Willhorse has officially become the first band in Golden to receive the honour of making the Top 20 in the Peak Performance Project.
The prestigious project, organized by Vancouver radio station 102.7 The Peak, chose 20 British Columbia acts out of 465 applicants.
“It is such an honour to be chosen. We were all hovering around my iPhone when it was announced because we were on tour at the time,” said bassist Todd Menzies. “We’ve pretty much dedicated our whole summer to this.”
That is, of course, on top of their hectic touring schedule that included more than 70 performances this summer.
The competition has already taken the band to Princeton for a seven-day boot camp where they honed their skills, and got to learn from and rub shoulders with some of the most respected individuals in the industry.
Now they are working on completing the Peak Performance’s four challenges in hopes that they will take home the top prize of $102,700.
With a little seed money from the competition, Willhorse has completed their first task, creating a video from their studio session. A link to the video called The Farm Sessions is on the band’s Facebook page.
Next up, and probably one of the most important challenges to the band, is the charity challenge. Willhorse has always been willing to lend their services to local causes, including the opening of the Youth Centre, and is now asking the community to support them and help out the James Fund.
“The James Fund is for research for Neuroblastoma, which is a very common childhood cancer that affects kids at a really young age,” said Menzies. “(James’) dad is a really good friend of mine, he’s in the band Three Days Grace.”
The foundation was started by James’ family in Menzies’ hometown in Ontario to help fund research for the disease that affected him at such a young age.
“It affected my group of friends so much, and when we travelled across Canada as Willhorse we got to play for the cause.”
Willhorse will be putting on a concert at the Golden Youth Centre on Sept. 28 at 4 p.m. with all the proceeds going to the James Fund.
“Tickets are limited, so we encourage people to buy tickets in advance,” said Menzies. People can purchase tickets at the youth centre, or online at Willhorse’s Facebook page for $10. They can also donate $20 for a ticket and a CD, or $50 for a ticket, CD, and T-shirt.
“This cause is very close to my heart and the band has been very supportive of that.”
After the show Willhorse will be continuing on with their challenges, including releasing some new merchandise (denim shirts with the Willhorse logo designed by Krista Petitt on he back) and finally the voting challenge.
Between Oct. 18 and 25 voting for the Top 5 will be open.
“We’d really love for Golden to get behind us. The community has shown how dedicated they can be through Curt Thorne’s Kraft challenge,” said Menzies.
“Most of the bands are Vancouver or Victoria based, so the fact that we’re doing this and we’re from Golden is pretty great. I don’t think there’s ever been a band further east than Kamloops.
“We’re pretty honoured to be from Golden. Even if we win, we’re not moving anywhere.”
To learn more about the competition, or to vote when it opens, go to peakperformanceproject.com.
