When the Pocket Architects step on stage, the room starts to shift. As the groove settles in and the music takes hold, the audience leans in, captivated and somewhat surprised. Built on chemistry and musicianship that is rare for their age, the quartet brought that same presence to the Nebraska Blues Challenge.

The Pocket Architects are a four-piece band comprising Cameron Bothwell, Wes Burns, Caden Pendleton and Cameron Vakili. Bothwell graduated from GHS in 2024, while Burns and Pendleton graduated from GHS in 2025 and are now both freshmen at UNL. Vakili is the only high-schooler in the group, a junior at Brownell Talbot. Bothwell is the vocalist of the group while also playing keyboard and bass guitar. Burns plays the electric guitar and Pendleton is the drummer. Vakili is also a multi-instrumentalist, playing keyboard, bass guitar and electric guitar.

Despite the band only being together for about a year, they have already achieved major success. They were the champions of the Nebraska Blues Challenge on Oct. 26, qualifying them to represent the state of Nebraska at the International Blues Challenge, which will be held in Memphis, Tennessee, from January 13 through 17. They believe much of their success can be attributed to their age and energy.

“Honestly, everyone else competing at the Nebraska Blues Challenge was like at least over the age of 50,” Vakili said.

While this could have been a disadvantage for them, it actually gave them the edge they needed to set themselves apart from the other bands and win.

“We’re something young and unique that people haven’t seen,” Pendleton said.

What brought these musicians together was BluesEd, an Omaha youth music program with the motto of “keeping the blues alive” as its mission.

“We all met through that program,” Pendleton said. “We then realized that with the level of skill and our different instruments, between the four of us, we could make something really special.”

Within the band, each member has had a similar musical journey, starting to play music at a very young age.

“I’ve been playing drums for close to 17 years,” Pendleton said. “I started air drumming and hitting pots and pans along with songs when I was two. Then I got my first real drum set when I was three, and I’ve just been improving ever since then, mainly teaching myself.”

At GHS, Pendleton was the drummer for the show choirs and musicals. He played in the concert band, jazz band and marching band drumline for three years. He also sang in the choir and Modern A Cappella.

“I think I realized I could really go somewhere with it when I began drumming for the Gretna show choirs,” Pendleton said. “A lot of people were coming up to me after performances, asking if I could play for their bands and offering me money. I honestly didn’t take many of the opportunities because I was planning out a band called the Pocket Architects, which I now obviously play in, and it’s going pretty good.”

Bothwell, also, has been a musician for as long as he can remember.

“I probably came out of the womb just singing,” Bothwell said, jokingly.

Growing up in a musical family, Bothwell took one year of piano lessons from his mother, and then taught himself the rest of the way. He learned to play bass guitar and drums in middle school, and lastly the guitar in high school.

“My first exposure to guitar was actually in Gretna with Mrs. Wallace in the Guitar 1 Class,” Bothwell said.

Bothwell was heavily involved at GHS. He was the football kicker, participated in powerlifting and played soccer. Musically, he participated in show choir, choir, Modern A Cappella and musicals. In his senior year in Revolution, the varsity show choir, he performed the lead role and played a large part in achieving an undefeated season. Vakili, although having a different school background, is similar.

“I started playing piano when I was three or four, then I learned to play bass in junior high, and like three years after that I started playing guitar,” Vakili said.

At Brownell Talbot, he is involved in various activities, including jazz band, tennis and swimming.

Lastly, Burns has also played the guitar since he was very young. While at GHS, he played for the show choirs and was a member of the percussion section for two years. He also played soccer.

These four took this musical experience and skill they have and decided to share it with others, as they have performed at many venues, including the Slowdown and the B Bar in Omaha and the Zoo Bar in Lincoln. Onstage, their musical success has brought them attention, but that success can also be attributed to how they market themselves off the stage. Pendleton handles their social media and designs their merchandise, which can be found on their website.

“I’ve been doing shirt design on a more serious level for about two years, but I first started doing graphic design all the way back in like fourth grade through making posters and stuff for fun,” Pendleton said. “And then I started realizing that I could do it seriously. And I was curious, how do shirts get designs on them?”

Once he found the answer to this question, what started as a hobby became something bigger.

“Eventually, people saw my designs and asked me if I could design stuff for them,” Pendleton said.

During his time at GHS, Pendleton designed numerous shirts for the show choirs, musicals, NHS and more. At UNL, he has continued producing and designing merchandise not only for the Pocket Architects but also for boxer Steven Nelson. This ultimately led to him contacting legendary boxer and Omaha native Terence Crawford. In August, Pendleton designed a collaboration shirt for Crawford and the Husker football team.

“I literally just sent him (Crawford) a message on Instagram and showed him my skills,” Pendleton said. “It’s kind of crazy how far you can go if you simply go for something.”

Fittingly, the Pocket Architects went for it at the Nebraska Blues Challenge, and as a result, will literally be going far, specifically to Memphis, Tennessee.

Organized by the Blues Foundation, the International Blues Challenge is an annual blues competition held at various clubs on Beale Street. It brings together blues musicians and bands from around the world to perform and compete for recognition and awards. Bothwell, Burns and Vakili performed an exhibition at the International Blues Challenge with their BluesEd band last year, while the experience will be entirely new to Pendleton. Ultimately, this will be a new competitive experience for them.

“Last year, a guy from Lincoln named Josh Hoyer won the whole thing,” Pendleton said. “If he can do it, I think we have a chance too.”

Ultimately, though, the band is already pleased that they have the opportunity to be the sole band representing Nebraska on a huge platform.

“I’m just so grateful that we get this experience,” Vakili said. “Regardless of what happens in the results, it’ll be really cool.”

IBC is also an experience for the band to grow as musicians.

“I’m super driven by competition, and so I think that aspect of IBC will really drive us as a band just to be our absolute best,” Bothwell said.

But to be the best, you have to sound the best, which cannot be done without an excellent sound mix. Troy Bothwell, father of Cameron Bothwell, has assumed that role for the band.

“I’ve always been an audiophile. So I have always had an ear for what sounds good, and I’m also a very technical person when it comes to working with sound equipment,” Troy Bothwell said.

He first started sound engineering to fill a need at his church, and it was a perfect fit. But despite his experience of 25 plus years, working with the Pocket Architects has taught Troy Bothwell new things, including learning to design a sound system for the band.

“I also took a lot of time to further educate myself on sound engineering principles, like speaker positioning and syncing subwoofers, so I can ensure the best sound quality throughout the venue,” Troy Bothwell said.

Troy Bothwell’s level of both experience and commitment has provided the band with everything they could ask for soundwise.

When in Memphis for IBC last January, Cameron Bothwell, Vakili and Burns were blown away by the experience.

“When we were down there last year, we were like, holy cow. This is our dream,” Cameron Bothwell said.

Even though they don’t plan on making a full-time career out of music, IBC is still one of the best possible opportunities for the Pocket Architects to expose themselves to people outside of Nebraska. Additionally, the genre of blues is not highly popular among teenagers and younger generations.

“When people see teenagers on stage, in blues especially, they tend to think it’s not going to be that good,” Pendleton said. “I think we’re a lot different, and we’ve really put a lot of time into having a clean, cohesive set that’s fun to watch.”

This will be a chance for them to prove the stereotypes wrong and show that the blues are being kept alive through young musicians.

“What I’m most excited about is that we can show the blues-funk community that there’s a lot of talent in our group, and the younger generation as a whole,” Cameron Bothwell said.

As well as music for IBC, the Pocket Architects are currently recording an album of all-original music.

“We’ve written like five or six songs, and so we want to get those recorded and on a CD by the end of the year,” Vakili said.

At IBC, there will be an award presented to one band for the best self-produced CD. While not crucial, they believe this would be an awesome accolade to earn. Writing original music is a challenge that they have embraced, as they have learned to take inspiration from other artists while blending it into music that is unique and their own.

“For the funk and blues type stuff, we really like Tower of Power and Kingfish for inspiration. Michael Jackson is also so good at producing groovy songs, and so he’s definitely played into it, too,” Cameron Bothwell said.

While many would think the writing of music has a specific process, Cameron Bothwell believes the opposite.

“It’s almost different every time, especially when I have a lot of different ideas coming to me,” Cameron Bothwell said.

Since he is not only the vocalist of the group but also fluent on all four instruments in the band, he has somewhat become the leader of songwriting. This often includes recording ideas with his voice and then playing them out on the piano. He then lays down a bass line, a drum groove, and a guitar riff to form a rough draft of a song. Once he presents the song to the band, things come together quickly.

“We all add in our own skills and ideas to blend it together to make a nice sound. Literally, we can have a banger of a song in like 15 minutes,” Pendleton said.

Lyrics are the final, and sometimes easiest step.

“There’ll be a hook that comes to me, and then that’s usually the title of the song. Then I trickle that idea down into some verses. Honestly, in blues-funk, I just have a lot of fun with writing the lyrics,” Cameron Bothwell said.

When they finished writing all of their songs, it was time to record. One of their first live performance opportunities was at the Barger Fest, which is a company event organized by Jimmy Barger, who designed a recording studio in his basement, Studio 1A.

“My youngest son is a really good musician, and then I was just like, oh well, why don’t we build a recording studio? And it’s really awesome,” Barger said.

When Barger met the guys in the Pocket Architects, he instantly knew that he wanted them to be his first recording project.

“When I started this, I didn’t know a whole lot about recording, and I decided, well, we’re going to learn,” Barger said.

Between the musical talents of the four band members, the sound experience of Troy Bothwell, and the studio of Jimmy Barger, the Pocket Architects have formed a cohesive song-producing unit. As the band continues to have ideas and goals, they hope to continue recording music in the future.

For Cameron Bothwell, Burns and Pendleton, they can thank GHS for somewhat influencing who they are as musicians today. Whether through the band or choir program, they were all musically involved students.

“My IQ as a vocalist, and even more importantly, as a performer, grew a lot through all the opportunities I had at GHS,” Cameron Bothwell said. “One of our strong suits as a band is that we’re fun to watch. And I think a lot of that ties back to my reps and experience of performing and engaging an audience, whether it was through show choir, musicals, choir or even one act.”

On the other hand, Pendleton was not a vocal performer or actor, but he embraced his role as a drummer.

“I think playing for the show choirs made me realize that even though it’s super important, my part is not the main part,” Pendleton said. “I learned to recognize what were the right times to get fancy and show my skills, and what were the times to just sit back and groove.”

When people watch the Pocket Architects perform, they have definitely learned to sit back and groove, which often leads to what musicians like to call the “stank face”. People do this when they hear something very impressive in a song, whether it’s a riff, solo, beat or anything.

“At the Highway 91 Music Festival last year, our very first gig, we wanted to be announced as the band Stank Face,” Vakili said jokingly. “But the guy who was in charge of the festival didn’t want that name on his program.”

And so the Pocket Architects were born.

“The whole idea is we’re staying in the pocket, in the groove,” Pendleton said. “It gets your body moving. And so we’re architecting the pocket.”