Friday, January 29, 2010
By John Benson
An appetizer to the main meal is how local teenage band Sinful Faith — singer-guitarist Nick Deemer, bassist Aaron Mannion and drummer Dylan Reid (all three are 15 years old) — is viewing its recent battle-of-the-bands competition win at the Boardman Performing Arts Center.
Up next is an appearance at the Tri-C High School Rock Off on Saturday at the House of Blues.
“You know, I think we should be able to do pretty well considering we took first place at the Boardman Battle of the Bands this year,” said Reid, a Boardman High School sophomore. “We think we’ll put on a pretty good show, and we hope to — if anything —just make some new fans.”
He added, “The Boardman show gave us ideas on what we should and shouldn’t do for the Rock Off. The big thing is to not let your nerves affect how you play and just get up there and just work the crowd and let them work you.”
Formed roughly a year ago, Sinful Faith views itself as a hard-rock act that delves into screamo. Reid lists influences ranging from Sixx: A.M. and M ∂tley Cr ºe to Sick Puppies.
“It’s like more the harder, more upcoming screamo bands in a way but we’re not entirely screamo,” said Reid, whose bandmates Deemer and Mannion are both Springfield High School sophomores. “We have our own melodies that like we actually sing, so we don’t scream the entire time.”
Among the band’s favorite original tunes are the dynamic “Love Song” and the heavy “Alive.” There’s also talk of the trio’s performing its own unique screamo cover of Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop.”
In talking to Reid, there’s definitely a sense of confidence regarding the band’s upcoming Rock-Off debut. Any chance after the threesome’s recent other battle-of-the-bands win — which included a prize package of $150 and 10 hours of recording time — that the guys are feeling overconfident?
“No, I don’t think we’ll go in too confident,” Reid said. “We’re not really sure what we’re up against completely. We’re not really going in to win. We’re going in to just have a good time and broaden our horizons. But if we did win, it would mean so much. There’s so much offered. There are a lot of opportunities. It would be great.”
If the band was the last group standing at the Feb. 6 finals, they would take home quite a prize package. The winners of the Rock Off receive $500, a $500 gift card from Sam Ash Music and a total of 24 hours of recording time at Ante Up Audio, in addition to appearing on Tri-C’s cable-television programs “Crooked River Groove” and “Words & Music.” The winning band also will have the opportunity to open for a national act, and their high school band fund will receive a $200 donation.
Interestingly, there’s another local act that finds itself in a similar position to Sinful Faith. Cortland band Burkley — singer-guitarist Frank Toncar, 15; bassist Zach Nussle, 15; guitarist Bubba P, 16; and drummer Frankito Jones, 13 — took third place at the recent battle-of-the-bands event at Boardman Performing Arts Center.
“The Boardman show, that just proves we can place and lets us know we can do good and even win,” said Toncar. “We’re just going to do the best we can. There are some really other good bands. We probably have a shot at winning it all, but I don’t know.”
Burkley came together last year around a love of punk rock. Heavily inspired by Green Day, the quartet will be playing originals such as the in-your-face “Spitwad” and catchy “Homeless Jerk” at the Rock Off. Also, the band hopes to curry favor with the audience and judges with a fun cover of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.”
Even though Toncar said he hopes to win it all, the Lakeview High School freshman is taking a pragmatic approach.
“This is our first year, so we’ll just see what we can do,” Toncar said. “We’ll work on getting better from there.”