Local band Verity in Stereo was featured on a music industry website after winning a national competition. Ocean Township-based band Verity in Stereo recently received national attention for their unique brand of high-energy piano rock.
Helmed by Ocean Township High School graduate Kiirsten Kuhi, the indie rock quintet recently won a national competition sponsored by instrument company Korg and were highlighted on BestNewBands.comasDecember’s band-in-residence.
Kiirsten’s brother, Mikal Kuhi, and Corinne Cavallo, also OTHS graduates, join the vocalist on piano and clarinet, respectively.
Drummer Craig Williams, of Wayside and a Monmouth Regional High School graduate, and bassist John Shilkoski complete the group.
Los Angeles-based website BestNew- Bands.com previously reviewed Verity in Stereo’s music video for its de facto single “One Shot,” Kiirsten said, but she was not expecting to be selected as an artist-in-residence.
“It’s really great that they appreciate our music enough to want to feature us, especially because they are on the West Coast, so it’s a place for us to get our music out where we wouldn’t normally,” Kiirsten said.
As the artist-in-residence, the site featured one video of the band a week. The final one, Kiirsten said, was a retrospective for the year.
“Since we were December and it was the last video, I made it a look back at 2010 of live footage of us,” she said.
The videos also included footage of the band recording in December. Verity in Stereo also won Korg’s Reprise Rivalry contest out of thousands of entries from across the country.
“In the beginning, I had no idea that we could possibly win this, but I’m always looking for different things like this to give us different opportunities to move our band forward,” Kiirsten said.
Fans of each band voted for their favorite song during the first round; Verity in Stereo submitted their song, “One Shot.” Company representatives judged the top 50 songs from the first round and selected eight for the final round, Kiirsten said.
These eight finalists needed to rewrite or remix that original song,
“We had to totally re-imagine it, and we turned it into a dance song,” Kiirsten said.
Verity in Stereo’s remixed song had the most downloads of any band, securing them over $5,000 of musical equipment and a oneyear endorsement from Korg USA.
Along with these national accolades, Verity in Stereo receives plenty of local attention, including a nomination for Best Indie Rock Band at the 2010 Asbury Music Awards.
“It was cool to be there and see that we are amember of the community and that we do belong,” Kiirsten said.
According to Cavallo, the band frequents local Asbury Park venues like the Stone Pony and The Saint.
“We enjoy it because our friends come and it’s a nice local scene. There’s a great music scene in Asbury now,” Cavallo said.
Kiirsten said that Verity in Stereo has opened for bands such as Mae, 3OH3! and Cobra Starship.
“Our first ‘real’ show, we opened for the band Mae at School of Rock [South Hackensack] and it was so surreal, the place was packed,” she said.
“Without the funds really to tour, we’ve been trying to do as much as we can locally.”
Beyond that, she said the band has played venues as distant as Washington, D.C., Maryland, Rhode Island and Connecticut during short weekend mini tours.
“Over the summerwe did a lot of these mini tours where we took a weekend and we plotted out two places to go, a place on Friday and a place on Saturday,” she said.
Currently, the band is focusing on recording new material.
“We’re going to be making a demo, which wewill bemaking a press kit around to send to producers and managers to try and take us to the next level,” Kiirsten said.
To find out more or listen to Verity in Stereo, head to www.verityinstereo.com or www.bestnewbands.com/verity.