CANTON —Dan Monea was trying to play it cool, calm and collected last Saturday afternoon. But it was a monumental challenge, emphasis on mental.
Dan and his Canton-based band Hey Monea! were in London, you see, in their dressing-room trailer backstage at the Hard Rock Calling festival in Hyde Park, about to go on stage as the opening act for a huge outdoor concert starring John Fogerty, Lady Antebellum and Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band.Yes, this really happened.So Dan (who sings and plays guitar), his brother Nate Monea (the band’s drummer) and Adam Orin (the bass player) were in their trailer attempting to make sense of this incredible situation they’d found themselves in — after winning an international battle of the bands sponsored by the Hard Rock Cafe — when they were summoned to the stage.It was showtime.‘A SEA OF PEOPLE’“We open the door of our trailer and John Fogerty is right outside being interviewed by a camera crew,” Dan, 29, recalls. “There are literally five video cameras following us to the stage and photographers snapping pictures of us and I’m as excited as I’ve ever felt in my life. Wired. Butterflies. Everything. My brain wouldn’t shut off.”
As for Nate, “I was pretending I wasn’t nervous, but in my head I was freaking out.”The guys took the vast Hyde Park stage (where Madonna performed Tuesday), peeked out the curtain and saw that about 50,000 people already had shown up. After being introduced as the winning band of the Hard Rock Rising competition, they launched into their warm and lilting opening song, “Stay For the Summer.”“I thought, ‘Let’s just get through this first song,’” Adam, 30, remembers. “Once the applause hit, I felt, ‘This is going to be okay.’” Dan adds, “I could not believe the crowd response.”“The crowd was “a sea of people. You literally couldn’t see a face except for maybe the front row,” Nate, 26, says.‘NERVES MELTED AWAY’
Things went smoothly for Hey Monea! during the trio’s six-song, half-hour set. “The Ballad of Moonbeam Swinger,” a terrific keyboard-driven original song, went over especially well. The band played a brand-new song titled “Outlaw Girl” and nailed it. Closeups of the band were shown on jumbo video screens flanking the stage. The temperature was a comfortable 65 degrees.“I looked at Nate and he was bashing the drums harder than I’ve ever seen him play,” Dan says. “We were definitely in the zone. Nerves melted away and turned to concentration.” “We’re used to playing an hour and 20 minutes,” Adam says. “This was so fast.”“We were really comfortable by the end of the set,” Nate says. “We had no hesitation to rock out.”
“They handled it like pros,” concludes saxophonist Matt Corey, a longtime friend of Hey Monea! who watched the band’s show from the side of the stage. “It was amazing to see that many people watching them.”Another Canton friend, Adam “Showtime” Muller, was allowed to serve as a stagehand in London. “He was more nervous than we were,” Nate says.BACKSTAGE FUNAfter Hey Monea! finished playing Saturday, the band did a series of about 15 interviews backstage, while feeling increasingly celebratory from complimentary cocktails.“They had constructed what was basically a Hard Rock Cafe backstage in a big carnival tent, with a swimming pool, a double-decker bus and a traveling rock-memorabilia exhibit,” Corey reports.As part of its Hard Rock Rising prize package, Hey Monea! enjoyed five-star lodging at London’s Intercontinental Hotel, VIP backstage access for all three days of the music festival — which also included performances by Paul Simon, Iggy & the Stooges, Soundgarden and Allison Krauss — and admission to nightly VIP after-parties until 3 a.m. at London’s Hard Rock Cafe. Nate estimates his consumption of raspberry mojitos over four days and nights to be in the upper double-digits.After finishing their performance, the guys received a DVD of their entire performance captured on video, which inevitably will turn up on YouTube.com
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Adam Showtime Muller / Blog
PRESS RELEASE 6/20/12:
CLEVELAND WINS ROCK N’ ROLL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP: How Hey Monea! Used Social Media Fan Engagement To Conquer The World’s Largest Battle of the Bands…
Cleveland, Ohio may not have Lebron James or a sports team that’s competing for a world championship, but they do have the title of home to the world’s largest battle of the band victor in the band Hey Monea! The 4-piece band representing Cleveland recently beat out 12,000 bands globally to be named the winner of the world’s largest battle of the band competition; Hard Rock Rising with the grand prize being opening the main stage of the Hard Rock Calling Festival in London this July headlined by none other than Bruce Springsteen.
How they did it:
So how does a band set itself apart from 12,000 other bands? Hey Monea! would tell you it’s combination of great music and performance combined with a large dose of social media fan engagement. While the bands music and performance are a main factor throughout, the early stages of the competition rely heavily on fan interaction with the contest through engaging with the competition and voting. The band launched a multi-tiered social media-based fan-engagement campaign which included song downloads for votes, laptop voting stations at every live performance and a Youtube campaign where the band would acknowledge hitting voting goals by performing agreed-to stunts often of the self-deprecating nature. Stunts included getting slapped in the face with dead fish, dressing up in daisy dukes, tied-off shirts and cowboy boots prior to a night of bar-hopping and “superman” shots. Nothing too over-the-top and all in good fun and it really showed the light-hearted nature of the band. Singer Danny Monea expressed it as; “we are a fun-loving band and we’re a social band. We’re not above our fans and we want to engage them even if it means making light of ourselves and putting the rockstar egos in check”. The final judging of the grand prize was done by a panel of industry executives including Little Steven Van Zandt of The E-Street Band and Sopranos fame. The final round was based solely on the music, which ultimately ties together the credibility and the hard work ethic.
About Hey Monea!
Hey Monea! was born as a band around 2005 when teenage brothers Danny and Nate Monea made the life-decision to step away from the world of fundamentalist religion and into the world of rock n’roll. It’s a classic story of parents instill religion at an early age, kids rebel as teens and form a rock band. The brothers were raised as strict Jehovah’s Witnesses and were living it to the extreme of going door-to-door preaching the message. Music was part of their upbringing, but whenever a record they really loved was successful snuck into the house, it quickly found itself an unpleasant demise. Danny Monea tells it as “we loved Metallica but unfortunately the Black album became the cracked album”… The brothers are at peace with the religious upbringing however adds Nate; “It’s part of what makes us who we are and we accept it and move on down the road…”
The gospel the band preaches today is one of classic rock songwriting roots replete with blues-based piano and guitar riffs and dead-on harmonies. Rounded out by bassist Adam Orin, the band’s sound is familiar yet at the same time refreshing and has a very high “likeability” factor as is apparent with the victory over 12,000 other bands. Danny Monea ends the discussion with “We’re not trying to re-invent the wheel with our sound here. We love rock n’roll and that’s what we play. We’re just happy we get to do what we love and make people smile along the way…” And that’s what they intend to do this July in London in front of 50,000 music fans.
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Canton’s Hey Monea! opens Springsteen concert in London
CANTON —Dan Monea was trying to play it cool, calm and collected last Saturday afternoon. But it was a monumental challenge, emphasis on mental. Dan and his Canton-based band Hey Monea! were in London, you see, in their dressing-room trailer backstage at the Hard Rock Calling festival in Hyde Park, about to go on stage as the opening act for a huge outdoor concert starring John Fogerty, Lady Antebellum and Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band.Yes, this really happened.So Dan (who sings and plays guitar), his brother Nate Monea (the band’s drummer) and Adam Orin (the bass player) were in their trailer attempting to make sense of this incredible situation they’d found themselves in — after winning an international battle of the bands sponsored by the Hard Rock Cafe — when they were summoned to the stage.It was showtime.‘A SEA OF PEOPLE’“We open the door of our trailer and John Fogerty is right outside being interviewed by a camera crew,” Dan, 29, recalls. “There are literally five video cameras following us to the stage and photographers snapping pictures of us and I’m as excited as I’ve ever felt in my life. Wired. Butterflies. Everything. My brain wouldn’t shut off.” As for Nate, “I was pretending I wasn’t nervous, but in my head I was freaking out.”The guys took the vast Hyde Park stage (where Madonna performed Tuesday), peeked out the curtain and saw that about 50,000 people already had shown up. After being introduced as the winning band of the Hard Rock Rising competition, they launched into their warm and lilting opening song, “Stay For the Summer.”“I thought, ‘Let’s just get through this first song,’” Adam, 30, remembers. “Once the applause hit, I felt, ‘This is going to be okay.’” Dan adds, “I could not believe the crowd response.”“The crowd was “a sea of people. You literally couldn’t see a face except for maybe the front row,” Nate, 26, says.‘NERVES MELTED AWAY’ Things went smoothly for Hey Monea! during the trio’s six-song, half-hour set. “The Ballad of Moonbeam Swinger,” a terrific keyboard-driven original song, went over especially well. The band played a brand-new song titled “Outlaw Girl” and nailed it. Closeups of the band were shown on jumbo video screens flanking the stage. The temperature was a comfortable 65 degrees.“I looked at Nate and he was bashing the drums harder than I’ve ever seen him play,” Dan says. “We were definitely in the zone. Nerves melted away and turned to concentration.” “We’re used to playing an hour and 20 minutes,” Adam says. “This was so fast.”“We were really comfortable by the end of the set,” Nate says. “We had no hesitation to rock out.” “They handled it like pros,” concludes saxophonist Matt Corey, a longtime friend of Hey Monea! who watched the band’s show from the side of the stage. “It was amazing to see that many people watching them.”Another Canton friend, Adam “Showtime” Muller, was allowed to serve as a stagehand in London. “He was more nervous than we were,” Nate says.BACKSTAGE FUNAfter Hey Monea! finished playing Saturday, the band did a series of about 15 interviews backstage, while feeling increasingly celebratory from complimentary cocktails.“They had constructed what was basically a Hard Rock Cafe backstage in a big carnival tent, with a swimming pool, a double-decker bus and a traveling rock-memorabilia exhibit,” Corey reports.As part of its Hard Rock Rising prize package, Hey Monea! enjoyed five-star lodging at London’s Intercontinental Hotel, VIP backstage access for all three days of the music festival — which also included performances by Paul Simon, Iggy & the Stooges, Soundgarden and Allison Krauss — and admission to nightly VIP after-parties until 3 a.m. at London’s Hard Rock Cafe. Nate estimates his consumption of raspberry mojitos over four days and nights to be in the upper double-digits.After finishing their performance, the guys received a DVD of their entire performance captured on video, which inevitably will turn up on YouTube.com
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Hey Monea! Wins Hard Rock Calling Slot
In what’s being called the largest international battle of the bands ever, a group from Cleveland has won the right to appear on Hard Rock Calling’s main stage at London’s Hyde Park July 14. Say hello to Hey Monea! While an unknown band playing the main stage will probably have to face an audience grabbing beer breaks and hitting the portable toilets, one thing is for sure: the three guys in Hey Monea! – brothers Danny and Nate Monea along with Adam Orin – are going to mingle with the big boys when they play the main stage ahead of Tom Morello, Lady Antebellum, John Fogerty and headliner Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band. How does a group leap from being a local favorite to appearing on a major music festival’s main stage? For Hey Monea! the journey began with several band battles at Cleveland’s Hard Rock Café. More competitions followed until the band was performing in front of a judging panel comprised of E Street Band’s Steven Van Zandt, Portugal. The Man singer John Gourley, Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit, Fyfe Dangerfield of Guillemots, Live Nation VP of Promotions Toby Leighton-Pope and Hard Rock International CMO John Galloway. But beating other bands was only half of the journey. Hey Monea! also had to mount its own fan-driven marketing effort, a multi-tiered social media-based fan-engagement campaign. This included song downloads for votes and a YouTube campaign where the band had a few laughs at its own expense, such as going out bar-hopping dressed in Daisy Dukes, tied-off shirts and cowboy boots. Ah, the price of fame. “We are a fun-loving band and we’re a social band,” Danny Monea said. “We’re not above our fans and we want to engage them even if it means making light of ourselves and putting the rock star egos in check.”
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And The Hard Rock Rising Winner Is...
Hey Monea! from Cleveland, Ohio, took the top spot in Hard Rock Rising: The Global Battle Of The Bands. Fierce competition during every phase of the contest didn't deter Hey Monea!, as they kept their eyes straight ahead and focused on winner. From creatively motivating and thanking their fans to vote online to getting airtime of Cleveland morning TV, the band really, really, really wanted to win this thing. And they did! Four months ago, we put out a call for entries for Hard Rock Rising, our global battle of the bands competition. Partnering with ReverbNation, an online community of over 2 million music industry professionals (artists, managers, labels, venues, festivals/events), Hard Rock took band submissions in 86 markets around the world, with each band eyeing the grand prize of flying to London to play the Hard Rock Calling music festival in historic, and amazingly lovely, Hyde Park.
The road to that grand prize would not be easy, though. We received over 12,000 submissions! 12,000! Think about that. The grand prize winner would have to beat out 11,999 other bands. Yep, that's not your usual, run-of-the-mill battle of the bands competition at your local venue. First, the bands went through an online vote, in which fans determined which bands in each market would play live at Hard Rock Cafe for the second round of the contest. Next, the 9 or so bands with the most votes in each market battled it out live at the Cafes, vying to be the band that would represent their market in the Finals. One band from each Cafe battle, 86 in all, then battled it out online again to determine the Top 10. Once it got down to the Top 10, an industry panel (including Little Steven of the E Street Band) voted on their favorites. Easy, right? Not so much. The competition was intense at every turn, with bands the world over showing everyone that music truly is the universal language and that there are incredible bands everywhere.
But, there could be only one, and Hey Monea! weathered the battles like champs. Hard Rock Rising found its grand prize winner and Hey Monea! will travel to London in July to play the mainstage at Hard Rock Calling! Yep, it's gonna be a great summer.
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We Won!!!!! We Won!!!!!
Well Ladies and Gentlemen, we know the results.....
And it looks like Hey Monea! will be going to LONDON!
HOLY CRAP WE WON! WE LOVE ALL OF YOU SO FREAKING MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is hard to type with all these tears of joy making my keyboard slippery!!!!!!!!!!
We really just wanna take this opportunity to thanks our good friends at the Hard Rock Cafe, its an amazing organazation that truly makes dreams come true!! To you guys: we promise that we will work our asses off to carry the HRC banner anywhere you send us proudly, our hard work has only begun and from the depths of our souls we say thank you so much!!!!
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HEY MONEA IN THE TOP 10
The popular Canton-based band Hey Monea! is one of 10 finalists in Hard Rock Rising, an international talent contest. Other bands hail from Thailand, Bali and Russia, as well as Biloxi, Miss., Chicago and Phoenix.
Hey Monea! made it into the top 10 by scoring about 6,400 votes on the Hard Rock website by last Tuesday’s midnight deadline. There were 86 bands vying for fan votes.
“We had friends going out and recruiting people (at nightspots) that last night. It was really exciting,” says Dan Monea, the band’s vocalist-guitarist.
To stir up voter interest, the band created a series of videos that may be viewed at www.youtube.com/heymonea.
In the competition, Hey Monea! is representing Cleveland’s Hard Rock Cafe, where it earned its initial spot in the contest in March, and where it will play a fan appreciation concert on May 24. A panel of judges, among them Steven Van Zandt of the E Street Band, will evaluate the 10 finalists and select a winner that will perform at the Hard Rock Calling music festival in London in July, whose headliners include Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon.
Asked about the competition, Monea says, “There’s some pretty decent bands in there. The ones from 5,000 miles away have such a different sensibility that it’s hard to compare them to American rock bands. We’ve done everything we can to put ourselves in a position to win. It’s out of our hands now.”
Other members of Hey Monea! are Nate Monea (Dan’s brother) on drums and vocals, and Adam Orin on bass. The band’s original name was Hooked On Tonics.
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