Girl band called We’re Not Dudes opens for Sarah Jaffe on Saturday

The young rockstars are preparing for their big night with Sarah Jaffe like it's the night before Christmas.

Margie Woods Brown

We're Not Dudes

Young musicians everywhere are stepping out and starting early. (Justin Bieber, anyone?) We’re Not Dudes is an all-girl band from Dallas who are all under the age of 14. They're currently a cover band, but they're working on their own stuff.

They met while attending the Dallas School of Rock and haven’t looked back since. Front woman Alex Bellan, age 12, and guitarist Molly McNulty, age 13, met at a summer camp hosted by the School of Rock. Once they began to form a band, they added Marlhy Murphy, 8, the spunky drummer; she then recommended Kaia Brown, 10, for bass guitar.

When you're in the biz, apparently you have lots of rocker friends.

Margie Woods Brown

Alex Bellan

They’ve all been playing at least one instrument for a year, some since the second grade. Alex is the “veteran;” she’s been playing the keyboard for about 5 years and picked up singing lessons last year. When asked how they started playing music, Marlhy pointed to the video game Rock Band.

“I always played Rock Band with my family, and scored really high on the drums. A little while later, we got a postcard in the mail for School of Rock, and I’ve been going ever since,” Marlhy says. Her mom, Wendy, noticed her natural sense of rhythm and knew there was something there.

Alex started with fourth grade bands at school, and her friend introduced her to the School of Rock. But none of their budding talent could be predicted; there’s only a sprinkling of musical history in each of Molly and Marlhy's families.

However, Kaia’s mom is in the local band Luna Matto and helped connect the girls to Sarah Jaffe, whom they're opening for on Saturday in Fort Worth. Luna Matto played a video for Jaffe and they landed an opening gig for the famous local artist. The girls are big Jaffe fans; Molly has learned all of the words to “Clementine” in preparation for the big show.

Margie Woods Brown

We're Not Dudes at the Prophet Bar

The girls are currently working on original material, and they have one song so far. Their current lineup includes songs by Paramore, Journey, and My Chemical Romance. When asked if they hoped to stay together and make an album, Marlhy exclaimed, “Yeah, that sounds fun!”