local Notes, Natalie Mack has played at almost every venue on the island, singing covers of classic rock, country and blues songs to dancing crowds. But before Local Notes frequented The Gaslight, The Rose and Crown and Cisco Brewers, the band was content to play together in her family’s garage. Mack is one of a handful of young island musicians who got their start in middle school and high school, honing their skills at the Nantucket Community Music Center and performing shows across the island. What they all have in common is a desire to play music starting from a young age, the guts to put themselves out there in a relatively small community, and a great deal of talent.

“The funny thing is, we never really sat down and were like ‘All right, what do we need to do to start playing at these places, make money and get recognized?’” said Mack, who studies theater education and musical theater at the University of New Hampshire. “We just loved what we were doing and kept practicing for fun on the weekends. We would play in my garage for hours and hours.” Those garage sessions included Aidan Sullivan on electric guitar, Hunter Gross on keyboards, Jerry Mack—Natalie’s father—on drums, Jason Sullivan—Aidan’s father—playing bass and occasionally Gabe Zinser on rhythm guitar and mandolin.

“My dad played drums throughout high school. We needed a drummer, and he stepped in to help us out,” Natalie Mack said. “He’s ended up staying on as our drummer, because it’s just turned into something so special.” Soon, Local Notes started playing small gigs like dinner parties. At one event, Mack said, the manager of Cisco Brewers approached the band and asked them to perform there, which the band has done for the past three years.

During any given performance, you’re guaranteed to see Local Notes perform a 10-minute long Queen mash-up, which blends parts of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Radio Ga Ga” and “Don’t Stop Me Now.” “People want to dance and hear certain songs,” Mack said. “They want to have fun. We want to have fun.”

The moment came for drummer Colin Harrington in 2019, when he was still a student at Nantucket High School. Island reggae band Foggy Roots needed a drummer, and after hearing Harrington play, they called him up to the big leagues, playing drums in front of a crowd at Cisco Brewers and The Gaslight. “Having people come out and see me, it’s surreal,” he said. “It’s so fun to play music to people and with people who are excited to hear what I have to put out there.”

Six years after that first gig, Harrington has made a name for himself on Nantucket. His home on stage is behind the drumkit, where he’s playing most weeks for any number of bands. Now 24, he has earned his spot drumming for Foggy Roots, as well as country twang band Buckle & Shake—two groups that consistently keep him on his toes as a drummer, requiring him to flip-flop between genres as disparate as reggae and country. Harrington is quick to say he has an appreciation for all genres of music, though as a metalhead at heart, it’s not quite the music he was always expecting to play.

"When I first joined Foggy Roots, I spent a goodyear getting the style under my belt because it’s very unorthodox, especially ska drumming, which is so different from how you think about playing a drum set,” he said. “I like playing a lot of things now, and the more I practiced the harder the music got to be. It had to be more challenging for me to keep going.”