Last Friday was certainly a busy day for the Sonicbids crew down at SXSW. Our official showcase featured 12 bands playing alternating 30 minute sets on the upstairs and downstairs stages on Maggie Mae’s. This led to a non-stop stream of rock n roll from 11:30am until 6pm, but we still made some time to catch up with our opening act and JanSport Battle of the Bands winner Hotfox.So how did 5 college kids from Bloomington, Indiana end up playing at SXSW? Lead singer Oliver Hopkins explained, “We knew buddies of ours from Bloomington called The Broderick had won the JanSport contest through Sonicbids a couple years ago so when that opportunity came up again this year and we got the email, we went ahead and submitted our song ‘Mountain Tiger.’”
Drummer Michael Preuschl continued, “Once we got into the top 50 we had a grassroots campaign and put the information on our social media sites and told our friends and our families to help get people to vote for us.” When the band hit the rarified air of the top 5 vote getters, bassist Marcus Tedesco said that they all had a collective moment of, “Woah, we could actually win this.”
Luckily for the band, Marcus’ Spiderman-esque intuition proved to be true. But what were the tactics that helped the band to separate themselves from the rest of the pack when it came to collecting votes? Preuschl immediately credited the band’s loyal fans, “We have some pretty awesome fans, both in Bloomington and Indianapolis and it was the support of our loyal fans that ultimately got us here."
Mobilizing fans to vote during the JanSport battle was certainly an important part of the band’s journey to SXSW, but percussionist Colin Van Wye told us that the key may have been, “Not calling my parents for money for the first time. When I was calling them it was like ‘no no no I don’t need money, I just need your vote.’”
There’s a lesson to be learned here for all of you bands aspiring to play SXSW next year—appreciate your fans and stop asking your parents for money.
