The Kent Campus Center was alive on Tuesday, Feb. 12 with sounds of Preston Pugmire, a looping musician from Rexburg, Idaho, sponsored by Campus Activities Board [CAB].

Pugmire is a 31-year-old musician who has been playing since he was 15. When he was a kid he “played in several bands, punk bands and rock bands, when I was a kid in Idaho and released a bunch of CDs with bands through high school and in college,” Pugmire said.

However, he has only recently gotten into looping. Looping is a where an artist plays one set of music, such as beats or strums from a guitar, then layers it together in a looping fashion. Pugmire does this live with a foot pedal system that he came up with on his own.

He has took several pieces of standard foot pedals and put them together in one pedal board.

After he found this he also discovered the college touring circuit. He has now been touring colleges full time for the last three years completing 120 to 140 shows a year.

“It’s phenomenal,” Pugmire said.

His style is predominantly “acoustic indie pop” and his music idols are artists such as Ed Sheeran, David Gray, One Republic, Damien Rice and Radiohead.

There is one bit of advice that he wishes all aspiring musicians to keep in mind:

“This might sound cheesy, but 100 percent believe in yourself,” he said. Whatever level of success you actually believe you can achieve, you can.”

Though he has been driving himself all over the country playing shows for three years now, one of his favorite memories is still here in Iowa. He was driving through around this time last year and saw the sign to the Field of Dreams in Dyersville.

“I went and ran the bases and walked into the corn,” he said. I was just thinking oh my gosh, it is a real place.”

He strongly encourages anyone and everyone to find his music, which can be found at www.prestonpugmire.com.

His last bit of advice to the students of Simpson is to never stop singing, because melody is what makes life.