By Raena Doty
Arts & Features Editor
For resident students, noisy neighbors are no uncommon occurrence - but for students with a love of music, keeping the noise level down in the dorm can be a difficult task, especially when they want to improve on their own abilities.
Such is the case for Brian Rmsis, a junior history major, who loves music - especially metalcore, hardcore, and deathcore, and has been learning to improve his vocals, especially his skills with fry scream, false chord, and guttural sounds.
Rmsis said, in that way, he’s lucky to live in Massachusetts, because he can go to Worcester’s concert venue The Palladium to get his hit of intense music.
His love of music is reflected everywhere in his on-campus living - especially all over the walls. Rmsis said he had so many music posters that he had to take some down in accordance with Residence Life policy that only 75% of a wall can be covered with posters.
“I used to have a fully filled wall that I tore down because, number one, I was bored of it, and number two, it exceeded the wall space capacity,” he said.
He added he doesn’t decorate his room according to any particular aesthetic, but because his main source of decoration is music posters and he tends to listen to music from certain genres that may have similar merchandise designs, the room tends to look very cohesive.
“I’ve had some of my friends call it a ‘hyperfixation room,’ which - I hadn’t thought of it in that way until it was described to me in that way, but I think that is the best way to describe it,” he said.
Even outside of his room decoration, music is a huge part of Rmsis’ life, he said.
“I’ll track my listening time, and it gets to some pretty obscene hours on a daily basis - on a pretty consistent basis as well. And that’s not to toot my own horn or anything because that’s not really something to toot your horn about,” he said.
Since this is Rmsis’ second year on campus, he was able to choose a housing situation that worked for him based on his past experience.
He added during his first year, he lived in Corinne Hall Towers, and he was supposed to get a roommate but was never assigned one, and when he chose his housing selection for the 2023-24 school year, he decided to share a suite with some friends.
Rmsis added he believes people should try to be very open with any roommates or suitemates, as he is with his.
“If we have problems, I talk to them or they talk to me directly,” he said. “I’ll be like, ‘Hey, don’t leave clothes out in the open,’ or they’ll come to me and be like, ‘Hey, can you stop singing in the shower at 7 a.m.?’”