Hillsboro band Tim the Walrus has seen a few transitions in its short history. When guitarist Nathan Mutchler, drummer Derek Bueffel, and bassist Garret Irving started the band in May of 2012, they needed a singer to round things out. After auditioning a handful of singers, they invited Kelli Groves to join the band as lead vocalist.

A little more than a year later, in early 2014, Irving left the band when he moved to Redmond, making the commute for after-school rehearsals a little longer than reasonable.

Luckily, bassist Avery Cackler had played casually with members of the band in the past, and he seemed a natural fit to step in as permanent bassist.

“I was worried it was going to feel weird without Garret, but it doesn’t,” Mutchler said. “We’re still just playing music.”

Now Mutchler, Bueffel, Groves (all students at Glencoe High School) and Cackler (from Banks High School), all 17, are preparing themselves for an exciting summer as a band. Starting in June, Tim the Walrus will be playing two shows and recording its first EP, all before its members start their senior year.

The EP, “Fits,” will spin through four songs, which, like the majority of the music they play, belong to the members of the band. They write their songs collaboratively. Though Bueffel and Mutchler each seem to take on a slight leadership role in rehearsal, there is no Jagger-esque autocracy here. “We’ll just bounce ideas off of each other until it builds into a song,” Mutchler says.

Most of the band’s material is, in a word, loud, and verging on angsty. How do four fresh and unassuming young people muster up the “teen spirit” to jam so hard?

“I get frustrated with things really easily,” says Mutchler. “My own shortcomings, other people’s shortcomings kind of piss me off. So I write about it.”

But the band’s style does not come primarily from frustration. “It’s just way more fun to sing something where I can belt it out and feel it,” says Groves. “It’s way more fun to rock out.” And that is just what they plan to do this summer.

The band had meant to make their EP last summer, but plans fell through when the guy they were going to record with blew them off, Mutchler says. “I hope he doesn’t read that,” he joked. “But I don’t think he reads much.”

This year, they are planning ahead and saving money to record the EP in Portland. The whole recording, mixing and mastering process should cost the band around $500, including the 50 copies of “Fits” that they’re going to print as a first release.

Though all the band members’ parents are supportive of the EP, they will not be helping out with money. That’s all right with the band, though; it has more meaning this way. They will be selling their CDs for $7 to recover some of the costs.

You can catch Tim the Walrus this June at either of their two shows, or pick up “Fits” at their August 30 release party and support a group of locals that plays simply for the joy of playing, in the name of rock n’ roll.

-- Dillon Pilorget