"We're not trying to get rich through this," Pitt says. "We are more likely to go buy beer."

While members say that they now perform for a number of different reasons, all agree that they are addicted to the stage.

"I love performing in front of people," says Aaron J. Snow '93, co-lead singer of The Press. "Having people dance and cheer to a song you wrote is a great feeling."

Jessica D. Thompson '93, the lead singer for Spanking Venus, agreed that singing to a live audience is a rush.

"It's really fun to perform," Thompson says. "To get up and do what you love to do, that's just a buzz."

And some say music is their way of escaping the stress of academic life here. "It is definitely a release," Thompson says. "Singing for me is the biggest outlet of all."

For others, perhaps, there's always the allure of hitting it big.

"I would love to be like Mick Jagger," says Olliver P. Strauch '93-'94 of Betty Please. "Man, he's 50 years old and he's still playing."

Most students, though, say they had very little experience playing in bands before coming to college.

"None of us had ever played the instruments we were playing," says Demay. "My roommate had a guitar and he taught me a few things, the power chords. He's my mentor."

Other bands began completely by chance.

Leif T. Simonson '93, bassist for Goat Boy, says a student who lived across the hall from him was jamming with two of his friends.

"It was in the very early stages of freshman week and I decided that I could play as well as these guys," he says. "So I picked up a bass guitar and started to play with them."

Ever since their modest beginnings, though, many of Harvard's bands have had a little taste of stardom--and they have the groupies to prove it.

Most fans are friends or acquaintances of members. But a few band members recall being approached by complete strangers.