This December, if you found yourself at The Independent, a music venue in San Francisco, you would have seen Tamalpais High School students, middle-aged adults, people dressed in gothic attire, and many more among the crowd during the Midrift concert.
Midrift is a growing band led by Tam senior Gus Mehrkam. The band has amassed 28,000 followers on Instagram and 1.4 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Midrift released their first Extended Play (EP) in 2022 called “Midrift” which has hit songs like “Twin Flames” (their most popular record) and “Machina.” The songs have over 44 million plays combined.
“Gus is nice, charismatic, and passionate about his schoolwork. He is always at the library studying. It’s really cool to see how successful he is academically and professionally,” Tam senior Finnegan McGrane said.
Mehrkam is the lead singer and guitarist in the band, which just finished their east coast tour. The band is composed of three members, Mehrkam and siblings Kai and Manoa Neukermans. Kai, 20, and Manoa, 16, have known Mehrkam for nearly a decade. The three met at the Proof Lab Skate and Surf Shop in downtown Mill Valley while skating and taking instrument lessons together.
“I love them, they have a really funny dynamic cuz they are brothers, you would think they would always take each other’s side but they don’t. It’s honestly like we are all cousins at this point because we have known each other for so long,” Mehrkam said.
Midrift initially was just Mehrkam. The now 18-year-old produced his songs by himself and posted clips of his songs paired with aesthetic visuals on the social media app TikTok.
“I made five songs and then just uploaded them online [to music streaming services]. At that point I had no monthly listeners, and then I was like ‘oh yeah I gotta get the word out.’ Then I started taking photos on hikes and of just surrounding nature, and I took those photos to TikTok slideshows with my songs three times a day,” Mehrkam said.
After posting his music on TikTok, Mehrkam started to amass a large following, hitting 200,000 monthly listeners on Spotify by October 2023.
Though Mehrkam is now the face of a famous band, you can still find him playing hackysack or cracking jokes around the student center. The senior is not only an unserious and hilarious person, but also a dedicated student.
“It’s worth it, getting on stage and talking to people from other places with similar interests and love for music, and I started singing a lot more,” Mehrkam said. ◆
