Meet four people in Year 10 at Traralgon College who play in a band and do a weekly radio show.

Tori Grace, Jay Doorty, Cameron Brown and Brad Rogan are an acoustic/alternative band with the interesting name Gardens of Arcadia.

“We wanted something called ‘Gardens of…’ and we looked up some cool words and ‘arcadia’ caught our eyes”, says Jay.

“So arcadia basically means: a real or imaginary place that brings peace and happiness. So the name made sense and we were happy with how it sounded.”

Jay says they started out by doing school gigs in Year 8 as a five piece band playing classic rock/pre-metal songs.

“Then some of our members changed schools so we got a new drummer and remained a five piece band.

“Later in 2013 we started playing some gigs outside of school with our teacher, such as the Telstra Business Awards and the Old Gippstown Halloween festival, to name a few.

“But before the end of Year 9 our drummer quit and now we are a four piece band.”

Tori performs lead vocals, Jay is on lead guitar, Cameron plays rhythm guitar and Brad is the bass player. Jay jumps behind the kit when drums are required.

They mostly perform original songs with lyrics written by Tori, and Jay and Cam share the music. They also have a few favourite covers in their repertoire.

One of their songs gets a spin on the radio each week in their show Afternoons in Arcadia. It was developed for the SYN Nation project and produced at the Gippsland FM studios in Morwell.

The show is first aired on SYN Nation at 3pm each Sunday. It’s then played on Gippsland FM 104.7 at 4pm on Thursdays.

The show is a mix of music and conversation about pop culture and current topics of interest to young people.

Jay says they haven’t had any gigs for awhile but they rehearse every week, ready for more later in the year.

He says they’re “keen to learn and create new songs” so if you’re after a band for an event, look for Gardens of Arcadia on Facebook.