2 7 Friday, Septem ber 9, 2011 O A K V ILLE B EA V ER w w w .in sid eH A LTO N .co m Artscene Teen rock band signs with artist discovery firm in L.A. By Dominik Kurek OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF An Oakville rock band com- prised of four teens has just signed a deal with an indepen- dent artist discovery and devel- opment firm based in Los Angeles, California. Raising Atlantis has signed the agreement with the firm A&R Worldwide, which has helped develop such talent as Coldplay, Muse, Dido, Temper Trap, Lily Allen and many more. What A&R is saying is we have our music and theyre very happy with it. We have our ideas and they say thats what you need, said the bands lead singer Alex Garnett. What we need to work on is creating an image for ourselves because right now they say we dont have much of an image, we need to do a lot of market- ing. Thats where A&R comes in. It is not a record label, but it is a development company that aims to help musicians get recognized by labels. We need to be practicing up to four hours a day, music is our full-time job. We need to improve in the next eight months, get very tight, Garnett said. A&R representatives will come to Oakville to work with the band on its image. Were going to get our per- formance choreographed so that our live show is a lot bet- ter, Garnett said. Our live show is very good right now, but we want to get more pro- fessional and more organized so our live show really blows people away. Raising Atlantis consists of four 18-year-olds who met in elementary school and gradu- ated from T.A. Blakelock High School this past June. Along with Garnett in the band are Mike Beaudry (drums and per- cussion), Andrew Zamora (gui- tar / back up vocals) and Bradley Capstick (guitar / back up vocals). They formed the band in Grade 9 and in the last two years the members became serious about their music and began practicing on a frequent and consistent basis. Raising Atlantis has done regular live shows and record- ed a number of songs, putting together a six-song CD, which band manager Grant Furlane used to get them recognized by A&R. RAISING ATLANTIS: Pictured are Brad Capstick, Mike Beaudry, Alex Garnett and Andrew Zamora of Raising Atlantis. SUBMITTED PHOTO See Band page 28