Blue Rune; Vermillion’s band of professors

Following the women’s basketball game on March 26, Blue Rune hit the stage at the Varsity Pub. The band played Varsity Pub’s downstairs stage to a crowd of 20-30 people. 

The Blue Rune band consists of Dean of College of Arts and Science John Dudley, English professor Skip Willman, assistant professor Zoli Filotas and physician assistant studies professor William Schweinle. Dudley and Willman have been in bands before going all the way back to 2004. Upon hearing that Filotas plays drums, the band was put together. 

For the show on Saturday they went for a Mardi Gras style. Blue Rune played some original songs, and have more about to be recorded, but they also performed covers. 

“We also have the Zoli rule, which is we cannot play more than one song by a band per set, so we have to mix it up,” Willman said.

Along with the Zoli rule, the band commits to keeping up with Blue Rune as long as it doesn’t start to feel like work. With jobs as professors, they agreed they want to keep the band friendly and loose. 

“It’s a hobby and it’s intellectually stimulating and interesting and fun, but not work,” Dudley said.

The band was originally called Blue Ruin, an old 19th century slang term for “Low-end Gin.” The band found the name amusing and its historical context interesting until finding out numerous other bands went by the same name. 

“So we changed it to rune from Celtic Viking and Scandinavian symbols, which meant absolutely nothing, and meant we didn’t have to work too hard to change the name,” Dudley said.
Willman said the band is continuing to learn many songs and recording new content. Blue Rune has one song up on their website, bluerune.net, and an album has been recorded and uploaded to SoundCloud.