Silk hopes to get a leg up

Warrnambool Standard 25th Jan 2001 - ©Copyright Warrnambool Standard  2001 All rights reserved

HAMILTON-BASED alternative rockers Silk has blitzed a field of more than 1500 bands to secure place in the finals of a national competition for new talent. Silk, featuring cousins Joel Walkenhorst (five-string bass), Alistair Walkenhorst (drums) and Luke McLeod (seven-string guitar) formed four months ago. The band has been selected as one of 10 finalists from Australia and New Zealand in the Channel V Get a Leg Up competition. The competition aims to locate unsigned bands and offer them a chance to play at this year’s Off-shore Festival, as well as the opportunity to fly to New York to appear at the CMJ Music Marathon. In addition, Silk will travel to Melbourne this weekend to record its track on a compilation CD featuring songs from the finalists to be released on March 1. Thrilled with securing a position as a finalist, Joel, 18, said yesterday the band had heard about the competition through a friend and submitted a CD entry. He said the songs sent in were actually recorded in a wool shed on a practice CD. "We actually put in a draft CD, so the real CD should sound better. We meant to do a better one but we ran out of time," he said. Draft CD or not, the band impressed the judges so much that Joel said they may be in with a real chance to win. "I think we’ve got a pretty good chance, because we were told by Todd, the guy who was on the panel, that he only picked us and another band out of all the en-tries," he said. While both Joel and Alistair had been in bands together in the past, Joel said they decided to branch out and do something different with the help of Luke. "Me and Al were already in a band but Luke wasn’t, but he was such a good guitarist we thought why not," he said. Excited about the prospect of heading to Melbourne to record their track, Joel said there was also talk of silverchair’s Daniel Johns dropping into the studio to co-produce and offer advice on their recording. "We’re not sure about that yet, but it’s most likely what’s going to happen," he said. Although pleased with making the finals, Joel said the band was busy reading contracts and preparing to shoot their film clip, which was also part of a finalist prize. "It’s all sort of happened pretty quickly so there hasn’t really been time for it to sink in," he said.