Rock band Kutless will "audition" guitar players this summer as part of an innovative new promotional partnership with PRS Guitars, which makes guitars favored by some of the world’s most renowned touring professional musicians such as Carlos Santana, Dave Navarro, Dave Matthews and James Mead of Kutless.
While
Kutless won’t be offering a permanent spot in the band, they will give six aspiring guitarists the opportunity to play with them, live, at one of six summer music festivals, with the grand prize winner receiving an autographed custom PRS Guitar. The promotion -
PRS Guitars invites you to
Rock The Festival with Kutless – will include a two-round online battle of the band’s style competition with PRS Guitars and
Kutless choosing the semi-finalists from self-produced videos submitted via YouTube.com and the grand prize winner determined from an online fan vote.
"This promotion is the ultimate 'mash-up' of all the elements that have helped to make Kutless one of the most successful touring bands in the Christian music business…. first-class musical instruments, huge summer festivals, robust online connectivity and fans who are as fanatical and knowledgeable about music as they are about Kutless." said Chance Hoag of Platform Management. "Kutless is looking forward to this promotion as much as anything they’ve done in a long time."
Lead Kutless guitarist, James Mead adds "I am honored to use PRS guitars onstage, and in the studio. They are the best guitars I've ever played and it’s awesome that one of our fans will get to own one of these amazing instruments. The promotion is going to be a blast and I can't wait to see the contest videos start rolling in."
To participate in the PRS Guitars Invites You to Rock The Festival with Kutless promotion, entrants will post to YouTube.com a self-produced video playing guitar to the Kutless song, "Somewhere in the Sky." Members of Kutless and representatives from PRS Guitars will review every video, selecting six finalists, one finalist to play at each of these festivals: Alive Festival in Canal Fulton, Oh. (6/21); Creation East in Mt. Union, Penn. (6/30); Sonshine in Willmar, Minn.(7/14); Creation Northwest in George, Wash. (7/27); Spirit West Coast in Monterey, Calif. (8/3) and Rock the Desert in Midland, Texas (8/11).
Each of the six finalists will be filmed playing live on stage with Kutless for "Somewhere in the Sky" and the tapes of those performances will be posted at MySpace at the conclusion of all the festivals for 10-day public voting period. The grand prize winner will receive the PRS SC250 guitar, autographed by the band and valued at more than $3,000. Runners up will receive various prizes ranging from a PRS SE Custom to Kutless/PRS apparel.
"In the course of this promotion, more than 150,000 music fans will be cheering for our six finalists live in concert and countless thousands more will watch and vote for the videos online. PRS Guitars is thrilled to be a part of a project of this magnitude. We know it will be exciting, rewarding and a lot of fun; we can’t wait to get it underway," says Jack Higginbotham, President of PRS Guitars.
Kutless guitarists James Mead and Nick DePartee play an extensive collection of PRS guitars including the Custom 22, Custom 24, Singlecut Trem, Standard 24, Singlecut, Singlecut Satin and Hollowbody II. The Kutless players are part of an impressive roster of touring musicians who have helped make PRS Guitars a premier guitar maker alongside Gibson and Fender. Other well-known PRS Guitar players include Chris Henderson of 3 Doors Down; Tim Mahoney of 311; Billy Martin of Good Charlotte, Brad Delson of Linkin Park, Jason Truby of P.O.D. and Noah Henson of Pillar.
For all the details and contest rules and regulations, visit myspace.com/kutlessprscontest and for more information on PRS Guitars, visit prsguitars.com.
Information on the summer music festivals can be found at:
Alive Festival – Alive.org
Creation East – CreationFest.com
Sonshine – SonshineFestival.com
Creation Northwest – CreationFest.com
Spirit West Coast –SpiritWestCoast.com
Rock the Desert – RockTheDesert.com
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