This fall Sonicbids teamed up with the City Arts Fest in Seattle to help one luckySonicbids artist perform at the festival. After reviewing almost 300 submissions City Arts selected The Nameless of Portland, Oregon to perform on the opening night of the festival. Sonicbids helped The Nameless get to Seattle with a $500 travel stipend and after the festival was over I had a chance to catch up with multi-instrumentalist Stephen Pancerev to chat about the band, their trip to Seattle and their experience at the festival.
The seeds for The Nameless were planted when Stephen and vocalist Kelly Grohs met while working at the “infamous” Le Bistro Montage in Portland. “Kelly and I were co-workers for years and had rambled through a few bands together, but then I moved to Providence for 5 years and it wasn’t until I came back that I decided I wanted to A) pursue my passion in playing guitar and piano and B) do that with Kelly in some context.”
Stephen calls Kelly’s voice “inspiring” and once they began writing tunes together, the rest of the lineup fell together naturally with friends and fellow musicians Galen Clark on keys, Bill Athens on bass and Dan Duval on guitar. After honing their craft around Portland, the band felt confident going into their big gig at City Arts. “We all traveled separate because we all have our own little lives going on, but Kelly and I went up together. It’s a quick drive, if you speed, which we did, so the ride itself was uneventful. Once we got up there the owner of the venue introduced herself, and made us feel very comfortable.”
The venue was Rendezvous, a converted movie theatre where critics used to gather to preview films. “It was a place where film industry people would have a meal or a drink and then move into the film room and preview films of the day. It was this tiny, little, beautiful, intimate room that was really great to play in, because it completely made the audience and us, the performers, feel completely focused. It’s a dark environment with no distractions, and it is literally just a room to observe. Everything in the room was just focused on the music, which made it a great place to perform. When we started playing it ended up being a full audience and we got a very favorable response. Kelly and I and the boys certainly enjoyed playing, we had a grand ole time.”
And what was the best moment of the trip?
“The feeling of the band gathering in the Rendezvous before the show and all of us just feeling the energy of the room and the people there. Knowing that we were all there in that moment and at that time and at the place gives you great comfort. Life can be fleeting and those types of moments are almost miracles, when you can be together at the same place and do something that has some semblance of what it is you see yourself accomplishing in life. When we all made it up there and it all came to fruition, it really hit me and that moment made me realize the fact that we were invited by someone we didn’t know and that it all happened through Sonicbids, it had a transformative power to it.”
After their trip to Seattle The Nameless are back at work, playing as many shows as possible in and around Portland and have plans to make a new record within the next two years. Make sure to check the Sonicbids blog regularly for opportunities to get your band’s travel paid for by Sonicbids!