St. Thomas junior Isaac Heilman and University of Minnesota junior Jacob Grimm make up the genre-less music group 3leaf that released its sixth single, “Magnetic,” on Feb. 12 to its Spotify, which boasts 1800 monthly listeners.

Heilman and Grimm have been friends their whole life but coincidentally took a music path that led them to form their own group. After making songs for fun in high school, the first song they released on streaming services, “Oasis,” gained over 97,000 streams on Spotify.

“Me, Jacob and two other dudes put out this stinky rap song and like, our buddies at high school would amp us up,” Heilman said. “(Jacob’s) dad’s (the) Minnesota Gopher basketball and football announcer, so we used the studio and then we made bad rap songs or bad other songs and put them on SoundCloud, but have fun with it and just enjoy being creative.”

When 3leaf started making “Oasis,” they realized they had a passion for music and wanted to share it with a bigger audience.

“It was so much higher quality than what we’ve made in the past that we’re like, ‘Holy crap, we got to do something with this,’” Heilman said. “After like 25 masters and Jacob finally thinking that this is the one to put out on Spotify, we finally agreed that it was a good one.”

After the success of “Oasis,” the 3leaf members realized that music was something they could have fun with and also generate a fanbase with.

“It gave both of us the confidence and just the ability to lean back on our music and just really be confident in what we were making… it motivated us to make more music for sure,” Grimm said. “I really don’t know what we would be doing right now or where we would be if that song didn’t really pop off.”

Over the years of messing around on production tools like GarageBand, Grimm found a knack for producing, mixing and mastering that fit Heilman’s style. The two friends said they have always shared similar music tastes, so when they decided it was time to make a more professional sounding song, they found their sound easily.

“We kind of just originally knew what we wanted to make,” Heilman said. “It was just kind of natural, how it went and how it came upon.”

Grimm and Heilman said having each other to lean on makes the song process easier as they both know they are there for each other when one is down.

“I saw a quote on a podcast… it’s like, ‘If you want to go far, you go together, if you want to go faster, you go alone.’ And I guess that just captures what we’re about,” Grimm said.

Though they’ve had success, Heilman and Grimm want to keep music as something they do for fun as they stay busy with school and part-time jobs.

“It’s a hobby, and it’s something that we look forward to, and it keeps me motivated to even do school because it’s something engaging and it makes my brain work,” Heilman said.

3leaf still takes music seriously and has rough plans to release an EP this summer. The group also wants to try different genres out like alternative rock, alternative pop and even country.

“There’s so many genres out nowadays. There’s so much to do,” Heilman said.

3leaf plans to keep having fun with music and improve on their sound. They hope to one day work with some of their inspirations like John Mayer, Jon Bellion or Lauv.

“The future of 3leaf is to be determined. But at the moment we’re gonna keep pumping out music for you guys and we’re gonna keep loving it,” Heilman said.

Scout Mason can be reached at maso7275@stthomas.edu.