Back in May Sonicbids teamed up with Universal Pictures to launch our most epic contest yet, Indie Rock vs. the World. The contest was tied to Universal’s new film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (in theaters tomorrow), and offered one artist the chance to play live at Comic Con, as well as have their music video featured on the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World DVD and in national retail stores. After months of grueling competition and nonstop hustle, Los Angeles’ Gorgeous Got A Gun were declared the winner for their song/video “Violent Games.” We recently caught up with GGG singer Veronica Torres, who shed a little light on the band’s long road to Comic Con.
What interested you about the contest and what motivated you to submit?
It was interesting that it was a free submission and that Michael Cera’s photo was on the description. We started reading about the contest and it seemed exciting. We hadn’t heard about the movie until then, and the whole idea of an indie rock band supporting this movie sounded awesome.
Describe what the last 2 months of your lives have been like.
Hectic and focused. Once we found out that we advanced to the top 8 we immediately had to gather our creative team to brainstorm and make the music video. We even had a lunch meeting/conference call in a car at some point since we had to use every spare minute of our lives we had to make this happen. We were so excited with how it turned out, shooting in 1 day and having our friends edit the video in 3 days to complete what turned out to be the winning video. From there, the voting process was crazy but we rallied all of our fans/family/friends to get the word out. Before we knew it people from ALL different states were voting for us! We actually gained fans from this contest!
How did you go about promoting yourselves and driving fans to vote?
We used all the new social media sites, Facebook/Twitter/Myspace to start spreading the word. We call our fans the Gorgeous Party People and they really helped to get the word out. We also had a lot of blogs writing about us and the contest: we were getting Google alerts right and left with people blogging about GGG and voting for us and we were really stoked on that. We also had radio stations across the nation finding out about the contest and playing us and having people vote. That really helped.
What did you get out of the contest? Was it worth it?
All the hard work paid off. We had a blast at Comic Con and were able to play in front of hundreds of new fans. We also got a TV spot out of the contest, we were on ABC’s On The Red Carpet and are shooting a segment called “Blowin’ Up” to be aired in Journey’s stores nationwide. Things keep on rolling around from this contest, seems like it’s starting a snowball for us, and we are so grateful.
How was Comic Con?
It was all of our first times at Comic Con, so it was really cool to see all the promotion that goes into the event. Playing the Scott Pilgrim Experience was one of the biggest events of our entire Comic Con experience. It really felt like people were all there to support everything Scott Pilgrim related, even Gorgeous Got a Gun. We passed out thousands of flyers to the continuous line of Scott Pilgrim fans for our shows and a lot of kids already knew who we were. Some even told us they had voted for us, so it was an epic experience to actually meet some of these fans out there that believed in us and voted.
What was your favorite part of the whole experience?
Playing the show of course! We all really wanted it bad and when we get on stage we felt at home and right where we were supposed to be. Thanks for this opportunity Sonicbids and Universal!
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You can see more photos of Gorgeous Got A Gun at Comic Con on their website and don’t forget to check out their EPK. Also, check out their winning video for “Violent Games” below.
