Bellmore residents and Kennedy High School graduates Suzie Zeldin and Jesse Gabriel never knew each other in school, and certainly never imagined a simple Craigslist musician's ad would end up with them playing the Vans Warped Tour this summer – but that's exactly what happened.
Zeldin and Gabriel, better known on the Warped Tour as the indie rock band The Narrative, were united after Zeldin found a Craigslist ad from Gabriel, who was searching for someone to play serious music with after graduating from college.
"Once I had gotten so frustrated working by myself that I needed to find people to play with, I ended up finding a Craigslist ad that Jesse put together," said Zeldin, who does vocals and plays the keyboard in The Narrative.
Gabriel, who also does vocals for the band and plays guitar, said the duo had hung out a couple of times, talked music and realized that they had a lot in common musically. But during their conversations, Zeldin had mentioned "Bellmore" a couple of times, which struck Gabriel as odd.
"I remember that she had mentioned Bellmore a couple of times," he said, "and I was just like, 'That's weird, I must have said something in the e-mails we exchanged about where I'm from. Why is she mentioning Bellmore?'"
As it turns out, the duo had graduated one year apart from Kennedy, lived just five minutes away from each other and had no idea the whole time.
"She's a year older than me, but we were in school at the same time. We just didn't really know each other," Gabriel said.
Zeldin, a 2001 grad, said she couldn't believe it when they learned they were both Bellmore residents.
"It was totally crazy and really funny," she said.
Now the band has hit the road on the Warped Tour for the remainder of the summer. The Narrative joined the tour at its halfway point on July 19 in Milwaukee alongside such acts as Gym Class Heroes, A Day to Remember and Less Than Jake.
"It's been a lot of fun. It's definitely been different for us. We've never really played to this type of crowd," Gabriel said. "Obviously our music is really different from a lot of the stuff that's here."
This past Saturday, The Narrative played at the Nassau Coliseum in front of a home crowd full of familiar faces.
"We had family and friends here, and just a lot of kids who knew we were from Long Island," Gabriel said. "So far [in other venues] you have some kids that have heard of us, but I think it's a lot of fresh faces. ... It's a market we haven't really tapped into before."
The Narrative has a double 12-inch vinyl coming out at the end of the summer after their stint on the Warped Tour. Beyond that, Zeldin said they would love to continue touring and meeting new people.
"After [Warped Tour], we'll go home and take a little bit of personal time, then write some new music and make some recordings. Hopefully just moving on to the next chapter of our recorded lives, I guess," she said. "If we can tour more, we're always happy to tour. We love touring and meeting people."
