Are You BC's Best Teen Band?

Ready to bring your garage band into the spotlight? Winning BC's Best Teen Band Contest 2010-11 will put you on the music industry map.

Beginning on October 1st, Youthink, Tom Lee Music and 100.5 The Peak FM will be inviting young bands from across the province to break free of their garage and enter the ultimate teen music competition – the search for BC’s Best Teen Band.

After the success of last year’s competition, the second installment is shaping up to be even more impressive.

To start with, there’s the partnership with The Peak, the popular Vancouver radio station, known for promoting local alternative, indie and “world-class rock.”

Then there are the upgraded prizes. The band that wins first place will earn themselves $3,000 in cash, $300 in gift certificates from Tom Lee Music, tuition to The Next Level Learning Centre, a recording of one single by producer Jay Evjen (Hot Hot Heat, Incura, Motion Soundtrack) of Juicemix Productions at The Factory studios in Vancouver, a one-day songwriting session with Shaun Verreault of Wide Mouth Mason, and, of course, publicity in Youthink magazine and on Youthink.ca.

And second and third place don’t go home empty-handed either! Their prizes are also valued at over $2,000 a group.

All bands wanting to enter have from October 1st to November 29th to submit a Youtube video of themselves performing an original song. From these video auditions, music industry experts will select the top 10, which will be showcased on Youthink.ca.

Then, the fans take over, voting online for their favourites. The three bands with the most votes get to play in the live finale at Tom Lee Music Hall in downtown Vancouver.

Life for the 2009-10 BC's Best Teen Band Contest winners
Jeff Huggins, the lead singer/rhythm guitarist for last year’s winning band, The Knots, knows better than anybody just what artists should expect out of the competition. “When we entered, we just weren’t sure how a new group of fans would enjoy our music. We thought that a top 10 finish would be a great goal,” he remembers.

That doubt, however, was quickly transformed as the competition progressed to the finale. In June, Jeff told Youthink that the live finale was “the best show that we’ve ever played. It was amazing. It was the biggest thing we’ve won ever.”

A summer later and The Knots have had the chance to enjoy their prizes to the fullest. “Aside from playing to one of the liveliest audiences we’ve played for, we really enjoyed all of the prizes, such as the writing session with Shaun Verreault, the photo shoot with Adam Blasberg and Ben Oliver and being on the cover of the summer Youthink issue!”

Jeff adds, “Having connections with people in the industry like the ones we met at the finale has been extremely important to our success. I’ve heard from many people that in the music business, fame comes from just knowing a lot of people.”

The benefits of winning the competition are helping to propel The Knots’ music career. “We were able to win recording time with producer Jay Evjen at The Factory studios and we’re planning to record an EP, which will hopefully be out in early 2011. We played gigs pretty much every weekend during the summer and are still managing to write new material.”

The Knots will also be heading up to Kelowna to showcase at Breakout West (aka the Western Canadian Music Awards) on October 23rd.

As for what the past winner advises this year’s contestants: “Put aside any doubts and just do it. The experience and excitement is worth it. It has made a huge difference for The Knots and has taken us to a much higher level.”