Before Fine Print had a name, it had a groove, and that groove will be on display at Spring Sing.

The eight-piece funk and jazz band Fine Print will perform at UCLA’s Spring Sing on May 16 at Royce Hall, debuting an original track written specifically for the competition. Formed a year ago after an impromptu jam session between friends, the group – made almost entirely of global jazz studies students – has since played at venues across Los Angeles and built a following through a mix of covers and original material. The band shares its name with a different band named Fine Print that won Spring Sing in 2015 – though the two groups have no affiliation – a coincidence the band only discovered after applying to the competition, second-year global jazz studies student Timothy Pham said.

“Everyone in the band’s a jazz major except for one of us now, so it’s like our backgrounds and the way we communicate and the way we perceive music is all through this perspective of jazz and Black American music,” Pham said. “When that’s the case, the music can tend to follow this tradition of how songs are made, how tunes are made. … The bottom line is it has to groove, and when our emphasis is that, it makes the music so much more true to its roots.”

Fine Print will perform “Love Bandit,” a brand new funk track featuring original lyrics by Ava Ulloa, a fourth-year global jazz studies student and the band’s vocalist. Pham, the band’s bassist, said the song was built from the rhythm section up, starting with the drum groove and ending with the guitar and piano layered on top before Ulloa was brought in to write the melody and lyrics.

“The writing process was actually really fun and honestly really raw and organic, which is important to us because that’s how we’ve always done things,” Pham said. “We’re very spontaneous and just go with the flow. It started with this drum groove, … and we’re just like, ‘Where can we take this?’ And slowly it’s the bass line, then the guitar line, and slowly it kept building up, and then we had Ava come in one day, … and we let her take it from there.”

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Ulloa said the song’s concept came together after she heard the band go through ideas, mentioning the idea of someone cutting a person out of their life. She said she was drawn to writing something that felt celebratory even while addressing the emotional weight of a toxic relationship. She added that the track’s sound was influenced by Stevie Wonder and a little Michael Jackson, with lyrical inspiration from Ariana Grande’s “bye.”

The band’s pianist, second-year global jazz studies student Ivo Maringouin, said the song incorporates a visual theme built around a cosmic scene, with lyrics relating to outer space. He added that the staging concept pulled from the band Parliament-Funkadelic, led by George Clinton, and its 1970s funk.

For the band’s Spring Sing performance, Maringouin said the strict four-minute limit required the band to trim what would normally be open-ended improvisation into tighter, structured solos. The band’s leader and saxophonist, Eli Silverman, a third-year economics and global jazz studies student, said one standout moment in “Love Bandit” will be a breakdown where the full band drops away, leaving only the brass section to trade improvised lines.

Silverman, who also handles booking, communication and promotion for Fine Print, said the band auditioned for Spring Sing with the same song it will perform – a requirement of the competition. He added that the audition process was somewhat intimidating, given the performance was in front of a large panel of evaluators.

“It’s kind of intimidating going there because they did 30 to 50 bands in just a couple days,” Silverman said. “You go in there, there’s this long table of people and they’re all typing away on their computers and they’re like, ‘All right, we’re ready.’ And after that we didn’t expect to get it.”

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Looking ahead to the performance, Silverman said he is aware funk is not a genre Spring Sing crowds typically encounter, given the prevalence of acapella and pop groups at the school. Ulloa, performing in her final quarter at UCLA and holding her senior recital the week before Spring Sing, said she is less focused on the outcome than on what the performance represents.

“I want them (audience members) to think about music differently, because I feel like right now on the radio we’re hearing the same kind of music,” Ulloa said. “Some of the songs feel a little bit recycled, and the music that we’re doing is very different, but it’s still relevant to pop music today. … I don’t think there’s specific categories. It (the performance) could open that up and make people think.”

With the band’s drummer and Ulloa graduating at the end of the quarter, Maringouin said the performance could possibly mark the end of Fine Print as it currently exists. Nevertheless, he wants to keep writing music for fans and enjoy the good atmosphere, with all the band members being friends. He added that he hopes the audience enjoys the performance.

“I just want them to dance. I want them to have a good time. I want them to like the jazz elements that we put into it,” Maringouin said. “I want them to appreciate the fact that we’re taking solos and improvising, taking a risk. … It’s going to be better than if we were just reading a chart. Oftentimes, those type of gigs are more exciting and more fulfilling for you.”