An up-and-coming five-piece band in the province enters the RadioStar National Talent Search in hopes of gaining some great experience and exposure.

The new band Hinterland showcases its skills during a live performance at Distortion, a popular live music bar in St. John's. - Contributed photo

By Megan Harris-Edwards

New musicians are always looking for exposure. And the St. John’s-based band Hinterland is no exception.

The self-described “indie blues-folk- rock” band has entered the RadioStar National Talent Search.

The Newfoundland segment of the national competition is being sponsored by 99.1 Hits FM

Hinterland has been playing together at fundraisers, house parties and bars all over St. John’s for the past year now. The five-piece band consists of Nichole Tubrett on lead vocals and acoustic guitar, Tyler Stanley on bass, Curtis Smith on lead guitar and harmonica, Dan Greene on percussion and Brittany O’Leary on back-up vocals.

“We’re hoping the competition is a good bit of exposure for us,” said Stanley.

After deciding to enter the competition, the band had just two weeks to record their original song Keys and mail it off before the deadline on December 16, 2011.

“We chose that song because we were most comfortable playing it at the time and it was one of our favorite songs to play,” said Tubrett.

When the competition came up, Stanley asked Ben Hamel to produce Keys for Hinterland. Stanley and Hamel had been in another band together previously.

“He put off literally two weeks of his life and dedicated it entirely to us,” said Stanley. “He worked around our schedules and he put a lot of time into mixing and mastering.”

Recording was a completely brand new experience for O’Leary and Tubrett.

“We never, ever did anything so professional with our own music before,” said O’Leary.

Fan voting for the Top 50 bands took place from December 19 to January 16. The band members did a lot of promotion through Facebook, Twitter and word of mouth to get people voting for Hinterland on the RadioStar website.

“It’s cool to see how many views we have and Tweets and Likes,” said O’Leary.

The band members are very pleased with the likes and views on their profile and now they can’t wait to see the results for the Top 50 bands on January 30.

“It’d be nice to make it to the Top 50,” said Stanley.

All there is left to do for the band now is to wait and see what the judges decide. Hinterland has until March 1 to wait before the regional winner, runner-up and grand prize winners are announced. Until then, they plan to keep working on more material and playing at more venues to work up to releasing an album one day in the future.