Best Local Musician: The Third Floor

The third floor of the University of South Carolina’s Capstone dorm building is the namesake of 2024’s Best Local Musician, The Third Floor. Born from a group of friends who lived in the same hall, this up-and-coming band has quickly become a Columbia favorite. Ryan Pellatt (vocals, guitar, harmonica), Neal Goldberg (bass), Nick Guzman (vocals, drums) and recently added member Carter Vogt (lead guitar) have been together for slightly over two years, first playing as a group at the Koger Center in a battle of the bands. 

Each member developed a passion for music from a very young age. Pellatt began playing piano when he was 6 years old and continued this throughout his childhood. 

“It wasn't until junior year of high school that I started teaching myself guitar and singing,” Pellatt said.

He had a lot of practice over those two years and then “took a year off of school after high school before starting (his) freshman year of college and played guitar every single day.” 

Ruminating, he says, “During this time, I really dove into songwriting and would spend my whole days with either a pen and paper or a guitar in my hands. By the time I went to college, I had a lot of practice and a lot of songs, which made it very easy to jump into a musical group.”

This lifelong journey has led to great things for The Third Floor, most notably opening for COIN at USC’s Cockstock concert in October 2023. It won’t stop there, though. 

“My dream gig would be headlining Red Rocks in Colorado to a sold-out crowd. A huge dream of mine is playing songs with my bandmates to a crowd of people screaming the lyrics back at us,” Pellatt said. 

Soon, there will be new lyrics to scream. The Third Floor recently released a new song, “Marlboro Blues,” and has another called “Barcelona” in development. New and old listeners alike should look out for its new releases, which the band hopes to have two or three this semester alone. 

This is quite a feat for the band members because they are also full-time students at USC. It’s no easy task balancing being college students and musicians, but Pellatt said they have been able to make it work. 

“It certainly gets difficult sometimes, but we are all very driven in both our studies and our music. Most of our gigs and shows happen at night, so there is little conflict with classes. However, we all certainly need to budget our time well so that we can get homework done and study for exams. There have been a few gigs we’ve had to turn down because of school as well as assignments turned in late because of gigs. But overall, there isn’t too much conflict with school and music,” Pellatt said.

If the going ever gets tough, the band can channel motivation from its musical inspirations, ranging from “older acts such as Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, The Band, The Beatles, Chuck Berry as well as newer artists such as Mt. Joy, John Mayer, The Stews, Noah Kahan (and) The Dip.”

Check out The Third Floor at a Columbia concert venue near you and on Instagram @thethirdfloorband, and you can proudly say that you were one of its first fans when the band finally plays Red Rocks in Colorado.