Students Gamble on Love at Hearts and Diamonds

The room was abuzz with laughter, the clinking of casino chips, and outbursts of excitement for each new high roller at the Valentine-themed Hearts and Diamonds event.

Preceding the Valentine’s day weekend, Student Life hosted this event that featured casino style gaming, live music, food, and valentine themed beverages and decor. Hearts and Diamonds was a huge success amongst participating students and community members.

Participants moved from table to table at their leisure, playing Craps, Blackjack, and other casino tables for a chance to win Valentine’s prizes. Chips were given to students at the beginning and cost nothing more than an email address.

One of the biggest highlights of the event, however, was the musical performance from ‘X Lovers’, a band based out of Nevada City, Calif. whose sound is a cross between hip-hop, pop, and acoustic genres.

The band, as seen today, started about three years ago. Max Mann, who plays the keyboard, guitar, and vocals, completed the trio at that time, but London Jackson, lead vocalist and guitarist, and Jacob Ames, drummer and vocalist, met when they were about 11 years old through their younger sisters.

Jackson and Ames started playing together with some old instruments that they had, and Max Mann joined a few years later after they had performed together at some local shows.  

The band’s set included some originals such as “Infinity,” “Hearts,” and “You,” but they got the crowd going with a cover of the Rolling Stones song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

“I think it’s good when covers kind of cross generations, so we can do something a little different with them. So if it’s an oldie, we can modernize that with them, and if its a girl singing, we can sing it and make it a little bit different,” Mann said.

The band pools from an array of musical influences from the Rolling Stones to Etta James to Taylor Swift and everywhere in between.

“We just kind of like everything,” Jackson said. “We are just really influenced by it all.”

The band draws their inspiration from “life in general” according to Jackson.

“Being a teenager in today’s world, there’s a lot going on every moment. You know – love, lust and life.”

When the band isn’t playing music, they are playing music.

“To be completely honest, we’re always playing seriously every single day for many many hours. It’s becoming more and more full time. When we’re resting we are still playing music or sleeping.”

“We are always playing music. We are so busy with this that that is kind of our home life,” Jackson explained.

“Playing music always includes a little bit of business stuff so we all meet and work on that kind of stuff as well,” Mann said.

Ames explained that the band draws much of their energy on stage from their fans.

“I would definitely say hearing people play back lyrics to you [is my favorite part] I do sing a little bit, and when we hear the words sung back to us in songs that we haven’t even released yet, people only just hear them in our performances, it’s really special,”  Ames said.

The band just recorded an E.P. at Universal which will come out soon. No specific date was given. Catch an interview with the band and more photos from the event on our website at pcdpinnacle.com.