Last week, Muse Music in Provo launched its 2016 Battle Of The Bands, bringing together a mix of SLC and Provo groups, the majority of them relatively unknown, with some even forming just within the past calendar year. After a spirited competition over four nights, the finalists came together on Saturday to a packed venue. At the end of the night, Provo-based Americana rock band Lost In Bourbon won the battle. Today we chat with all four finalists, which also include Iceburgh, No Robot and PACE.

Iceburgh (Alastair, Parker, Zach, and (not pictured) Jarrett)
Iceburgh on Twitter

Gavin:  Hey guys, first off, tell us a little bit about yourselves.

Zach: I grew up in Centerville. I have a love for tennis and outdoor activities. I come from a very musical family; you could always hear singing coming from my house. I’ve been involved with music for as long as I can remember.

Alastair: I'm studying Commercial Music at BYU, and work in the dance department there. I love to read, make smoothies, and I love bear jokes.

Parker: I grew up in Centerville, I’m a student at BYU hoping to go into accounting. I’ve played drums since I was 13.

What first got each of you into music growing up?

Alastair: You know the theme song for the original Yu-Gi- Oh! TV show? I loved air drumming to that every Saturday morning of my childhood and eventually took up percussion in school, leading me to all of the instruments I know how to play now.

Parker: My dad’s love of music really has influenced me. He was always listening to and playing music, and it was a very natural environment for me to grow up with that same love and interest.

Jarrett: I started playing classical when I was four, but then I discovered jazz and fell in love.


What were some of your favorite acts to listen to?

Jarrett: Death Cab For Cutie, Passion Pit, Tokyo Police Club, Portugal. The Man, Bear Hands, Muse, Radiohead —they all put out such cohesive albums, I love that.

Zach: I love Twenty One Pilots, Vampire Weekend, Grouplove and Coldplay. I think everything that these bands produce is gold.

Parker: My favorite bands of this competition were Pace and Pop Warner. They both played really cohesively and were confident in their sound. They were also really cool, genuine people.

Alastair: Oh, by far Kambree, Pace, and Lost In Bourbon—all spectacular performers with really catchy songs.

How did you each get involved with the local music scene?

Jarrett: I fell ass-first into it.

Zach: My involvement with the music scene here in Provo has really started with the conception of Iceburgh. I’ve been to a lot of local concerts, but performing here in Provo didn’t really start until after the band was formed.

Alastair: I started by playing Velour's open mic nights as well as performances at Footlights, BYU's live music club.


When did you all meet each other and formed Iceburgh?

Jarrett: Zach and Parker grew up together; Alastair and I met in a music class we took together at BYU.

Parker: I think it was back in June that all four of us finally got all together. Zach and I have known each other for a long time, and we started working with Alastair for a little before we quickly realized three people wouldn’t cut it. That’s where Jarrett came in, and it’s been great working with each other.

Zach: Alastair and I met a couple of years ago. Parker has been my best friend since junior high and we all met Jarrett about six or seven months ago.

Alastair: Zach and I met through an LDS mission in Scotland and Ireland, then I met Parker through Zach. We then got in contact with Jarrett through a synthesizer group we were a part of.

What made you decide to go for a more alternative sound?

Jarrett: Being outnumbered in a democratic band setting.

Zach: It’s what I really like to listen to and what I identify most with. My writing seems to reflect an alternative sound.

Parker: The hope is that we make music we’re all passionate and excited about. We’re actually all very different in our music tastes and preferences so it’s been an interesting process to write together and come to the sound we have right now. We’re very happy with it, but it’s something we expect to naturally develop and mature and change as we gain more experience writing together.

Alastair: Acoustic, singer-songwriter music persuaded me. I loved the lyrics and stories that people told in the genre, but thought "Man, half the time they're just strumming a guitar." I wanted to be able to tell stories like they did, but with a fuller instrumentation behind it. Alternative caught my ear because all of the quirky, unique sounds are classified as alternative music.


You barely formed back in May of this year. How has it been performing around Provo and trying to build a following?

Jarrett: Its been a blast, we have been very lucky that the scene is so great here. You can always find a gig and people will always show up. That is something seriously special about playing music in Provo.

Parker: Yeah, we’re still really new, we’ve only had the opportunity to play a couple shows now—but we’ve been really impressed and really grateful with the music scene here. We had a really strong turnout to come see us on Thursday night, and it’s great to have that many people here interested in the music scene and in supporting local bands. Provo’s a great place.

Alastair: It's been a very supportive scene here. I love the crowds that Provo can draw.

Are you recording anything at the moment or just writing for now?

Alastair: We're writing a few more songs before we decide which in our catalog from the message that we're wanting to convey with our first EP.

Parker: As of now we have a strong focus on writing—both polishing songs we’ve written to a point we’re satisfied with them and creating new material.

Jarrett: We've always got something in the works. We always end up spending more time in rehearsal than in the studio, but you can expect some tracks coming from us soon.


What are your thoughts being a part of the finals for Muse Music's BOTB?

Zach: It has been really fun! The music scene here is very competitive, but we’ve gotten a lot of support from friends and family. We hope to further our following in these coming months. We haven’t begun a formal recording process. We’re about to record a few demos. But we want to build up our discography before we commit to an ep. But there will be an EP very soon. We are honored to have gotten as far as we have. There have been some insanely talented musicians in this competition.

Jarrett: Incredibly grateful to get to play in the battle of the bands. It was an amazing opportunity to play along with so much local talent and get to meet the people I've been listening to.

Parker: It’s way exciting for me that we were able to be part of the finals. Honestly, it’s surprising because we’re still a really inexperienced and developing band, but we just wanted to go out and play music that is meaningful to us and put on the best show we could. So it was a great experience and a lot of fun.

Alastair: It's such a rewarding feeling to have made it to finals. We've been putting in hours and hours to our music every week for the past half a year, and to have it all come together like this has been such a delight.

What can we expect from all of you going into 2017?

Jarrett: Big things and recordings.

Parker: I think we’re pumped to keep going—playing live as much as possible is a really high priority for us. We’re hoping to play in as many places for as many people as we can. At the same time we’re looking to continue writing and getting as much quality music together as we can. Once we have a core we feel good about we’re excited to record. We’re way excited for 2017 and what’s ahead.

Alastair: We'll be releasing an EP, putting on concerts with some of our favorite local bands (Paint The Woods and Motion Coaster), and expanding our performances around the Mountain-West.



PACE (Josh Dutton, Evette Dutton, Jessica Pace and Matt Pace)
PACE on Facebook

Gavin: Hey guys, first off, tell us a little bit about yourselves.

Matt: We're siblings. Our band started as a songwriting experiment and we wrote "Hipsters" that week. We thought it went pretty well, and here we are.

What first got you interested in music early on and what were your major influences?

Jessica: Our mom taught us piano from an early age and our dad listened to a lot of Broadway. Influences: the cranberries, Michael Jackson, Mika, jazz in general, Cats (the musical), Riverdance, Raffi.


What was it like for both of you growing up together?

Matt:We're the middle children. You know what that means.

What made you decide to form a band with your last name for the name?

Jessica: It was the first band name we thought of, but then we came up with a million other names over the next few months, only to come back to Pace. It's short and simple. It's a pretty great name, if we do say so.


What brought you to Utah from Vegas, and what was it like getting involved with the Utah music scene?

Matt: We both come here for school. I got to BYU to study music media, and Jess to the U of U to study modern dance. We're very new to the music scene. It's been interesting to see the variety and try and find a place among that.

How did you get the Duttons involved to be the rhythm section?

Jessica: The Duttons are Matt's neighbors, and we would go jam with them occasionally. The Duttons are the best!


What was the biggest influence to playing indie-pop music?

Matt: Jessica is a dancer and has always been around pop music. We wanted to make danceable, fun music. And write about everyday things.

How has it been playing around town and building a following?

Jessica: You mean how is it going to go? Haha, we are just starting this process. Battle of the bands is our third performance. We are excited to play more and get involved in the community.


A few months ago you released a video for the song “Forward.” What was it like putting that together?

Matt: Jessica found some local dancers and choreographed movement for the video. The dancers we collaborated with were so great to work with. We also worked with Travis Moore of Mango Film Productions, who is awesome and made the shoot easy and fun. We did a lot of parking garage roof scouting until we found the perfect one.

You've only released singles so far through video; any plans to record an EP or an album yet?

Jessica: I guess we would consider our collection of songs a retroactive EP. We are about the singles right now.


What are your thoughts being a part of the finals for Muse Music's BOTB?

Matt: It was an awesome opportunity and great to play in both of the shows. We love any chance to perform.

What can we expect from all of you going into 2017?

Jessica: More videos, more shows, more creativity, and good ol' family collaboration.


Want to read more with the rest of the finalists and the winners? Click here for part two with No Robot and Lost In Bourbon.