Hosted in collaboration with Free the Youth and Marquis, Shabang’s Battle of the Bands has taken off across California, and it is amplifying the state’s local music scenes.
The Battle of the Bands competition is designed to spotlight talent from four cities across California. Out of the numerous bands that applied, only 20 bands, five per location, were carefully chosen from San Luis Obispo, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz. The winner of each Battle of the Bands gets a $1,000 prize and a spot to perform at the annual Shabang Live Music & Arts Festival, the biggest music event on the Central Coast, taking place at Dairy Creek Golf Course on May 3-4.
Five bands from San Luis Obispo will compete on April 4 at 7:30 p.m. at the Fremont Theater. Each band will have 15 minutes to ignite the stage, and the winners will be decided by crowd response and a panel of judges.
According to each band — Juniper Honey, Suburban Dropout, Krooks, Plywood Love and Margot Sinclair — they are all honored to even be considered for the Battle of the Bands.
“I am really excited to be a part of it; Even the Battle of the Bands, not even getting into Shabang, is a really cool thing to be offered,” Jamie Larkin from Suburban Dropout said.
For most of the local bands, this is the biggest crowd they will have performed in front of, with many of their other performances taking place at house shows or smaller community events.
“Of course it would be awesome to win and play at Shabang, but we don’t want to go into it with the mindset of winning, we just want to go into it with the mindset of putting on an awesome show, at a super sick venue,” Ethan Norton from Krooks said.
These smaller performances have helped the bands accrue followers and ultimately earn their place in the competition.
“When we first started, [in the] fall of 2022, we [were] always like, ‘Oh, Shabang has always kinda been on the map,’ and that was always kinda the goal. Then getting selected this year and having our application chosen is kind of a testament to how much work we’ve put in,” Carson Baer from Margot Sinclair said.
Each group has ramped up their practice schedule and number of gigs as the big day is growing closer. Not only does each member rehearse on their own but they also have at least two band practices a week with at least one show over the weekend to gauge the crowd’s reaction to their songs. It’s from this practice that they determine what to put in their Battle of the Bands setlist.
Suburban Dropout is a four-piece band with a heavy punk sound. With Will Murphy on vocals, Luca Carnevale on bass, Cooper Durkey on guitar and Jamie Larkin on drums, this band’s sound has earned itself the title of the grungiest, most punk vibe of the lot, Murphy said.
“I think it’s a fair thing to say that we’re the heaviest band in the San Luis Obispo scene at the moment. And while that’s fun, it doesn’t appeal to everybody,” Murphy said, describing his thought process while selecting songs for the setlist. “So without giving away our integrity, which songs are the easiest for people to consume that are still authentic?”
Plywood Love is excited to debut a new song at their Battle of the Bands performance. They’re a band of five, with Owen Peters on drums, Skyllar Evans on vocals, Matthew Tibbetts and Charlie Croxdale on guitar and Dane Kelly on bass. This group will bring a different sound to the competition as the only female-fronted band competing this year.
“You know at a house show that the people that are coming are coming to see you and they know what your vibe is and are into it, most likely,” Kelly said. “When a lot of people come out to those shows, you know that everybody is on the same wavelength and that makes it 10 times more fun in my opinion.”
But Plywood Love is also hungry for the stage and to get some fresh ears and more exposure under their belt, Kelly said.
Krooks is a band of four with a unique setup: two lead singers. On guitar and vocals are Tanner Price and Ethan Norton, with Aidan Dillon on bass and Shawn Mathews on the drums.
“Our big passion that we like to do together is to literally just make music. It’s not this whole pressure thing or whatever to be in a band and write songs, we’re hanging out and just jammin’,” Price said.
Krooks said they are psyched to be hitting the Fremont Theatre, having just released an EP of six songs.
To prepare for Battle of the Bands, Margot Sinclair has been performing and testing out all of their songs. Baer said they will do almost two or three shows in a weekend if the opportunity pops up.
This band of five — Luke Sutherland and Carson Baer on guitar, Kyle Mix on vocals, Owen Rice on bass and Phillip Way on the drums — said they have big ambitions and hopes for the competition.
“We’re really psyched to be hitting the big stage and hopefully make it into Shabang,” Baer said.
Margot Sinclair embodies a very traditional San Luis Obispo indie rock sound. They said they get their inspiration from The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys and The Beatles.
Juniper Honey was originally a Southern California-based band that now does gigs up and down the West Coast, from Washington to Utah, Oregon and all over California. This four-piece band consists of Jake Hesse on guitar and vocals, Donovan Hess on drums, Casom LeSueur on guitar and Josh West on bass.
“We’ve been playing a lot of our music for crowds and seeing their responses, so that will definitely help. This might be one of the most people we’ve ever played for as a band,” Hesse said.
Performing almost every weekend, Juniper Honey said they are excited to bring their beachy sound to Fremont Theatre.
Tickets for the Battle of the Bands event are 75% sold out, according to Shabang. Tickets can be purchased here. The doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the show begins at 7:30 p.m.
