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Riverview Knows How To Rock

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By SCOTT PURKS Tribune correspondent

Published: October 5, 2007

TAMPA - OK, so who sounds like an old man?

Will Lively: 'Please, would somebody learn how to play an instrument? I'm sick and tired of all this mumblin' and grumblin' with these rhymes over old rock tunes. How many times are they just going to copy something and call it their own? Where's the talent? I don't care what anybody says, music took a dive after the mid-1980s.'

Austin Stamey: 'There's a reason everybody is going back to older rock 'n' roll. It's because that music is better than most of the stuff that comes out today.'

John Davis: 'I was thinking Linkin Park or somebody newer like that.'

For the record, Lively is a 17-year-old senior, Stamey is a 14-year-old freshman and Davis is the 38-year-old music director at Riverview High School.

'Yeah, but Mr. Davis still knows how to ROCK!' Lively said. 'A lot of these older teachers seem to get into their little worlds of teaching and forget how to rock. But not Mr. Davis. He rocks.'

Perhaps the better perspective is that Mr. Davis allows his students to rock.

Here's the thing: This summer, Davis decided to incorporate electric guitars into the Riverview marching band program. He started by plucking Lively from the chorus (where he played guitar), and sophomore Casey Gray and freshman Michele Bradshaw from the orchestra (where they played cellos and other string instruments). Deeper down the hallways, Davis found Stamey (a set drummer) and senior James Harper (a guitarist).

A month or so later, there they were at a football game - The Riverview High Rock Band - standing on the track in front of thousands playing the music of their choosing: hard rock from the 1970s and '80s.

Loudly.

Skillfully.

To raucous applause.

The rules, in the end, are simple. No playing when either school's marching band is playing, and no playing while Riverview's offense has the ball.

'Other than that,' Lively said. 'We're rockin.' '

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