 This is the first ever Battle of the Bands performed by student bands and performed on campus. On November 4th, within the walls of the West Poly Ballroom, superb hosted the Battle of the Bands, an event in which five bands, Calcifer, Sex Asians, Ego, Mommy Mommy, and Five Arms Sloth, competed not only for the prize of $1,500 but also for the hearts of UC Berkeley students. We spoke with Tomás Aleta, a major component at Battle of the Bands, and he shared with us how house shows were the root of this whole event. I started going to more and more of these shows on Laura Sproul, at other houses, at different bars or coffee breweries, and that kind of just got me on the track of thinking, oh wow, like there are more than just five bands at Cal, they're all surprisingly good, why not organize something for all of the bands at Cal, and since I was in a position where I could do that, I thought why not bring it up, why not try to get it done, and well, it's here now, so that's really exciting. Tomás dives deeper into why this event is not only fun, as you can see, but how it also affects the community of students and music as well. And I want the student body to kind of realize that there's a lot to Cal, and it's not just studying and it's not just going to main stacks at 12 at night, that a lot of people have amazing hobbies, whether it's music or whether it's something else, and I think we should all appreciate how diverse the student body is, and of course shows like this, events like this are just a snippet of what there is to do at Cal. Like Tomás said, we should all appreciate how diverse the student body is. Without further ado, let's get into the bands. We asked each band how did they get their name, starting with Calcifer, who were the openers for Battle of the Bands, they shared with us their answer. We had a song called Calcifer, and after like six or seven months in the band, we were like, what if we just make it a little bit better, so then we came Calcifer. I joined like six months ago, so it was horrible. We realized that we're both Asian and sex cells, and so we're sex Asians. We made it up, definitely has... Sloths are cool, and there's five of us. It started as a joke. We're doing a cover by a band called Mother Mother on our first practice, and we were like, what should we be called? And I was like, mommy, mommy, it sounds pretty gay. And everyone was like, yeah, yeah, that's like a bookmark. That's a placeholder, but alas, here we are. It's not a placeholder, and we are mommy, mommy. After three hours of music, headbanging, and a night of friendly competition, the answer to who would win the $1,500 was still lingering in the air. What winner it is? Five Arm Sloth! As Five Arm Sloth was announced the winner of the $1,500 of the Battle of the Bands, we previously discussed with them what they would do with their money if they won. I don't know. I mean, I guess we could continue to do this band thing. Heck yeah. Supporting art. Probably supporting artists like other people. Supporting other musicians I think would be really good. Congratulations to Five Arm Sloth, a fairly new band who won the first ever Battle of the Bands. Each and every band that performed holds tremendous talent and shines a spotlight on all of the Berkeley-based musicians and artists, serving as a reminder to support the arts and our fellow musicians. Reporting for CalTV News with help from Ava Andrews, I'm Shaila Slampour.