Culture
An In Studio Performance With Derek Demel
By: Emily Votaw
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Derek Demel graduated from Athens High School in 2017, and while working through a challenging STEM course load at Yale University would be enough for many, it’s not enough for Demel — who is also busy crafting infectious pop songs while he enters his sophomore year at the Ivy League school.
Demel spoke to WOUB’s Emily Votaw about the development of the musical part of his life, and graced the WOUB studios with live renditions of “Caffeine Overdose” (an original that Demel wrote based on his observations at a Donkey Coffee open mic,) a stripped down cover of Norman Whitfield/Barrett Strong’s 1966 song for Motown Records “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” (popularized by Gladys Knight and the Pips (1967), The Miracles (1968), and perhaps most famously by Marvin Gaye (1968),) and “Smooth Silver,” another original penned by Demel.