John Lennon bus makes stop at Pocatello High
“Imagine all the people…”
Imagine all the people recording music on a bus.
On Monday, a touring music bus dedicated to the legacy of music icon John Lennon, made a stop at Pocatello High School.
The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus is a $3 million recording studio on wheels.
It’s been around for more than 20 years using Lennon’s music legacy to teach and inspire the next generation of creative minds.
The bus tours the country coast-to-coast ten months of the year, stopping at schools and giving kids the chance to create original songs, music videos, short films, even photography pieces.
Much like the message in Lennons’ song “Imagine,” it’s also part of the bus’ mission to continue Lennon’s goal.
“It’s very important for us to spread John and Yoko’s message of peace and I think, especially now in our world and in this country, the idea and concept of peace is a very important thing to remember,” said Steven Meloney, an engineer on the Lennon bus.
Inside, the bus has it all. It has a video editing suite, an audio recording studio, surround sound speakers, instruments and the latest in audio/visual software.
It even has the only existing replica of the Imagine Peace Tower, which is 8 stories high and has “Imagine” written on it in every language. The real tower is in Reykjavik, Iceland. The bus engineers said that one and only replica was given to them directly by Yoko Ono.
“Honestly I”m kind of jealous of the people that get to record on this bus,” said Kaitlyn Barker, who said her favorite part was the acoustics room.
Hit songs have been recorded on that very bus including Black Eyed Peas hit song, “Let’s Get It Started.”
But the bus itself was its own hit – with the students.
“I thought it was really cool,” described Sulette Ferreyra, another student. “It was a good experience. I think it’s a great opportunity for kids to write songs and plays music.”
“I thought it was cool how they can do separate projects at once and how they have separate rooms that can do different things,” Barker said.
“It was really cool actually because some of the stuff that I actually like to do is the audio recordings and fixing some of that up so just getting the chance to see that, I thought that was really cool and I think it’d be something that’d be fun to do in the future,” said Mark Schaeffer, student.
The bus does travel coast-to-coast and it’s next stop will be Middleton, Idaho then it will head to Salt Lake City.
