The First Two Finalists of Mid-Atlantic Band Battle 6: Brightwork and Kill the Alarm

Posted by Matt Basheda / Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

We brought you the inside scoop on opening night of Jammin J’s sixth Mid-Atlantic Band Battle.  Now we’ve got some more for you:  Q & As with the winners of the first two nights.  The two finalists so far are Brightwork, from Charlottesville, and Kill the Alarm, of New York City.

I talked to Brightwork minutes after their first-round victory on Monday night.  The members are:  Seth Hayes, bass; Andrew Boyd, drums; Brian Hrubik, keyboards and backing vocals; and Caleb Carpenter, guitar and lead vocals.  Here’s what they had to say:

On the state of the band so far:
Caleb:  We’ve been a band for about two and a half years.  We got our start in college, so we kinda did the part-time thing … playing gigs on weekends.  And once we graduated we …  decided that we felt like we wanted to try a shot at being professional and doing this for a living.

How their college experience helps them as a band:
Seth:  The biggest defining thing about us is that we have such varied skillsets as a group of guys.  Of the four of us, we have college majors in international business, finance, web design and communications.  We just have such varied backgrounds, and because of that we’re able to do so many different things as a band, which has been really important for us. … We’re able to … all contribute in our own way and really … be a cohesive group.  Sometimes we sit down and it’s like a board meeting [laughter].

On songwriting:
Caleb:  The songwriting process for us [pauses] … it’s not easy, for one thing, because we’re very, very hypercritical of ourselves. … We like to come up with the best material possible—something that we feel conveys what we’re trying to say but also is up to par with what we feel like it should be.  But a lot of times what we’ll do is … either Brian or myself will come to the table with an idea or something that really inspires us, or … with this melody or this riff.  And we’ll … take it to each other and kinda pick it apart, and then once we find something that we like that’s concrete, we’ll begin building it from there.  So … songwriting is such a process. … It really is an art and we take it very seriously and it’s something that, you know, we’re just trying to get better with, every time we do it.

Check out Brightwork live from a previous performance:

Tuesday’s winner was Kill the Alarm, which is primarily a vehicle for singer/songwriter Garen Gueyikian.  Hailing from New York City, Gueyikian has been making distortion-tinged pop music for over a decade.

How’d you hear about the Band Battle?
Well actually, I’ve played Jammin Java before.  I’ve played a couple shows there, and I love playing there.  And I was just passing through and I stopped in to get a coffee ‘cause I had played in Arlington, at IOTA.  And I just stopped [at Jammin Java] to see how the place looked, and I hadn’t been there in a while, and talked to the Brindleys [JJ's owners] over there.  And I saw the little flyer for the battle of the bands and I thought, this looks interesting … and sure enough, here we are.

What does the win mean to you?
It’s nice.  It’s really great.  There was a lot of great music, great bands, so I wasn’t expecting anything.  It was a lot of fun.  It was a high-pressure situation being tossed in.  But … it’s a great feeling.

How would you describe your music?
Inspiring, energetic alternative pop-rock.

Check out Kill the Alarm’s song “Shout it Out Loud:”

More on the Band Battle by week’s end.

–Matt Basheda

Tags: Brightwork, culture gurus, Entertainment, Events, game plan, Jammin' Java, Kill the Alarm, Matt Basheda, Mid-Atlantic Band Battle 6, Music, Northern Virginia, Northern Virginia Magazine, NoVA, things to do, Vienna