Whisky River vies for public support, promises good turn

April 15, 2014 · 0 Comments

By Mark Pavilons
A band with a local connection has made it in the spotlight and they’re turning to the public for its support.
Whisky River, made of up four teachers, made it to the top 10, in the annual CBC Music’s Searchlight contest. The band beat out thousands of competitors to make it this far.
The public can vote every day this week until Sunday at 3 p.m. If they advance, they will be number one in the Toronto region.
CBC Music and CBC Radio One are looking for Canada’s best new artist, and they’re inviting the public to help decide. Searchlight is a competition that connects artists with fans in their community and across the country. Vote for your favourite bands in your region and across the country. You can vote for 10 acts per region per day, to decide which acts make it to the regional finals.
It’s all leading to a grand prize, including $20,000 worth of music equipment from Yamaha Canada Music, a professional recording with CBC Music, and a spot on the bill with Tegan and Sara, and Spoon at the CBCMusic.ca Festival in Vancouver.
The best part is, if they win, they win, they will donate their prize to the music department at their school. Dr. John M. Denison Secondary School, according to Schomberg’s Peter Zantingh.
He explained that many of the participating bands already have quite a loyal following, so the competition is challenging.
“We really took advantage of social media (Facebook, email, and Twitter) to get in contact with fans, friends, and family to vote for us, and it paid off! We were really surprised to get past the first round and into the top 25 because we are still building our name as a band, but now we are even more excited about getting to the next round in the top 10.”
The group thought it would be a nice gesture to give the grand prize of $20,000 in Yamaha Music equipment to the music department at their Newmarket school. Even though none of them are music teachers they have participated with the head of music at the school in various capacities over the years and thought it might be nice to make the competition a school community event.
“Our principal, Fran Harvey, was keen on the idea, and so we made it official and announced our initiative to the Denison student body.”
The band recorded their first single, “Don’t Let This Line Stop Rollin’” last May, and also shot a video. They were really happy with how it all turned out and thought this would be their ace in the hole for the contest
Whisky River has been together since 2012, and they’ve played numerous gigs in Barrie opening for other Canadian bands, as well as regular gigs in Aurora and Schomberg. The group has also completed another video, which will be available for viewing later this month and Zatingh said they hope to record a full album this summer.
Zantingh said the group has a folk, rock alternative country band flavour, sort of like Mumford and Sons meets Blue Rodeo.
The group includes Mike Moore, vocals and guitar (Aurora); Peter Zantingh, mandolin and vocals (Schomberg); Paul Faulkner, bass and vocals (Newmarket) and Dan Futa, drums and vocals (Scarborough).
All of the guys have played in different configurations over the years, but this new project feels a little different. There are no grand illusions about fame and fortune or any of those other rock ‘n roll trappings – it’s simply about the music and the camaraderie.
“We love to create new and ‘borrowed’ music together and perform in front of an audience. We all have other things going on in our lives, but the music helps to ground us and make life a little more enjoyable,” Zantingh noted.
People can vote for them by going to CBC Music, typing in Whisky River, and scrolling down the page to click on the blue “vote” tab.
The band is playing at King Richards English Pub in Aurora on May 9 and 10 and at the 1812 Grillhouse, north of Schomberg on July 12.