Celebrating 200 Years
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Consider us friends: Miami band to release first EP

Friends of friends came together to make music at Miami University.
Friends of friends came together to make music at Miami University.

Friend of a Friend (FOF) began just as the name suggests — friends of friends joining together to jam some tunes.

The original four members, Stephen Griffith, ’24, Miles “Griz” Adams, ’25, Michael Moretti, senior marketing student and Cooper Young, senior architecture student, launched the idea of formally playing together in the spring semester of 2023. Griffith, Adams and Young were in the same fraternity, Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE), but different years, and Moretti met Young through a mutual friend on their first year spring break trip.

The boys said they just got to talking and bonded over their love for music. From that point on, they consistently practiced together at the Tau Kappa Epsilon house or in the garage of their Uptown house, Bleü Dream.

In October 2023, the band played their first gig, opening for Thumbtack Mechanics and Under High Street, two successful Miami student bands, at an Interfraternity Council (IFC) tailgate before a home football game.

Moretti credits the tailgate as the reason they became an official band. He says they needed a name to perform, and a friend of theirs (they can’t recall who) suggested Friend of a Friend, because they all knew each other and were somewhat friends.

And so, FOF was born.

fof.png
Friend of a Friend practices in their garage: Bleü Dream.

At the IFC tailgate, the band connected with Ben Cornell, a junior arts management and arts entrepreneurship student, fellow TKE member and their soon-to-be bass player, as Griffith would graduate later that year.

For the rest of the 2023-2024 school year, FOF played fraternity parties and gigs at Oxford bars such as O’Pub, Corner Bar and Brick Street Bar.

In the spring of 2024, Claudia Diaz, a former primary education student, also performed with the band for one semester before she graduated. During her time with the band, Diaz introduced Lydia Long, a now senior political science and social justice student, to the band, because the two girls were both members of The Miami Misfitz, an all-female a cappella group.

Long says becoming a member was simple and quick.

“There’s no need to audition or anything,” Long said regarding the boys. “We’re not that formal. You can just start next semester.”

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During the 2024-2025 school year, Adams, Moretti, Young, Cornell and Long performed together, gaining more and more traction at each show. Crowds at Brick Street went from five people arriving early to stand front row, to crowds of 30 or more arriving early.

Yet again, the band worried about replacing graduating seniors, as Adams would graduate in May.

But fate led then-first-year, now sophomore marketing student, Brody Leach, to walk past the band unloading for a gig in front of the TKE house last April

That night, Leach was leaving a fraternity meeting at his own chapter, Alpha Delta Phi. This meeting was called “passdowns,” where seniors pass down memorabilia to the incoming class. Leach was given an old, beat-up acoustic guitar.

According to Morretti, the band members were actively talking about who would replace Adams, as they still did not want to hold auditions. Moretti and Long said Young tried to convince them that adding a new member would just naturally happen.

Along walked Leach, carrying his newly gifted guitar.

“They were like, ‘Well, what about this guy?’” Leach said, “‘Do you want to come join the band?’”

From that day forward, Leach became another friend of a friend. Members of his fraternity’s class were close with members of Cornell’s class. Cornell invited Leach over to play his guitar, and FOF had a fifth member again.

“We never knew you before that day,” Young said to Leach. “We did have a lot of friends of friends that knew you.”

The current group of five is now composed of Moretti on guitar and as lead male vocalist, Leach also on guitar, Long on keys and as lead female vocalist, Young on the drums and Cornell on bass.

This version of Friend of a Friend has been playing together for 11 months now.

FOF cites The Beatles, Van Halen, The Police, Death Cab for Cutie, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Ella Fitzgerald as inspirations. The band describes their current sound as pop-rock, using rock instruments to play pop music.

Their favorite songs to perform include “Ain’t it Fun” by Paramore, “Dog Days Are Over” by Florence + The Machine, “Kilby Girl” by The Backseat Lovers and “Stay” by Rihanna featuring Mikky Ekko.

Leach said their favorites are songs the crowd interacts with the most.

The success of these five continues to grow. They’ve had multiple shows that put Brick Street Bar at capacity. When they play at fraternities, students are packed body-to-body in the crowd.

In November, Friend of a Friend opened for Congress The Band, a growing indie-rock band with about 200,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

“It was really cool to be asked by Brick Street to open for a band,” Young said.

However, their success does not come without sacrifices. The band practices four days a week and typically performs one to two shows weekly as well. They said it’s stressful balancing the band with school, and they even referred to FOF as a full-time job.

Despite this stress, the good continues to outweigh the bad.

“The reward of performing is so much better than the stress of making time for it,” Long said.

With their increased success, FOF knew it was time to take the next step: releasing original music.

The band is currently recording a five to six-track EP. They’re hoping to release the EP later this spring. FOF also teased the crowd at their latest Brick show by playing their first original song live.

“I feel like we also got to a point where we played so many covers, and we don’t know how much longer we have [together], that it’s a cool thing to have in existence,” Cornell said.

With graduation approaching for Moretti, Young and Long, making their own music together was a must before leaving Oxford.

“I personally don’t think I would feel satisfied leaving this place without producing something that’s of our own talent,” Long said.

The group is still discussing plans to play together after graduation.

When asked what he would miss the most, Young said: “Nothing. It’s never-ending.”

Despite an unclear future, the band is sure that performing together after graduation will not be the same as performing in Oxford.

“Regardless of whether we continue to play again after this or not together, what I would miss the most [about] doing this is here,” Moretti said. “There’s nothing like this town.”

Friend of a Friend said they owe Oxford a lot for their success, along with the bands that came before them, saying Under High Street and Thumbtack Mechanics paved the way for aspiring student musicians.

“It took six years of warming up,” Young said. “[We] stand on the shoulders of giants that come before [us].”

Friend of a Friend also thanked their friends and the same first group of about 50 fans that keeps coming back to support them.

“Thank you for listening is what I would say to the people,” Young said. “We’ll have more noise for you soon.”

robinsza@miamioh.edu

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