Every musician has their reason for why they play music. Some do it for love, some do it for their friends and others do it for money. For Lorin Pellegrino, it’s about playing what he calls “genuine music,” music that shows his true self and that he’s proud to be showing to the world.
Pellegrino is one of the fastest rising talents in the Storrs music scene. A singer-songwriter and guitarist, his songs feature dynamic arrangements, introspective lyrics and a sound that combines a multitude of musical influences, making him one of the most varied musicians in the scene today.
Music has long been a part of Pellegrino’s life, as his dad was a musician and encouraged him from a young age to explore what music can offer. But playing and writing music took a much more prominent role in his life during the pandemic, as he weighed whether to focus on sports or music, ultimately deciding to pour his energy into music.
“During covid, I realized that ‘This is something you’ve got to utilize, a skill you’ve got to master, and maybe you can take this a little further than football because that’s going to end,’” he said. “I realized that music is going to be a lifelong thing [for me] so I started doing that.”
Pellegrino recruited his friend Aksel Sather to play guitar and a rotation of musicians from his hometown of Fairfield, Connecticut, and started the band Tweed Sugar. Under this first incarnation of the group, they released an EP, “Phone Call Voices,” in 2021 and a full-length album “Made With Sugar” in 2022. During this time, he wrote all the songs himself, focusing on his relationships, experiences and his own insecurities. He said that during this time, “I was young and trying to find myself,” both as a person and songwriter. This led to him pushing himself to write different kinds of songs, ranging from punk rockers to acoustic ballads.
“When I wrote each song, the words meant something to whatever I was writing about,” he said. “But specifically, I was writing songs because I would listen to records and say, ‘I want to make a song like that.’”
One of the songs he wrote that means the most to him is “Harmonic Gates,” a track from “Made With Sugar.” He channeled his uncertainty he felt about what path he would take in life, something that was especially pronounced being surrounded by people in high school that had a specific plan, and called it a song that motivates him in tough times.
“Harmonic Gates means a lot to me because I was a young kid amplifying my insecurities and telling myself to stay strong,” he explained. “That’s probably one of my favorite songs of mine because it reminds me to keep going.”
After graduating high school in June 2022, he headed up to Boston to attend Emmanuel College with the goal of making it big up there and making connections with students from the nearby Berklee College of Music. But Pellegrino soon found that it wasn’t going to be as easy as he thought.
“I went to Emmanuel thinking I was going to go to Berklee, find a bunch of guys and network, and I did, which was nice,” he said. “But at the same time, all those Berklee guys were going to make bands with each other.”
After his Boston plan didn’t go as expected, he transferred to the University of Connecticut for his sophomore year in 2023. He described the first month at UConn as one of the toughest months of his life as he tried to find himself on a new campus. But his trajectory changed when he met drummer Sean Byington and re-connected with bassist Sebastian Rodriguez, who he knew from Fairfield, while trying to network at UConn’s jazz program. Byington and Rodriguez, along with guitarist Brennen Ravenberg, would become the backbone of the revamped lineup of Tweed Sugar.
Pellegrino said that when he started playing with those three, his approach to songwriting changed from wanting to do everything himself like he previously did, to wanting and encouraging contributions from others in a more open process.
“I was very secluded with music,” he said. “I wanted to write everything myself, bring it to a band and have them play it, kind of like hired musicians. But I really started to appreciate working with people that care as much as I do. With guys like Seb, Brennen and Sean, it started to feel more like a family with how we would write songs.”
Fueled by this new lineup and approach to songwriting, Pellegrino and the band have been writing constantly over the past year and have been working on recording an album, showcasing a sound that is simultaneously heavy and melodic, but most importantly, engaging and full of energy.
Pellegrino’s talents aren’t only limited to his work with Tweed Sugar. He also releases music as HooDoo Little, a solo project that he started during his time in Boston. The project started with his desire break away from guitar-based arrangements and explore other styles like R&B. He has used this project to release experiments in different genres, as well as in-progress demos, to SoundCloud on a regular basis, showing his ability to write songs in different genres.
Now, Pellegrino and Tweed Sugar have increased their presence by doing more shows around Storrs. He said that “it’s been a dream” getting to perform at shows on and off campus to crowds who are engaged with the band’s originals.
“I feel like I’m so connected with these crowds because they’re not just there to have drinks with their friends and fuck around, they’re actually here for original music,” he said. “And it’s been great, I feel like I’ve found my people.”