Who knew that the people you pass in the hallways and sit next to in class are actually rock stars? Their secret identities were exposed at the school’s annual battle of the bands when they were seen rocking out on stage to some of their favorite songs.

Similar to previous years, West Morris split the battle of the bands into two parts: plugged and unplugged. In doing so, the acoustic acts performed on January 30th and the electric acts performed on March 13th.

The winners of the unplugged show were Bianca Torres and Skyler Vanderlan. They performed a total of three songs: Take Me to Church by Hozier, Landslide by Fleetwood Mac, and Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran.

“Before going on stage I pretended like I wasn’t nervous, this way I tricked myself into believing I wasn’t totally scared. Hopefully people couldn’t see that I was portraying emotions opposite of what I was actually feeling,” says Torres.

After getting through their songs and anxiously awaiting the final results, Bianca and Skylar’s names were announced as the victors of the show, along with Sam Van Alouck and Jackson who came in second and third place. It was a very thrilling and emotional moment for all of them.

“When we found out we won, we were so excited and surprised. This was my first time doing something like this and we were up against a lot of very experienced people, so I could hardly believe it,” Torres humbly admits.

A little under two months after Bianca and Skylar’s victory, Paralysis, a thrash metal group, was crowned the first place winner of the plugged Battle of the Bands show.Coming in second place was Owl Jolson.

Paralysis plays shows about every weekend, so they had a lot of practice and preparation for this performance.

They rocked out to six of their favorite songs: Purge, No Turning Back, To the Grave, Wallow, Tensions, which are all original songs written by the band members, and Trash Hard by DRI.

“I personally couldn’t believe we won. Paralysis isn’t exactly easy listening for most. And it’s crazy to think that we are all sophomores, despite our freshman drummer, Nick Musto. I just couldn’t believe it,” states Rhett Mattson, the band’s lead guitarist.