For those searching for activities to do with your college children that are actually fun and somewhat wholesome, take note. Student indie-rock band Out of Orbit is the love child of the Robinson College married couple, Jasmine Phibbs and Juan Michel and their two college kids (plus a few friends!). Though the band started “as a bit”, their vocals and upcoming May Ball bookings reflect the potential of this up-and-coming student band.

We’re meeting in my room to chat and Jasmine (Jaz) and Juan sidle in, bang on time. After a few minutes of what I usually term “warm up chat”, they up the ante and break out into a rendition of their original song, ‘Rolling Stone’, when explaining what inspired Juan and Jaz to create music together. It’s less Pitch Perfect and more Baron of Beef karaoke – complete with interesting, sober, dance moves – but when Jaz pulls up the recorded version of the song on her phone to show me, I’m reminded that this is a musical duo who know what they are doing and aren’t afraid to have fun while doing it.

“This is a musical duo who know what they are doing and aren’t afraid to have fun while doing it”

The two lead singers of the seven-person band met by “fate of the first year room ballot”. Jaz lived above Juan and after growing fed up with hearing music from his room “at all hours of the day”, popped down one day to suggest that they make a song together. Jaz accordingly wrote a song (as one does) and they recorded it, complete with backing bassists and guitar. Though the song (‘Rolling Stone’) is a hackneyed and perhaps overly simplistic story of aspiring to musical greatness, both the production and the vocals demonstrate clear potential.

Indeed, Juan is an aspiring singer, songwriter and producer with a burgeoning solo career in music, who lends his voice to the band that Jaz clearly runs. Jaz is a musical theatre aficionado and has written several other original songs for the band, though their set list doesn’t tend to stray far from the likes of Green Day, Declan Mckenna and Kings of Leon.

“A family dinner with their kids […] actualised Out of Orbit as a band”

The band itself is the product of Jaz and Juan’s college marriage, where a family dinner with their kids – bassist Nick and guitarist Dhruv – actualised Out of Orbit as a band. Jaz recalls that she and Juan joked about being in a band “as a bit” to their college kids, following their musical collaboration in their first year. Dhruv and Nick believed the two to be serious and immediately asked to join.“They asked us, do you need guitarists, and I thought wow, this could be something”. Pulling no punches, they ran from there, and have been rehearsing and performing across a scattering of typical Cambridge music venues ever since.

Having watched the band perform a fair few times, it’s clear that there is plentiful musical expertise alongside the family connections of the band. Dhruv takes after his college father and plays bass in three other bands, while drummer Henry also plays the lute and the lyre “on the side”. Having met him in passing, I can easily believe it.

“As we speak, I don’t encounter a trace of arrogance, pretence or swagger”

The band’s sound is classic indie rock, often pulling popular and pumped up songs like ‘Beggin’’ (popularised to mainstream consciousness by Maneskin) and performing them with spirited verve and a fair amount of musical swagger. Their keyboardist, Anna Banks, texts me to say that coming to an Out of Orbit gig is “like going to bop”. I’d be averse to such an endorsement if it weren’t from a Robinsonian, but I’m not inclined to disagree. Their favourite song to perform is Muse’s ‘Plug in Baby’.

On top of this, the two lead singers have “main character energy” and they know it. Yet as we speak, I don’t encounter a trace of arrogance, pretence or swagger. Juan is more keen to demonstrate that he can recite Pi to 30 digits in both German and English while Jaz effuses over Glastonbury sets that her rock-star aunt has played. Though Juan and Jaz are admittedly “quite different characters,” they go together very well.

Like any “family”, the band bickers frequently. “We argue a lot but in an amicable way”. Indeed, mid-interview, Jaz and Juan argue about adding a Twenty One Pilots song to their repertoire (Juan for, Jaz adamantly against). Jaz tells me the band is very much a “matriarchal order”, which I can easily get behind.

The band are booked to play John’s May Ball this year, among others, and they hint at wearing matching space jumpsuits for the stint that typically sees student bands play two or three May balls in a night. They also joke about making an album “when they have more free time”. It’s clear that the band have their sights set on Cambridge musical success. As for what’s next for Out of Orbit, I recommend keeping one eye on the skies and watching this space.

Out of Orbit features Jasmine Phibbs, Juan Michel, Adam Gass, Anna Banks, Dhruv Gupta, Nick Barrett and Henry Jaspars.