The Situations promise a modern boy band with a twist.

The Situations is a five-piece band that sits at a genre-blending intersection of its bandmates’ respective musical journeys. While its name is new to the Spring Sing stage, four of its members – Chet Breister, Ryan Estes, Matty Gottesman and Max Wright – have entered the competition in years past. James Harris, its fifth member, will make his Spring Sing debut with the band May 16 in Royce Hall. All but one of The Situations’ members is a graduating senior, with the exception of Estes, who graduated from UCLA last year. For their first and only Spring Sing performance as The Situations, the band will perform its debut single, “Situationsh!t.” Wright cited One Direction and 5 Seconds of Summer as influences and said The Situations add an extra element to create its signature sound.

“There’s a big gap in the music industry right now in terms of boy bands that also play instruments,” the fourth-year communication student said. “We wanted to fill that space.”

The Situations’ inception draws inspiration from another boy band, The Runarounds. Wright said he watched the indie rock band’s Amazon Prime series at an on-campus event with Gottesman and fourth-year business economics student Harris. Together, the trio decided they should emulate The Runaround’s multivocalist approach to indie music during their senior year of college, he added. Wright added that what differentiates The Situations, however, is their decision to infuse indie rock into a modern boy band approach.

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Though they’ve been able to develop a friendship through their endeavors in UCLA’s music scene, Breister said the members first met several years ago through the music mentorship club SLAM! at UCLA. Since then, The Situations members have overlapped in several bands throughout their college tenure, including Max Wright & The Wrongs and Matty Gottesman. Its members have also been involved with other campus bands, such as Evergreen and Debutante or, in the case of Breister, the a capella group On That Note.

“What’s better than being in a band with your best friends?” Gottesman said.

Together, the bandmates have developed themselves as multi-instrumentalists, which fourth-year musicology student Breister said has also become a core tenet of The Situations’ identity. Their shared expertise includes rhythm guitar, bass, drums and keyboard. In terms of genre, fourth-year communication student Gottesman said he writes and produces country music and shares a pop background with Wright. He added that Wright also has experience with R&B, Harris and Estes come from an indie space and Breister pulls from rock.

Each of the members is also a vocalist with the exception of Harris. This enables The Situations to create three- and four-part harmonies, which Gottesman said is a performance element he’s never had access to in his former bands. Estes said the use of harmonies is rare in the indie-pop-adjacent space the band hopes to operate within. Breister said the ability to mesh one another’s voices allows the band to achieve a distinct musical texture. In essence, the sum is greater than its parts.

“The aspect of harmonies basically encompasses all of us,” Estes said. “It encapsulates who we are as a band. We’re all friends, we’re brothers at this point, even. It’s just great that we can do this all together and sing every part together. It feels like every part of the song includes all of us.”

Wright said the ability to create these harmonies is a pivotal aspect of their Spring Sing performance. After the “Situationsh!t” bridge, he said the song breaks down to Gottesman’s vocals on the keyboard during its emotional climax. From there, he added, Wright joins in with some riffs before it coalesces into three-part harmony.

The song itself is a play on words of ‘situationship,’ which Breister said lyrically pokes at the uncertainty of a budding relationship while set to an energetic sound. He added that this song was written with a college-aged audience in mind. The band has already performed “Situationsh!t” for the campus community at annual traditions such as Coastalong and Dance Marathon. It was also included in their set for their musical guest appearance at Westwood Night Live. In anticipation of Spring Sing, The Situations plan to officially release the debut single on streaming services the day prior.

Because of the high caliber of talent among the acts, Wright said the key to success at Spring Sing is audience engagement rather than musical perfection. Regardless of the venue’s size, Harris said the band prioritizes delivering high-energy performances the audience can feel. The Situations’ approach to gigs is to rehearse as if they are at the performance itself, which Wright said includes running through ad-libs that hype up the crowd. Estes echoed this sentiment.

“It’s not about being the most musically gifted,” Estes said. “It’s about not hitting all the notes correctly. It’s about connecting with the audience, really connecting with the judges and really connecting with the band itself.”

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This year Spring Sing will return to Royce Hall after taking place at the Los Angeles Tennis Center for the entirety of The Situations’ college tenure. Though the band views getting a Spring Sing performance spot as a win in and of itself, Wright said the band is aiming for the victory. While he would’ve loved the stadium-like experience of LATC, Wright said the shift to Royce Hall makes the event feel more intimate and exclusive – which can be nerve-inducing. He added, however, that nervousness is an important part of any performance. Having performed at LATC last year, Gottesman said he’s grateful to experience both Spring Sing venues.

“A couple of weeks after that, Max and I are going to graduate in Royce,” Gottesman said. “For me and for all of us, it’s just an amazing bookend to our four years at UCLA. (It’s) a really emotional moment to be able to be up there with our best friends and playing a song that we wrote. … It’s going to be a really incredible full circle moment for this journey.”