The PEAK Performance Project is a seven-year, 5.29 million dollar contest open to all musicians in British Columbia. The project was created by Vancouver’s very own 100.5 The PEAK and Music BC to develop BC based emerging artists. Every year, twenty finalists from BC will receive an intensive, one week training program in the music business, live performance, songwriting, marketing and promotion. From these, the top three will be crowned as the PEAK Performers of the year and will share $275,000 in cash for career development!

Over the coming weeks we’ll be introducing you to all of this year’s participating artists with quick interviews about the project, the other artists, and a little bit of Vancouver! Vote now for your favourite top 19 at www.peakperformanceproject.com.

First up is Danny Echo, a rock group hailing from Burnaby. They’ll be playing The Cellar on October 15th, and the only way to get into the showcase is by listening to 100.5 The Peak FM to win tickets! Limited tickets will also be released at the door.

Who’s your favorite artist(s) in the Peak Performance Project and why?
Wow, that’s a hard question, so we’ll do our best to evade it. At the moment, we’re loving Bend Sinister, They’ve got a unique sound and a very creative approach to songwriting/arrangements, and Dan is an exceptional vocalist. Kuba Ohms is also a favourite – great songs, great performer, cool disco Stones vibe. However, every single artist in the Top 20 is amazing, and it’s so hard to single out just a couple of them.

What was the most valuable thing you took away from Boot Camp?
I’d say the $3500, LOL. Seriously though, I think that just the overall experience of being surrounded by so many incredibly talented and creative people is something that we’ll never forget. We learned so much from the faculty, and our peers as well. In the end, though, I’d say the personal connections were the most valuable thing we took away from camp. We’ve made a lot of new friends, and you can’t put a price on that.

What is one thing you wish you brought to Boot Camp, but didn’t?
We were kicking ourselves for not bringing acoustic guitars with us. We didn’t have enough room in our vehicles for all of our gear plus acoustic guitars, so we had to leave them at home. They would have come in handy when writing and recording our In A Minute song, but fortunately The Painted Birds were generous enough to lend us theirs.

What’s your favorite venue to play at in BC?
Probably GM Place, but since we won’t be playing there for at least a few more months, we’d probably have to choose 2 venues we play at regularly – The Railway Club and The Backstage Lounge. Both venues have great sound, and there’s always a good crowd there as well.

Where is your favorite hangout in Vancouver?
We generally have our band meetings at the Soho Bar & Grill in Burnaby, so I guess that’s probably the hangout you’ll usually find us at.

If you win the grand prize, what are you going to put the money towards?
As a result of the $3500 we received at bootcamp, we just finished recording our debut single, Tomorrow Today, last weekend. The song was produced by Jeff Dawson (Daniel Powter, Kelly Rowland, The Dudes), and mixed by Mike Fraser (ACDC, Led Zeppelin, Franz Ferdinand). We’re going to release it later this Fall, and plan on doing a lot of promotion, so keep checking out our website over the next couple of weeks for special announcements (www.dannyecho.com). However, if we win the grand prize, we’ll be able to promote it even more heavily across Canada, whether through online promotion, touring ,a video etc. The new song has turned out great, and we strongly believe we have a hit song on our hands. The prize money would give us a realistic chance of achieving our short term and long term goals… making “DANNY ECHO” a household name and our music a permanent fixture in peoples music collection.

www.dannyecho.com
www.myspace.com/dannyecho
www.facebook.com/people/Danny-Echo/748960005
www.twitter.com/Dannyecho

www.thepeak.fm / www.peakperformanceproject.com / www.musicbc.org / www.cellarvan.com