From brocknews.ca
Wednesday, 14 April 2010 20:25
OTTAWA – Cherry Suede operates differently than most bands. They distribute their music for free. They play shows at fans’ houses. They mentor other artists. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that when they entered a contest that could get them an opening slot at a Bon Jovi show, they would find an innovative method to help them win.
Bon Jovi’s SuperBAND Tonight contest (http://www.bonjovi.com/ourstage) gives local bands a chance to open a Bon Jovi show for their hometown crowd. The contest is set up as a series of battles pitting four songs at a time against each other. Fans rank the four songs from best to worst, and then move on to another battle. The band with the most popular song wins the opening slot for the show in their city.
Cherry Suede is hoping their song “When I’m Gone” will get them the gig at a Bon Jovi show in Toronto, Ontario this July, and they’re approaching the competition like they do their tours – with the help and support of music lovers and their core of supporters, the Cherry Suede Brigade.
“I think the first impulse for a band is to put a note up on your Facebook page saying, ‘Vote for our song!'” says Randy Young, guitarist/vocalist for Cherry Suede. “But that’s not enough. We’ve got a lot of fans, but so do other bands. We needed to find a way for our fans to vote and then get more people to vote – people who might not have heard us before.”
Their solution is originally simple: hold another contest. People can enter to win an autographed guitar on the Cherry Suede site (http://www.cherrysuede.com/bonjovicontest/). Once they’ve entered, they have the option of posting a link about the Cherry Suede contest on their Facebook or Twitter page. Posting a link on their page automatically gives them an additional entry in the contest, and then they’re redirected to the Bon Jovi SuperBAND site where they can vote for “When I’m Gone.”
By spreading the word about Cherry Suede, users get another chance of winning something for themselves. And if Cherry Suede wins the Bon Jovi contest, they’ll play the guitar on stage, take a video of it on stage, and autograph it before presenting it to the lucky winner.
“We’ve been fans of Bon Jovi since their first album came out,” says Randy Scott, vocalist and guitarist for Cherry Suede. “Opening for them would be a dream gig, and we’re confident that our fans are going to make that happen.”
For more information about Cherry Suede, please visit www.cherrysuede.com.
Cherry Suede, one of Ontario’s most popular independent bands, has been entertaining fans and supporting an active, vibrant music community for the last 10 years.
Andrew will be playing with Cherry Suede on Friday and Saturday.
