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Singer Found!!

Sorry for the delay - honestly there has not been much to tell.Joel (drummer) and I have been working on getting him upto speed on all the material - he is still learning thenuances, but is a good drummer and is picking it up quickly.We attended a birthday party for one of his wives' friends where we saw a couple of local bands play - they were pretty good - we willbe better. Our 1st round of singer auditions was a bust - no shows - our 2nd roundfaired better - once Sinoa DeMerchant started it was clear she was the one for the job. She has a résumé of performing all over the world - wassigned to a major label and has a gold record to her credit. If I listedthe producers and artists she has worked with your jaws would drop (thinkA-listers, multi platinum names). She was voice trained at Berkley college of music with a background in R&B and jazz. My only concern was can she sing hard rock. A few bars into the 1st song and my answers were clear - absolutely!! Her voice was strong enough to knock me out of my seat. She was excited about the material and at this stage in her career wanted a changeand had always wanted to sing rock. For the audition she had researched bands like Evanescence and Nightwish and right after the audition checked out Dream Theater(she is actually friends with Al Pitrelli and other members of the Trans SiberianOrchestra). She already started coming up with a marketing strategy and plansfor where and when we want to play. Between her and Joel's contacts we should have marketing covered to let me spend my time on the musical direction. Sheis already planning to begin recording vocal tracks this coming weekend - I haveto get in gear and have the rest of the album's music recorded (I have about 1/2the album recorded at this point) - I will leak a clip soon to let you hear whatan amazing fit this is. I have played in many bands over the years and always getexcited about a new project - but I think there is a truly special chemistry hereand that you are about to hear a truly great project - remember how you felt the1st time you heard "Appetite for Destruction" or "Nevermind"? This might be another of those moments. Why would I say this? Purely ego (a little maybe)? I e-mailed theaudition tracks to my brother in NY - he has always been very supportive of my bandsbut rarely excited about them. I called him after the audition and told him how excited I was - he was positive but I could hear his eyes rolling - thinking herehe goes again getting overly excited about a new "decent" band. 5 minutes after wehung up he called back having heard one of the audition tracks and I could hear theexcitement in his voice. This singer was not simply "OK", but was "Another Level". Joel is following up with our keyboardist - which will be needed for live shows and we still need a bass player. We will push ahead on recording and as soon as we finda bass player start practicing so that we can hit the scene flying. We also have begun the "name" search. Anyone who has ever started a band knows this isa daunting process - the right name is absolutely crucial in defining the band. We need something memorable - hard but not too hard. I hope to post again next week with a clip to not only show you the music - but the singerwho will front the group and largely define it. 'Til then....

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