Bristol rock band prepares to launch stratospheric effort

“We’re going to put it out there any way that we can, and to make it any possible way that we can,” said Matt Smile, lead guitarist for The Buddz, of the plan to distribute their upcoming CD, which will be recorded at Big Mama Recording Studios, all over east Tennessee.

The hunger behind their words is evident to anyone talking to the young rock outfit from Bristol, TN. They burn with the desire to make it, and make it big.

Ready to help them launch their effort to reach stardom is the three-day recording session they’ve earned as a result of their first-place finish at Big Mama’s Karaoke Café’s 2008 Battle of the Bands. In addition, they’ll take home three hundred retail-ready CDs of their sessions and fifty DVDs of their appearance on stage.

To make the most of their chances, the band has already prepared enough original songs to take them all the way through. “We have an albums worth of material all ready to go,” Matt said, and they actually began preparing for the sessions before the contest winners were announced, anticipating a high-place finish in the bout.

“We didn’t know we were going to win,” Scott told us, “but we were in second place as the contest drew to a close. Plus we had our secret weapon.”

Their hole card was the collection of beauties that the band calls the “Buddz Babes”. Following the band from date to date showing their support, the ladies “Babes would call all of their friends over for slumber parties/Buddz video voting parties,” Scott said. “They would sit and view the video, and vote for us, and get us a lot of votes.”

“They were definitely a key to our victory,” Matt added.

As for their new tunes, The Buddz have drawn on a set of influences as diverse as their own tastes, which run from KISS, Avenged Sevenfold, Metallica, and Queen to the Beatles, the Who, Rush, and Hendrix. They described their new material as darker and harder edged than their 2008 Battle of the Bands performance. “More heavy, and more conceptual,” bassist Max Crawford said

“All of our songs have a different feel,” Crawford continued. “I couldn’t name two of our songs that sound very much alike. They all have their own thing.”

Drummer Alex Chamis concurred. “Every time we sit down to write, it just kind of turns in a different direction. It takes us somewhere else, but somehow all comes together.”

The somewhere they hope to go next is straight to the top. But the band says they won’t forget the ones who helped them get there once they’ve achieved stardom.

“We’ll definitely come back here [to the Karaoke Café] and put on an awesome show,” Mat said. “It would be the least we could do. Big Mama’s has done so much for us, from the Battle of the Bands show, to the video recording, to the recording time, CDs and DVDs.”

“We really just can’t thank all of you enough.”

The Buddz MySpace Page myspace.com/brockwhittmusic

The Buddz perform at the 2008 Battle of the Bands