Awaking State has been slowly creeping into the spotlight, gaining momentum with a unique blend of industrial, alt rock, electronica and drums'n'bass that seems to dominate the stage every time they play. After great review at this year's CEMF, a new EP due out in late 2009, and a finalist bid for a spot at next year's SXSW festival in the Airwalk Unsigned Hero competition, this Pickering band is very busy promoting their tunes.
Luckily, they're also fans of Supernova.com, and took a minute to sit and chat about their promo skills and indie success.
"We will shove our Canadian music down their throats,
whether they like it or not. Fuck it."
Can you introduce your band members and explain how you fit together?
Andy K plays bass guitar for the project and is currently handling a lot of the street team promotions that we do. He also pitches in where ever he can to fill the blanks!
Joey V plays keyboards and handles going over all the video footage we accumulate for the band. She's probably the nicest to speak with out of the 5 of us.
Todd G was the next to enter the band, he plays guitar and does some backing vocals for us as well, which you can definitely see live if you happen to catch one of our performances.
Josh plays drums and he's the newest to the band....i call him the boy wonder because of the amazing fan reaction we get from him. Seriously, he's got crowds of people that seem to follow him from show to show!
They are VERY dedicated!
My name is Kent and I'm the one who started this project. I play guitar and vocals, and also do the programming and play some keys as well!
Joey V: Some of our fans have come up with Rocktronica for lack of a better word. They can never seem to really fit us into any one genre or compare us to any one band. We're a different kind of sound.
Kent: We have latched on to the term 'Rocktronica', haven't we? The catchy hooks and strange gritty sounds are probably what set us apart from most other bands. We're edgy, but have a strange pop friendly side that people seem to really identify with! How would you describe it, that's a better question I think!
So far, what is the most rewarding thing about being in a band?
Joey V: I think it's more about being a musician and being able to do your life's passion as your job. Not everyone likes their job; I love it, we have the best job in the world.
Todd: Playing live and connecting with the crowd and with the band on stage. When everyone can feel the energy and connect, that feeling, that's most rewarding thing I think.
Cool... Who were you guys most excited to play alongside at this year's CEMF?
Todd: Ill Scarlett and The Roots for me.
Joey V: I don't think there was an artist I wasn't excited to see. The line up was awesome this year and so diverse. I was especially excited to check out The Roots. I'm a big fan.
Kent: Well, after seeing them perform last year i was definitely excited to see Ill Scarlett perform again, those guys are awesome! Mix Master Mike as well, that guy knows how to run a party. There were some underdogs as well, like Will Conquer who I'd never heard of until last week when I saw them live and I'm really into checking them out again.
What's your position on 'staying indie' and DIY musicianship?
Kent: Well I don't think it's a secret to anyone that the landscape of the music industry is changing... so that makes now maybe the most exciting time to be 'indie' and do things yourself/maintain control over your music/intellectual property. That being said, it's also a strange time
to have to do these things because really in the overall, no one knows what's going to happen in the next 5-10 years.
There is a strange comfort in uncertainty though, and I feel Awaking State is ready for
that. We're trying to think outside of the box with our music and how we get it to new fans. It's no longer all about Album sales and more about giving the fans more value and more personalized options for what they want to buy. Nothing is certain though, and all we can do as artists is try to make daring and well thought out decisions that will open up the marketplace us to allow us to better do what we do.
What's the deal with your recent Airwalk contest nomination / video shoot? (Watch below)
Joey V:The deal is, we have the best fans in the world who nominated us to be Airwalk's Unsigned Hero, and out of thousands of bands Airwalk picked us as one of the final top 10! Now it's up to the people - Vote AS!
Kent: We are actually the only Canadian band on the bill too, so I'm really hoping we can show
these Yankees how we do it up here. I think we, as Canadians, don't get enough recognition from the US and so if we do what it takes to get people voting, that's exactly what we are planning to do. We will shove our Canadian music down their throats, whether they like it or not. Fuck it.
Todd: We had the Airwalk video crew come up and film us doing our thing, and we only had one incident with the cops! We managed to talk our way out of it though...
