20 December 2011 - 0 Comments

Here's a holdable wee story for the silly season - Merry Christmas. 

Smokefreerockquest’s role as an incubator for Kiwi music is evident in the summer music festivals, with this year’s award winners lined up to play across the country from Parachute to the Kaikoura Roots Festival.

This year’s national winners, The Peasants, a seven piece Nelson indie-pop band whose singer Georgia Knott stunned the judges with her ‘powerful, emotional and dynamic’ voice, will welcome the New Year at Nelson’s Trafalgar Square Countdown. They then have a slot at the Kaikoura Roots Festival on January 14, alongside such established names as Salmonella Dub and Kora. Back on their home turf they are booked for the Brightwater Food and Wine Festival on January 29 alongside home-town girl Sharon O’Neill and Aussie rocker Glenn Shorrock, of the Little River Band.

Peasants’ drummer Chris Phillips says they’ll play more gigs around the February release of the single and video that is part of their SFRQ first prize.

“We’ve been writing a whole lot of new stuff since winning Smokefreerockquest,” he said. “It’s an awesome foot in the door of the music industry and we’re working really hard to make the most of it.”

The band plans to focus on ‘pursuing The Peasants’ dream’ and the members, Chris Phillips, Joseph Corban-Banks (bass), Clark Hinton (lead guitar), Georgia Nott (vocals and percussion), Abbey Phillips (vocals and keyboard), Rupert Wockner (rhythm guitar), Holly Tippler (vocals and keyboard) will be working hard to bring the dream to reality with the support of Smokefreerockquest  and their Garin College music teacher Kyle Proffit.

Second place-getter for the last two years, Auckland singer-songwriter Massad has just featured at Coca Cola Christmas in the Park in Christchurch and Auckland and says it was ‘really cool’ to perform his own songs in front of such big crowds. He is booked to play at the Parachute Festival at Mystery Creek at the end of January and has another high profile live summer gig that is yet to be announced.

“I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without the experience of Smokefreerockquest and the support that has given me,” Massad said. “With the funding that was part of the prize, SFRQ has made it realistic for me to turn music from a hobby into something I can do for the rest of my life.”  

Massad has finished at Sacred Heart College, and also plans to devote the coming year to music.  

He has been to Sydney for two recording sessions, his single ‘Tear My Heart Out’ is on sale and getting plenty of airtime on The Edge, and his follow-up single ‘Forget About Me’ was recently released, including a new music video that premiered on channel FOUR.

Meantime, another 800 plus bands and songwriters are just waiting to be discovered in Smokefreerockquest 2012, which will run in 24 regions around New Zealand from May to July.

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