The five young musicians from the band Sequoyah Prep School piled in a van and rode the open highway to America’s Music City. “We spent $30,000 of our own money to record an entire album in Nashville that was scratched. We just didn’t want to play the songs anymore,” explains lead vocalist, Justin Osborne. Something about the environment in Nashville just wasn’t conducive to the band’s sound, so despite the dedication and money they put into it, Osborne, Harrison Boyd, West Jones, Jordan Hicks and Johnnie Matthews trashed their Nashville-made album and returned to their real musical homeland, The Holy City.
     Osborne is originally from the small town of Pudding Swamp, S.C., but after experiencing life on the road, it wasn’t Pudding Swamp he returned to. “We toured until you hit desert. All of the eastern half of the country. After touring, I didn’t really have a home. But Charleston felt like home,” Osborne says. It’s where all of Sequoyah’s members believe their music thrives.
     “Charleston is a perfect atmosphere for writing and playing music,” Osborne says. It isn’t a cutthroat competition kind of city. Instead of battling each other for the big producer or the big venue, Charleston’s musicians want to share resources. “Half the people in our band are in others, too,” he points out. “Charleston allows for a community to grow and live off each other. I can’t think of anywhere else I’ve been—and I mean even Dallas or Nashville—with so much camaraderie.”
     Osborne and his band had a taste of those big-name producers, and it wasn’t as sweet as they’d hoped for. Sequoyah Prep School was with Atlantic records for a while, but they chose to leave the mammoth record label, home of Jason Mraz, Bruno Mars and Wiz Khalifa, to continue recording individually on what Osborne calls their “fake” label, “Heavy Records.” “The reason music in Charleston is so novel is because you don’t have big producers. You can sit in a storage unit with your buddies and just play. You can drink if you want, you can have a cigarette if you want, you can even get high if you feel like it. Producers feel like parents sometimes,” says Osborne. “There is a more natural recording process in Charleston.”
     It’s also their favorite place to perform. Osborne compared playing in Charleston to playing at his own house. “We play for friends—they’re all here. Something about Charleston has a home environment,” he says.
     It doesn’t take long to realize that bands here have a sound that can only be described as “Charleston.” Sequoyah Prep School’s sound changed dramatically from its first released album, We Said Hello…, to its last, Spells. Its bluesy, folk sound was noticeably different than the innocent pop songs from Sequoyah’s beginnings. Osborne can’t help but laugh when reflecting on why their sound transformed so much. “A lot went into that change. We grew up, changed and got a little wilder,” he says.
     The band’s lyrics and sound weren’t the only things that changed—Sequoyah Prep School embraced an entirely new image by dropping “Prep School” from their name. “We knew we were a different band,” says Osborne, “and we wanted to reflect that in the name change, and in our music.”
     He and his bandmates recently decided to end their Sequoyah Prep School storybook, but they’re far from their closing chapter. Osborne, Sequoyah drummer Harrison Boyd, guitarist Jordan Hicks and other talented friends started a new project called SUSTO. “The people who have heard our music already really like it,” says Osborne. The band’s sound, he adds, is “natural, a mix of old Sequoyah and new Sequoyah.”
     SUSTO’s members are ready to show what they can do—and push each other to discover more. But one thing doesn’t change for Osborne: “It’s still about relationships. It’s still about love. But the way you see and describe relationships is different at 26 than at 16,” he explains.
     Heartbreak and new love will always be a theme, but the band’s sound and feel will no doubt keep evolving right along with the city. Osborne thinks there’s a lot more to come for Charleston’s music scene thanks to groups like Band of Horses, the Lumineers and Fun. “I think it’ll be like what Athens, Ga., was in the ’90s, but hopefully it won’t die out like Athens did,” he says. Osborne’s happy he’s here now—while the music is still thriving but not boiling out of control. “It’ll bubble and be taken advantage of eventually,” he predicts.
     That thought, however, doesn’t stop him from smiling as bright as the Chucktown sun in August. “Charleston is my favorite city in the country,” he says, “and I’ve been to most of them.”