Local band seeks to win contest, make it to SXSW

Guitarist Duncan Kissinger said that Hotfox is a band that advocates the importance of utilizing the full buffalo when it is hunted.

“Some people just use it for meat, some use it just for the pelt. Use all of it, not some of it,” Kissinger said.

Even though the band wouldn’t fully reveal what the buffalo is, if the buffalo in question is a metaphor for taking advantage of opportunity, the band does just that.

The local indie-rock band is no stranger to success.

After winning Record Store Day High School Battle of the Bands in April 2010, which landed them a front-page spot on NUVO, an alternative newspaper in Indianapolis, the band recorded an album and was named Bloomington’s best local band that same year.    

After releasing their debut album “You, Me, and the Monster,” they shared the stage with several nationally known bands, including Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. and Margot & the Nuclear So & So’s.

But they’re not tired yet.

The band is currently among the top five bands competing in a contest for a spot to perform at South by Southwest Interactive Film and Music Festival in Austin, Texas, this March. The band found out about the contest on Sonicbids and submitted their song “Mountain Tiger.” The band members received an email two weeks ago informing them that they were finalists.

The Sonicbids-Jansport Battle of the Bands contest uses an online voting system to decide which 10 acts will be considered for the final round. Fans of the band are able to vote online once a day through Jan. 19. The top 10 acts will then be judged by a panel, which will announce the winner sometime in February. 

“We’ve been playing on a local, slightly regional level for years together, and SXSW is the opportunity for us that is very attainable and would be the boost we need to have new people hear our music,” Kissinger said.

Are they nervous?

“You could say we’re a bunch of nervous nematodes,” Kissinger said.

According to Kissinger, their album “You, Me, and the Monster” has to do with hemorrhoids, or in their words, “pains in the ass.”

Examples of pains include skeletons, dirty dishes, women, drugs, money and paparazzi.

Not all of the band’s songs fall under these categories, though.

“Our song ‘Mountain Tiger’ is about a fight between a fierce tiger and a mean machine ... on a mountain,” sophomore bassist Marcus Tedesco said.

Tedesco met singer and guitarist Oliver Hopkins outside Read Center last year and has been part of the band ever since.

Following the success of their debut album, the band is starting to record a new album this month. The album includes tracks such as “Hay, is that My Horse?” and “Gallop Pasture Sister’s Head.”

“The second album will be a concept record based around the times and adventures of ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.’ It’ll be louder and dustier than record number one,” Hopkins said.

The title of the second album and when it will be out is still unknown.

“Maybe in a few months, maybe a year,” Hopkins said.