Local band shoots for stardom in Nashville
By JANUARY HOLMES
jholmes@bradenton.com

Bradenton-based country band One Night Rodeo will head to Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday with hopes of landing a recording contract and instant fame as one of six finalists on the talent show, "The Next Great American Country Star." The show will air on the Great American Country network.

Band members will be greeted by camera crews the moment they step off the plane in Nashville, which will capture their every move for the show's two-part special at 9 p.m. on Sept. 3 and 10, according to band member Jack Tamburin.

The band's video, "Touch Me" was chosen out of thousands of entries in what started as an Internet-based competition on GAC's Web site last May. Viewers will get to vote after the Sept. 3 show.

Tamburin, 37, along with lead singer Cory Hilderth, 36; Mike Elrod, 37; and Duane Allison, 33, are excited about the national exposure. So are their local fans.

"My phone been's ringing off the hook," said Tamburin, one of the founding members and songwriter for One Night Rodeo.

Once in Nashville, the group will be working with award-winning producers, songwriters and musicians. They also will perform at Tootsie's Orchard Lounge, a world-famous honky-tonk.

The band members have been playing together in the Bradenton area for about seven years, but the band itself - which has had a few members come and go - has been known around these parts for a more than a decade. Wherever they play, they pack venues with their contemporary country tunes, said Tamburin, whose musical inspirations span from Van Halen to Prince.

He likes to pen songs about love, life lessons and taking things like a man.

"Taking the bull by the horns - taking life like that," he said.

In a time when everyone seems to be trying to get on TV to be a star, One Night Rodeo didn't go searching for a chance to be on GAC's talent show. Instead, the show's co-producers, Music Nation, encouraged one of the band members to participate after hearing some of group's music on the Internet, Tamburin said.

When band members heard that Allison had entered them in the competition, "We were like, 'Ooh, what's Duane got us into now,' " Tamburin said.

But when "Touch Me," a love ballad shot as a music video four years ago in Venice, was chosen as the top favorite the second week into the competition, the band's MySpace page (www.myspace.com/onenightrodeo) started receiving 10,000 hits a day.

As a finalist, the group will receive Gibson Les Paul Junior Double Cutaway guitars along with their TV exposure. The winner of "The Next Great American County Star" will get a record deal with Original Signal Recordings, a Gibson Hummingbird guitar and a music video that will air on the cable network, according to the show's press release.

One Night Rodeo will fly back to Nashville in September for the show's live finale.

The only band member not making the trip to Nashville is fiddle player Danielle Jorgenson because she didn't appear in the video entry. Her fellow band mates wish she could make the trip, though.

Tamburin said there's some stiff competition, but his band is thrilled about their shot at stardom. The goal was to make it big in the industry when the band started 13 years ago, Tamburin said.

"I've always tried to do that," Tamburin said about their frequent trips to Nashville and opening up for artists such as Rascal Flatts and Montgomery Gentry over the years. "We assumed, we thought it would have happened. This is why this is such a surprise."

January Holmes, features writer, can be reached at 745-7057.

Want to watch?

Watch "One Night Rodeo" on "The Next Great American Country Star" at 9 p.m. Sept. 3 and 10 on the Great American Country network, which can be found in Manatee County on Bright House digital channel 133. The winner of the talent show will be revealed live on Sept. 10. For more information, visit www.gactv.com/star.