Front-man Jarad Cunningham of Sing Me Insomnia talked about his experiences with the band, singing and playing guitar, while still being a student at University of Virginia. Only a few years older than students at WJ, he also gave a few “words of wisdom” to high-schoolers hoping to pursue a music career.

How did your band get its name?
Our name is kind of a play on words. Insomnia means you can’t sleep and is usually considered to be a bad thing. In our music, though, we want to make songs that keep people awake and get them excited. We want to make people realize that we all waste so much extra time sleeping when we could be dancing.

What bands influence you?
We are all really big Taking Back Sunday fans. Our music doesn’t really sound like them, but we all really love them. We’re also big We the Kings fans, and also take influence from some of our local favorites, like My Favorite Highway, The Downtown Fiction and The Friday Night Boys.

Was there anything, or any teacher, throughout school that encouraged you to work on music?
All of our teachers seemed to support us once we showed them that we were serious about it. Show someone that you are serious about achieving your dreams, and even if they don’t agree with it, they just have to respect it.

Do you have any advice for kids who are in bands?
Keep playing! We have all been in some horrible bands throughout high school. You just have to keep trying with new people and new music until you find who you work with best, and what style you play the best.

What are some of the hardest, and best, parts about being in a band?
It’s hard to balance schoolwork [from college] and band-work, because both are full-time things. So sometimes we have to sacrifice a little bit of one or the other to keep a balance.

What was your favorite (and least favorite) subject in school?
My personal favorite subject was English, because I love to write. I really didn’t like science class though.

If you were not a musician, what would be your dream job?
I really like making movies with my friends, so I guess I would want to be a filmmaker.

What influences you while writing music?
You can’t really give credit to any one thing or person when you talk about writing. There are a lot of things that influence me as a writer, and what a certain song is based on depends on what is going on in my life at the time. A lot of our songs are about relationships, because we’re all at that age where relationships are a big part of our life, but we also really like to write about our dreams and the future.

What is your favorite song to play?
Right now, I think we can all agree that our favorite song to play in our live show is “Tip You With a Kiss,” because it requires so much energy. We usually save it for the end of our show, because by the end of that song, we’ve used all the energy we have left.

Is there any question that you have always wanted to be asked, but nobody has ever asked you?
I’ve always wanted someone to ask me what the best way to eat Lucky Charms is, and I will tell you. You have to eat all of the oats first, and save the marshmallows for last, because that way you have a bowl full of awesomeness at the end of your breakfast.