Sunshine Coast band's Big Day Out
- Amy Remeikis
- 30th September 2008
Local band, BMX (l-r): Temma Lee, Dane Wilson, Dominiqe Bird and Jad Lee.
WHEN both your friends and your grandma like your music, you know you are on to a good thing.
When a senior manager from a major record label singles out your sound – from hundreds of others – for praise, you know you are on to an even bigger thing.
But Sunshine Coast electro pop group BMX just wants to make people get up and dance.
The quartet is made up of Dane Wilson, Dominique Bird and siblings Temma and Jad Lee.
Dom and Jad were DJs who decided to try their hand at creating electronic music, and the rest as they say is history.
"Dom has been playing music since he was a little tacker," BMX percussionist and vocalist Jad said of his friend and band mate.
"He was brought up playing the piano and is very talented. I knew my sister had a bit of a voice on her, so we recruited her, and our friend Dane plays guitar, so we recruited him too.
"We just wanted to see what we could do with all our different talents so we got together one day in April and just started jamming."
That first jamming session gave birth to their first and biggest hit so far, Themes to BMX, which has been given air time on Triple J and Sydney station FBi.
It draws upon the group's fond memories of growing up in Coolum and riding their bikes to parties, and the beach during high school, and also provided the inspiration for the group's name.
High school wasn't that long ago for any of these talented Coast musicians, with Dane and Jad aged 22, Dom 21 and Temma just 19.
But their fun sound has gained a lot of attention and the group members have barely had a chance to catch their breath since releasing their first song.
"We have been kind of rushed into gigs and things and we were asked to support Van She, which is pretty crazy," Jad said.
"We only had a handful of songs, so we had to rush a few more songs together. But because we are still a new band and we are unsigned, we have had a lot of people telling us about all these competitions.
"A friend told us about Uncharted and we entered the next day and shortly after we got the news we were the Sony BMG pick."
That honour puts BMX straight into the semi-finals of the Toohey's Extra Dry Uncharted competition, with the winner of the final playing at next year's Big Day Out – which for an unsigned band is exposure you can't buy.
"It has been pretty crazy. We just haven't had a chance to sit down and rest and take it all in," Jad said.
"I think we make a fun, happy party vibe which appeals to a lot of people. We all like to hear music and dance and have fun.
"Dom's grandma is pretty into it. She knows all the words and sings and bops along. It appeals to everyone, which is great.
"It is just basic poppy dance electro music which is hard not to dance to. And that is our aim. We just want people to have fun with it."
Visit www.uncharted.com.au or BMX's MySpace page for more information.
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