Rock band ‘Inertia’ sets career into motion as the winner of Battle of the Artists

On Monday, Inertia won Battle of the Artists and will now play at Dillo Day.

Valentina Valcarce, Finian Hazen, and Isabela Camargos

April 29, 2025

The Daily Northwestern · Rock band ‘Inertia’ sets career into motion as the winner of Battle of the Artists

The Daily talks to Northwestern freshman rock band Inertia about their formation, inspiration and ambition following their win at Mayfest Productions’s Battle of the Artists.

ALEX KAHN: I think it’s a great chance for Northwestern students to celebrate the artists who are among them and just enjoy each other’s company and it’s a great way to kick off the start of Dillo season. It’s a great way to get people excited for the festival.

FINIAN HAZEN: That was SESP senior and Mayfest co-Chair Alex Kahn explaining the motivations behind the Battle of the Artists: a competition where student music acts compete for a spot in the Dillo Day lineup.

Traditionally, contestants have competed in one of two categories held on two separate dates: the Battle of the Bands or Battle of the DJs. But this year, both were combined into a single event.

From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Finian Hazen.

ISABELA CAMARGOS: And I’m Isabela Camargos.

This is Sound Source, a podcast about the music scene on campus and beyond.

[music]

FINIAN HAZEN: Last Thursday, Mayfest Productions hosted the Battle of the Artists at PALMHOUSE in Evanston, where over 300 attendees showed up to support seven student acts. Four DJs and three bands competed in the span of four hours in hopes of performing on May 17 at Dillo Day.

After all the sets wrapped, the final decision was left to the audience. Each attendee cast a ballot for who they wanted to hear again at Dillo Day. By popular vote, it was Inertia that walked away with the top prize.

[TUESDAY SOUNDBITE]

FINIAN HAZEN: With Mayfest’s Dillo Day music festival just weeks away, the organization has started announcing billed artists through teasers both on social media and in-person at The Rock.

For many students, like Weinberg senior Nina Georgieva, Dillo Day is a highlight of their years at NU and presents an opportunity to let loose from academics.

NINA GEORGIEVA: I really think that it’s the one time of the year that we come together as a campus. Everyone’s hanging out on Dillo Day and I like that everyone is just, “We’re going to go listen to music and have a good time.”

FINIAN HAZEN: At Thursday’s event, the three bands vying for the top spot were The Deliverables.

[DELIVERABLES INTRO SOUNDBITE]

FINIAN HAZEN: Tuesday.

[TUESDAY CHANT SOUNDBITE]

FINIAN HAZEN: And Inertia.

[INERTIA DRUM BREAK SOUNDBITE]

FINIAN HAZEN: Each band was given a 25 minute time slot to showcase their covers and original songs. McCormick freshman Alberto Najera said he appreciated the eclectic setlists that ranged from The Strokes to Katy Perry to The Killers, showcasing NU musicians’ talent and varied musical influences.

ALBERTO NAJERA: The music scene? I think it’s very diverse. I feel like I’ve started listening to more music since I’ve gotten here, and I’m really glad. I always like listening to new things.

There were a lot of artists here, and I really enjoyed that. I definitely learned about more on campus bands.

ISABELA CAMARGOS: Najera is also a day-one Inertia fan and has attended every one of their performances thus far. He and his friends came out to support the group for their 10:30 p.m. set. Although Inertia was the final artist of the night, Alberto said there was constant high energy in the crowd.

ALBERTO NAJERA: I think they bring a pretty great vibe. There was a huge mosh pit towards the end, and I think that’s the sort of vibes and feelings that you need at Dillo Day, just like a very fun and engaging group of artists.

ISABELA CAMARGOS: But, until Tuesday — two days before The Battle of the Artists — Inertia weren’t even billed to perform. It wasn’t until the band Walter withdrew from the battle that they were offered a slot.

McCormick freshman and Inertia bassist Cameron Crawford said the band got a call from one of the event’s organizers and only had four hours to make the decision.

CAMERON CRAWFORD: It was just like a split second decision that we had to make and we had to really just consider, are we ready for this? Can we prepare for this? Is this our only opportunity? Will we get another opportunity?

And so we had to go through all of those things in a very short amount of time and then just finally make that decision: Okay, let’s just go for it.

FINIAN HAZEN: Even on such short notice, the band said they knew they could count on their fans to show up for them. Weinberg freshman, lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Maya Raman said the band’s close connection with the campus community has been a driving force behind their passion and growth.

MAYA RAMAN: It feels like everywhere we go, no matter where we perform, we always have so many of our friends come out to support us, and it’s just really beautiful to see everyone in the audience singing along to our songs and cheering us on and supporting us. And so I feel like having that support network wherever we go has really motivated us to keep working.

FINIAN HAZEN: During the Fall Quarter of this academic year, Raman and Crawford formed Inertia alongside Communication freshman Kumi Long on lead guitar and SESP freshman Hailey Kim on drums.

Before the quarter started, Long and Raman decided to room together after bonding over their shared interests in music. Around the same time, Kim said she met Crawford and decided to put up an advertisement on Instagram to source potential bandmates.

HAILEY KIM: We had a bunch of people in a group chat and we started doing little jam sessions with each of them. But we had this one jam session and everyone just felt like this is it, like this is a vibe. We all fit together.

FINIAN HAZEN: The Battle of the Artists was the group’s fourth gig, having played shows in and around Northwestern alongside fellow student groups like Static Transmission and Absolutely No Drinks. To differentiate themselves from their peers in the growing NU music scene, the band has explored various sonic and visual aesthetics.

HAILEY KIM: In terms of sound, in the first few stages of our band, we just experimented with a lot of genres, I would say, but I feel like we all had a similar idea of what we wanted the band to sound like.

So we did a lot of indie rock, mostly. We did a little bit of pop rock. I still don’t think we’re quite there yet in terms of having a really solid “our sound,” but I feel like we’re very close to getting there right now.  

And in terms of visuals, I don’t know, we’re all just really interested in things like fashion and just like making ourselves presentable. It’s just a fun part of preparing for gigs just like, “What are we gonna wear? What are we gonna do?” You know? I think it just comes naturally, I guess.

FINIAN HAZEN: After the event concluded, attendees had until midnight to vote for their favorite act. The votes were tallied in Inertia’s favor, Mayfest announced on Monday. On May 17, The Battle of the Artists winner will perform as the opener of Northwestern’s 53rd Dillo Day.

They will play on the same Main Stage as other headliner performers, such as Slow Pulp, Ravyn Lenae and BigXthaPlug. The latter two artists have come from playing the Coachella music festival earlier this month.

Looking even further ahead, Long talks about some of the band’s future ambitions.

KUMI LONG: We have near future plans to record and release some of our originals with the help of some other musicians, so that should be really exciting. But I think long-term, all of us are excited to start playing at bigger venues, maybe get some paid gigs, and really just expand our scope.

ISABELA CAMARGOS: For both performers and attendees, like Communication sophomore Charlie Zucker, this year’s The Battle of the Artists was a resounding success, Zucker said.

CHARLIE ZUCKER: I just thought the energy was wonderful. I think everyone gave the bands back what the bands was giving to us, which was a lot.

[music]

FINIAN HAZEN: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Finian Hazen.

ISABELA CAMARGOS: And I’m Isabela Camargos.

Thanks for listening to another episode of Sound Source. This episode was reported and produced by Finian Hazen, Valentina Valcarce and Isabela Camargos.

FINIAN HAZEN: The Audio Editor is Isabella Jacob. The Multimedia Managing Editors are Anavi Prakash, Misha Manjuran Oberoi and Danny O’Grady. The Editor in Chief is Lily Ogburn.

Our theme music is “Hip Hop Instrumental 2” by Ketsa, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License and provided by the Free Music Archive.

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