A great many bands form while at college. It’s a natural place to meet a lot of people — and those people don’t usually have annoying time-constrictors like jobs (or sometimes, classes) to get in the way of the music.

99% of these bands don’t survive past graduation and those that do still only have a small chance of remaining intact. But hard work and desire can keep you around. They can’t guarantee any sort of longevity, of course — but sometimes the breaks fall your way.

The band named Everything met in 1989 while attending James Madison University in Virginia. They stayed together after graduation and didn’t let the lack of a record deal stop them. They toured relentlessly, spending virtually the entire 1990s out on the road, building an audience and self-releasing their first three albums.

Their refusal to give up paid off when they signed with indie label Blackbird. The label had a distribution deal with Sire/London and that allowed for a stronger promotional push for Everything’s 1998 album Super Natural and its accompanying lead single, “Hooch.”

“Hooch” soused its way up to #69 on the US Hot 100 in 1998. Not a bad showing for a relatively unknown band, but the real benefit of the increased exposure came by gaining the attention of soundtrack supervisors. For the next decade, “Hooch” appeared in a number of movies and sitcoms and kept the band going into the mid 2000s.

Here’s Everything, putting to use what they learned in college, even if it wasn’t part of the standard curriculum: