Band Spotlight: Citrisity

When a band gets along as well as the members of Citrisity do, it’s hard not to see that reflected in their music. 

“I think it shows. I mean, even outside of rehearsal, we’re always hanging out together,” Roger Frank said. “It’s to the point where we’re referred to as ‘The Band’ when we show up a function.” 

The members of Citrisity met in college as music students and had played in various school ensembles together. About seven or eight years ago, they were hired to perform at the Credit Union’s annual meeting gig. After that, they had their first show at Slacker’s, added a few more members, and the rest is history. 

Molly Royals, Trey Litwiller, Aldous Ulvog, Tyler Beck, Taylor Johnson, and Roger Frank were founding members of the band. More members have come and gone over the years, and their newest lineup includes Tab DeVoss and John Bortnem. 

“I call it pure animal magnetism how I got in,” Bortnem said. 

According to his bandmates, though, Bortnem filled in when Beck had to step away from the group for about a year. When Beck was able to rejoin the group, they liked the sound that two guitars brought to the band and decided to roll with it. 

“We played in band and orchestra, but jazz was the one we had the most fun in.” Aldous Ulvog, band member

DeVoss started out as a substitute vocalist for the group. When their last lead vocalist moved away, DeVoss was a natural addition. 

“It’s like she’s been to every show, and she knows all the songs, and she’s been to every show as an audience member,” Royals said. 

Back row: Molly Royals, John Bortnem, Trey Litwiller, Roger Frank, and Tyler Beck. Front row: Taylor Johnson, Tab DeVoss, and Aldous Ulvog.

Citrisity brings a little bit of everything to the table when it comes to their sound. Funk, pop, rock, and “music you can dance to” are the building blocks of their music. Many of their songs take a turn into jazz fusion. Royals said that having multiple horn players helped expand the kind of music that they could play. 

“This kind of goes back to the roots of us as jazz students,” Frank said. “The jazz combos were where we really kind of like, cut our teeth.” 

“We do a lot of cover songs and kind of turn them into our own style,” Ulvog said. “A lot of it is like jazz fusion, because we do take it to strange places sometimes.” 

“We played in band and orchestra, but jazz was the one we had the most fun in,” Ulvog said. 

When choosing songs to cover, the group takes a few factors into consideration. Picking songs that everyone enjoys playing is an important factor, of course, but they also consider songs that their audience will have fun with as well. 

Saxophonist Molly Royals performing at the Downtown Summer Concert Series last year. Photo by Troy McQuillen.

“A lot of the covers we started with seven, eight years ago, it was more what we wanted without the thought of the audience. But it worked out, though, and that helped us stand out immediately,” Beck said. “One of the times we played Centennial Village before the Barstool Prophets, one of our breaks we were going in to grab a shady quick, and we were told by the bartenders, like, ‘People keep asking me who you guys are and where you’re from,’ so I thought that was very flattering. I thought that was the coolest thing, and now that we’ve been doing it longer, we have a little more consideration for popular tunes while sticking to our roots.” 

They also consider each particular venue when deciding their set list for a show. 

“When we play a show at the Arboretum or something, we want to please the crowd, but it’s not like playing at a bar. Last summer, we had people really grooving to a Miles Davis tune that probably no one even knew was a Miles Davis tune,” Royals said. 

Now that they’ve exposed the masses to Miles Davis, the members of the band have started to focus more on the technical elements they’d like to develop. 

“We always want to find a balance to make sure we feature the horns, and some songs are piano heavy, and Tab’s our lead singer, but we have a nice, well-rounded vocal line between her and Trey and Tyler and John. So we try to make sure that’s featured too,” said Frank. 

“There’s a lot of fun things that you can bring out vocally, just having that many vocalists to begin with. I like the way our voices mesh together on that end,” Litwiller said. 

“Having more than one vocalist just makes a band sound huge,” Royals said. “It really helps us put out a really intricate sound.” 

“If we want to be pretentious, we would call it robust,” Litwiller said. 

“We can really just get weird with it and play whatever we want.” – Roger Frank, band member

As the main songwriters, Beck and Ulvog bring their own influences to their original pieces. 

“My baseline for music is kind of a mix of rock and heavy metal styles,” Beck said. “For us, the weirder, the better.” 

“It’s an eight-person band, and all of us have pretty eclectic music tastes, so you get a little bit of everything in there influence-wise,” said Frank. “With the horn line and with our keyboardist as well, that’s a unique kind of element in our band is having all of this, so really, the sky’s the limit.” 

Since forming the band, Citrisity has performed in South Dakota and North Dakota, primarily at regional fairs and in the local bar circuit. They’ve also performed at many outdoor events, including Aberdeen’s Summer Concert Series.

“Pauer Sound brought out this huge sound system and I don’t think we’ve ever been that loud before,” Royals said. 

“It was nice to play in front of Aberdeen, but an Aberdeen we hadn’t played in front of before,” Ulvog said. “We’ve played in front of the bar crowd plenty of times, but not at 7:00 PM downtown.” 

“It felt like we had proven ourselves a little bit,” Bortnem said. 

Citrisity has also played at Centennial Village during the Brown County Fair, which has always been a highlight, and the band has enjoyed their performances at the Kuhnert Arboretum as well. 

Citrisity performed at the Downtown Summer Concert Series last year. Photo by Troy McQuillen.

“The arboretum’s fun because people come out with their kids just to have fun and enjoy a night out in the summertime. We can really just get weird with it and play whatever we want. Take them on a little trip, I guess,” Frank said. 

“It’s really fun to see how much the arboretum series has grown as an event too in the community,” Litwiller said. “Every time we’ve been there, there’s been more people.” 

“They should put a bathroom out there, maybe,” Bortnem added.

Most shows end up being a good time, but some of their most satisfying performances have come after overcoming hardships. 

“I’ve enjoyed, at least in retrospect, a lot of the gigs that end up having really frustrating aspects to them,” Litwiller said. “Just because it’s more fun to suffer with a group of your friends, I suppose. Like the Pauer of Sound fest that we played two summers ago where it was 95 degrees. It was a really, really fun gig.” 

“Everyone came out and suffered in the heat with us,” Royals said. 

Citrisity has also started performing at weddings. Those shows have been a unique experience on their own. 

“Seeing the work in each other paying off, it’s a really warm feeling.” – Trey Litwiller, band member

“There’s always a lot of audience participation,” Johnson said. 

“That’s one of the benefits of how many songs we have on the roster,” Bortnem said. “We can cater to that a little bit. We have so many songs to choose from.” 

“We try to make sure every show has a different setlist, or at least a good chunk of it, anyway,” Frank said. 

“We have some songs that are in heavy rotation, but sometimes we have to swap them out,” Frank said. Sometimes the swaps are to keep things fresh, and sometimes they’re just to prevent a certain song from becoming a chore to perform.

“It’s always tragic when that happens to a crowd favorite,” Litwiller said. 

Citrisity at the Pauer of Sound concert. Photo by Troy McQuillen.

Some of their most iconic crowd favorites are their mashup of “Superstition” and “Play That Funky Music”. “Valeire” has also become a staple song. And of course, it isn’t truly a Citrisity performance if they don’t include “Funky Town”. 

Between their covers and original songs, Ctirisity has kept themselves busy with their music. Their goal this year is to perform more shows, keep writing music they’re happy with, and record some more songs. Currently, they have an EP’s worth of songs, but they’d like to get a full album’s length ready soon. They also want to share their music with more people. 

“As far as highlights for me, or the best moments, is like the payoff of a song we were working really hard on or maybe we were struggling with or, you know, we had to put extra time into it, and it goes really well live,” DeVoss said. “It’s a ton of hard work. This is the first musical group I’ve ever been a part of, but a lot of people don’t understand the time that we put in when we rehearse. Just because we do a lot of Aberdeen shows doesn’t mean we just play the same songs all the time. We want to add stuff and we want to do well for Aberdeen or whatever audience we’re playing for.”

“A comment we get a lot is that we play very tight, like we play like we really know what the other is doing or something like that. And part of it is because we’ve been playing for a long time, but part of that is, like Tab said, we work really hard,” Royals said. “We rehearse twice a week, two hours each time. I feel like sometimes people think we’re just having fun up there, but there’s a lot of work that goes into it.” 

“There are so many cool aspects to doing this, but I think one of my favorites is taking moments to reflect and seeing how far each of us have come as musicians,” Litwiller said. “Seeing the work in each other paying off, it’s a really warm feeling.” 

“The evolution of Citrisity is the evolution of each of us,” Beck said. “We’ve come a long way.” //