“Guys, who wants to start a band?”
Coppell High School senior Taylor Pham texted her youth group chat last November. The first to respond were her childhood friends: Annee Nguyen and Renner Ly.
The rest is history.
Pham became the lead singer, Nguyen the drummer and sub-vocalist and Ly the guitarist. Bringing all of their separate skill sets and passion together, Sat2Sun was born.
“At first we just kind of started it for fun, but then we realized that this could be something,” Pham said. “It wasn’t even that good in our opinion, but we just posted for the fun of it and we didn’t expect it. It was kind of crazy.”
Ly was convinced they would forget about the band after two weeks.
However, four days after their first official practice and seven TikTok videos later, they blew up. Their top video, a cover of “Sailor Song” by Gigi Perez, sits at 1.2 million views on the app.
”We just had a love for music and we wanted to share it with the world,” Nguyen said.
Even though one of the band’s running jokes is that they love clout chasing and making videos to get famous on TikTok, Sat2Sun goes beyond that. Practicing and performing together allows them to make more memories together even while they live far apart. Pham lives in Coppell, Nguyen in Arlington and Ly in Mansfield.
The group all met as kids, attending the same Buddhist temple, Phap Quang Temple, every Saturday and Sunday. Growing up together, they see each other as more of a family than a friend group.
”I see these people as many times as I see my family,” Ly said. “It’s a very supportive bunch.”
This is reflected in their practice environment; a small room at Pham’s home with blue hazy lighting where the band practices harmonizing together, gets distracted by conversations and films their covers.
Their childhood friend and supporter, junior Tivo Platt, has watched the group grow behind the scenes.
“I’ve known them since I was really little, so it’s cool watching them do this,” Platt said.
Since the band started, Sat2Sun has posted 24 different covers and had one live performance at their temple during Lunar New Year.
“We weren’t going to do it unless all three of us were down for it,” Pham said. “There’s a lot of things that come with performing live. In the end, it was OK.”
One big part about the band that the members enjoy is engaging with their audience. They enjoy reading through their TikTok comments and getting a good laugh from fans. They have even been recognized in public.
“There were these kids that came up to us, ‘excuse me, can we take a photo with you guys? We recognize you,” Pham said. “We never got the photo, but it was still, ‘oh my God, we’re your biggest fans.’”
Inside jokes and a shared passion for making music together has given Pham, Nguyen and Ly a new way to bond.
“With the three of us, there’s always a lot of things that we can talk about that maybe the other kids don’t get, because we have our own time together,” Pham said. “It’s just a lot of fun.”
Follow Elizabeth (@LizzieDeSanti_) and @CHSCampusNews on X.
