Best Local Musician: The Third Floor

ONCE AGAIN, THE THIRD FLOOR of the University of South Carolina’s Capstone Residence Hall is the namesake of 2025’s Best Local Musician, The Third Floor. The group of friends who lived in the same dorm hall have quickly become one of Columbia’s favorite homegrown bands.

Ryan Pellatt (vocals, guitar, harmonica), Neal Goldberg (bass), Nick Guzman (vocals, drums) and Carter Vogt (lead
guitar) have been together for about three years, first playing as a group at the Koger Center for the Arts in a battle of the bands. Each member developed a passion for music from a very young age. Pellatt began playing the piano when he was six and continued 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.”

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 and performing at the Jam Room Music Festival in November 2023.

This is quite a feat for the band members, who are also full-time students at USC. Balancing being college students and musicians is no easy task, 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.

With their recently released singles “Marlboro Blues” and “Feelin’ Again, “ the band already has new lyrics to sing along to. Listeners should watch for their next releases, which the band hopes to have out soon. Check out The Third Floor at a Columbia concert venue near you and on Instagram @thethirdfloorband!