The 529s are taking their campus performances into the studio, marking the next big step in their musical career.
The band released its first studio album “Do The Right Thing” Nov. 21. Starting as a three-person band, named after the founding members’ freshman year Rieber Hall dorm, the now-six-member band has played for audiences across the UCLA community and is beginning to play at venues throughout the Los Angeles area. Third-year cognitive science student and lead singer Kiva Schweig said the group enjoys sharing its love and passion for music with audiences at its live performances.
“There’s a lot of stuff that might be going wrong in the world, but our job is to play music and bring joy through it, and that’s something we enjoy doing,” Schweig said.
After performing at numerous large-scale events on campus and helping organizations raise money by playing gigs last year, The 529s went into the studio intending to capture the vibe that live audiences enjoy, Schweig said. Third-year undeclared student and bassist Addison Chandler said this album focuses on the theme of showing up in the best way possible every day, providing a snapshot of where the band members are currently at in their lives.
Third-year ethnomusicology and geography/environmental studies student Jacob Mayer – the band’s saxophonist – said the album is a compilation of songs The 529s have written and played over the years and always wanted to put together as a project.
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The album features five original songs, including the band’s previously released single “Get Me On The Way.” The 529s performed this track, which speaks to the college experience of moving away from home, at Spring Sing 2025, Mayer said. He added that the record features a new release titled “Deep Blue,” written by guitarist Maxwell Jenkins. Mayer said the first track they recorded for the album, “Do The Right Thing,” felt like a natural title for the record as a whole.
“It was a song that Kiva pulled out of his notebook, and it was about doing the right thing and trying to be as good a person as you can be, and listening to your mother and fun things like that,” Mayer said.
Schweig said the inspiration for the song’s lyrics came from both his mother’s parting words for him on a visit to UCLA – “kill them with kindness” – and an encounter he and Mayer had with a fisherman they met on a trip to Mammoth Mountain, who told them about regretting his past wrongdoings. Both these influences prompted him and the band to write the song the night before they went into the studio to record it.
Chandler said the groovy, funky feel he enjoys from the band’s music is present in the latest release. The band experimented with new elements in their music, Mayer added, including Ghanaian drums, which he and keyboard player Roman Leitz picked up in an Ethnomusicology ensemble class they took together.
Mayer said the band also brought two additional drummers and a mix of bells and other percussion instruments into the studio without a clear plan for how they would fit in at first. He added that when first implementing these new elements, it felt chaotic, but in the end, the roughness of it contributed to the appeal.
[Related: Spring Sing 2025: The 529s changes tune, mixes up original music for its biggest audience yet]
Mayer said the band usually records in the Melnitz Hall recording studio. However, for this latest album, he said he reached out to the School of Music to use the Evelyn & Mo Ostin Music Center recording studio and production resources. The group, Mayer said, was given one date for a four-hour session to collaborate with a producer who had worked with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West. Schweig said this was a unique experience, as it is rare for bands today to live-track in the studio and play at the same time.
“We’re all playing and singing together,” Schweig said. “It’s pretty much a live take of our song, so that’s as close as you can get to capturing it without it being a live show.”
Chandler said it is difficult for the band to coordinate schedules when planning to go into the studio, resulting in many sessions being recorded in someone’s bedroom instead. When they do go into the studio, the time constraints force them to make poignant decisions in a timely manner, he said.
Schweig said the band is starting to become more selective with the gigs they do, citing the greater responsibility in planning college events and the need to conserve the effort that goes into each performance. Beyond the album being released, Schweig added, the band hopes to continue performing at UCLA events and reach greater audiences. Schweig said he plans to hand-deliver CDs of the new album to record labels in hopes of giving them a taste of what the band is all about, the “old-fashioned way.”
“For this band, it’s more college students that you’re bringing together, but that is kind of the goal,” Schweig said. “Just having your friends and making new friends and having people able to witness you doing something that you love to do, because that is what we need more of in the world.”
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