To Seniors drummer Ezra Jarvis and guitarist Omar Moreno, “hihello” is more than a greeting, but the start of a year full of late night rehearsals and hangouts. The two students met through a mutual love for the alternative rock and “shoegaze” genre. What began as Moreno’s small conversations about starting a band and writing music as a guitarist, soon turned into the search for a drummer with as much passion as he does for this fresh start. 

As the band started to develop, so did their friendship. What they didn’t know about starting a band from scratch would be the many hours spent in garages that would slowly turn into hangouts with a side of jam-sessions. “At first, it was just a concept, a small idea,” Moreno explained, “I’ve always wanted to be in a band, and then I heard the name ‘hihello’ from one of my friends, and I really liked it, so I took it.” The challenges of starting a band such as coordinating schedules, booking shows, buying equipment, and working through creative disagreements forced them to communicate clearly to work through these setbacks. 

“Over the course of the time that we’ve been playing in my garage, we’ve definitely become closer not only as bandmates, but as friends. I would consider hihello to be pivotal in my life,” Jarvis stated. 

After playing their first show in September 2025, they realized that they had made it further than they had expected. After about a year of rehearsals and practices, the two began

their search for a bassist. As of January 2026, they decided that freshman Tadeo “Nacho” Guerrero was the right bassist for hihello. “[The search for a bassist] was difficult,” Jarvis explained, “a lot of the people that played bass were either in hardcore bands or were in punk bands that made them super busy, or didn’t make the type of music that we make.”

Compared to his other bands such as The Degenerates he finds that hihello has “a whole different sound,” compared to the hardcore essence that he is more accustomed to. “I like the difference in energy, it’s softer and not as in your face, but [the energy] is still present,” said Guerrero. 

With inspiration from popular artists such as Modern Color, Title Fight, and Panchiko, and other hardcore or alternative student bands at Cypress like Snout, Shrine, and Again and Again, hihello incorporates the elements and styles from each of the bands, and experiments with different rhythms and tunings that turns those small elements into what makes a hihello song, a hihello song.

With their first release on the way, hihello is becoming a band that you can not miss.