Saskatoon rockers The Sheepdogs have come out on top in the Rolling Stone contest to be on the cover of the magazine.
The Sheepdogs beat out 15 other bands to become the first unsigned band to appear on the cover of the influential magazine. The August 18th issues hits the newsstands August 5th.
Along with the win, The Sheepdogs also get a deal with Atlantic Records.
Readers picked the winner which was announced Monday.
A massive billboard of the magazine’s cover will be unveiled Monday night at an event in New York’s Time Square.
Lead singer Ewan Currie says the experience of seeing the band on a billboard will be surreal.
He feels confident about the foursome’s credentials to win the contest, saying, “Rock ‘n’ roll won.”
“The biggest thing is … just being able to tell everybody, and seeing what happens,” Currie said in an interview last week with The Associated Press.
The runner-up is singer-songwriter Leila Broussard. Her soft, guitar-strumming tunes are a marked contrast to the hard-driving, rollicking rock offered by the Sheepdogs.
There was apparently no love lost between the two acts. Currie said of Broussard: “She could be rather sullen and not particularly friendly.”
They battled it out at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn., and in the end, readers showed their preference.
Currie said that while Rolling Stone has had its share of pop acts over the years, the Sheepdogs probably best embody the magazine’s spirit.
While the Sheepdogs, all in their 20s, are being introduced to the masses, they’re hardly a new group.
The band – which also includes drummer Sam Corbett, guitarist Leot Hanson and bassist Ryan
Gullen – have been around since 2006. They have released their albums independently, are regular road performers and have a website.
“We were helped by the fact that we are experienced, and we have been running this operation,” Currie said. “We were fully formed … we were ready to seize it.”
The group is excited to be on Atlantic Records and to have access to the resources a major label can offer. But band members are hoping the label won’t try to change them too much.
“Ultimately we want to put out a record that represents us, and we don’t want to change … so if it changed, it would be a shame,” he said.
The band is scheduled to appear on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Tuesday night.
Comments