BAND FROM THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE GLOBE RECORD AND RELEASE ALBUM DURING LOCKDOWN

What began as a sonic experiment of recording music virtually among local bandmates in Columbia, Maryland (USA) evolved into a worldwide collaboration. The band INTERCONTINEN7AL consists of 22 musicians across all 7 continents (including 2 in Antarctica), who created 12 original songs to prove that music can not only survive but thrive in these pandemic times. The album includes the track Manor Hill, which we believe to be the first original composition recorded across all 7 continents. With all proceeds going to the GoFundMe COVID-19 General Relief Fund, the band wanted to give back to those impacted over the last year.

In March 2020, when COVID-19 was impacting people around the globe and lockdowns had sidelined live music, members of the local Columbia band Toast (Matt Smith, Jamie Miller, Ben Gaither, Emily Betz and guest Becca Drayer) sought avenues to continue collaborating and playing together virtually. The band discovered the application BandLab, and a month later were sharing drum tracks, guitar riffs, and other ideas among themselves.

A few months later, the band recognized the potential of BandLab’s public community, and decided to publish internal song ideas outside the band framework – making them “forkable” and unlocking them with hashtags (ex. #needsvocals) so that any BandLab user can contribute. Matt posted a grunge-inspired instrumental acoustic song idea of his tentatively called Aslin. Within days, multiple lead/harmony vocal submissions were received, including North America’s Hope Gray’s backing vocals and South America’s Gustavo Prida’s lead vocals (sung in Spanish), transforming Aslin into No Somos De Este Lugar.  The band continued this process, posting a blues idea by Matt and Jamie for external contributors, and this soon evolved into the song When I’m Gone, with David Lee Rendon from North America on vocals and Robert James Shoveller from Australia on lead guitar.

In late August, Matt was walking in his backyard when an idea struck him like a lightning bolt: what if the band adopts the Sonic Highways concept that Foo Fighters had (which was recording music with artists from several cities in the United States), and expands it to move forward with further international cooperation, seeking a musician from every continent to participate. The name INTERCONTINEN7AL was born, with the 7 in the name inspired by the band Tool’s song “7empest”. 

Check out INTERCONTINEN7AL’s track Astray below:

For the remaining musicians on the project, the band contacted friends, former band mates and family members who were fellow North American musicians (i.e. bassists Devin Heritage, Alex Burke, Roy Colquitt), and used Explore and Creator Connect features in BandLab to target by location and instrument type to establish additional musician connections (i.e. guitarist Josh Pearlson of Africa). The band also reviewed musicians profiles that we were following to see who they were collaborating with, or who was commenting on their songs to try to recruit other participants, to include Nerse of Asia. Europe is represented by musicians such as Marcin Nawrocki, who was recruited after flagging one of the band’s song ideas for collaboration. To recruit the two musicians from Antarctica, Matt contacted numerous active research stations in September 2020 to determine if there were researchers that happened to be musicians on site, and successfully recruited Aymar de Lichervelde and Stijn Thoolen.

All 22 band members from INTERCONTINEN7AL Volume I are listed below. As of March 2021, the band has grown to 43 members who are all working on ideas for Volume II, slated for release in the spring/summer of this year.

AFRICA

·        Joshua Pearlson – guitarist

ANTARCTICA

·        Stijn Thoolen – percussion (egg shaker)

·        Aymar de Lichtervelde – classical guitar

ASIA

·        Nerse – flute, violin, slide

·        Tnbt – drums

AUSTRALIA

·        Robert James Shoveller – guitar

EUROPE

·        Jeff Hobbs – guitar, 12 string guitar, piano

·        Marcin Nawrocki – guitar, bass, programming (mellotron, synth choir, drums)

·        Rieneke van Laarhoven – vocals

NORTH AMERICA

· Emily Betz – vocals

· Alex Burke – bass, piano

· Roy Colquitt – bass

· Dirty D – saxophone

· Becca Drayer – vocals

· Ben Gaither – co-writer (guitar)

· Hope Gray – vocals

· Devin Heritage – bass

· Jamie Miller – drums, cajon, djembe

· David Lee Rendon – vocals

· Matt Smith – guitar, vocals, programming (piano, drums)

SOUTH AMERICA

· Nereo – bass, vocals

· Gustavo Prida – vocals

A brilliant project and here at Stoakes Media, we can’t wait to hear more from the band. For more info, check out Intercontinen7al’s website