The Boots Battle for Billboard's Best
By Amanda Norris, Staff Writer
Drummer Aaron Lemley answered his cell phone after yet another sleepless night in what has been nothing short of a whirlwind two weeks for Athens's beloved folk/Americana outfit,Duke Junior and the Smokey Boots.
“Sorry if I’m scattered,” he said. “We played Charleston, West Virginia last night and I didn’t get to sleep until about 4 [a.m.].” He sounded exhausted, but the exhaustion wasn’t what stood out. What stood out was his pure excitement--the kind of excitement that is not hindered by a lack of sleep, but rather fueled by it.
Everything seems to be coming together for the Smokey Boots, and the bags under their eyelids are not battle scars--they’re trophies.
Billboard.com has chosen Duke Junior and the Smokey Boots to compete in its Battle of the Bands, a contest designed to find the best unsigned talents across the U.S. Currently, they are up against two other Midwest-based bands and, if they win the most votes in their region, they will have the opportunity to compete in the final battle at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards on May 22 in Las Vegas.
In less than a month, Duke Junior and the Smokey Boots have gone from being a local act with the occasional out-of-town weekend gig to a group getting national exposure.
How did this happen? According to Duke Junior, your guess is as good as theirs.
“I honestly don’t know how they found us,” Lemley said.
“It was pretty shocking,” vocalist/guitarist Jess Kauffman continued. “Those kind of things are usually something you go out looking for and, when they first contacted us, we didn’t really know if it was legitimate or not.”
After receiving Billboard’s preliminary notification that they had been chosen to compete, as well as a follow-up e-mail assuring the skeptical band that it was indeed the actual Billboard.com contacting them, Duke Junior and the Smokey Boots were thrust into what can only be described as a “mad dash.”
“It was basically: 'Okay, you have 24 hours. Hurry up and get everything together, write a band bio, and send it all to us or you could be disqualified,'” Lemley said, seemingly out of breath at the mere memory of everything that transpired in that brief-though-eventful time frame.
Choosing the track they wanted featured--“Penny,” a rough cut off their forthcoming release, due sometime in early June--was relatively easy, according to Lemley. “It’s probably the best representation of the band we have to date,” he said. After receiving permission from their producer to leak the track, they assumed the hard part was over.
They were wrong.
The group was playing a show in Thomas, West Virginia when they received their 24-hour ultimatum. After having chosen the track, finding an Internet connection through which to send it proved to be the more difficult feat. Even more difficult was finding a fax machine to send the contract, but with a little help from their friends at Office Max, everything eventually went according to plan.
“We had to hustle a bit, and band/musician types aren’t necessarily known for being the most organized,” Lemley admitted. “It all had to be done very quickly and then, all of a sudden, we were on the website. It was a little haphazard.”
Despite the initial rush, Duke Junior and the Smokey Boots could not be happier with the way things turned out. “We are all incredibly excited about it,” Kauffman said. “We are honored to have been chosen by them.”
Duke Junior and the Smokey Boots are the only roots/Americana act featured in the competition as well as the only Ohio act. Their sound, which is known for being very Athens-centric, will now be presented to a larger audience--an opportunity in which they are reveling.
“We’ll go and play other places and people that have been to Athens will say, ‘Oh, hearing you guys makes me think of Athens,’” Kauffman said. “It’d be really cool to take that concept and take it across the U.S. and go up against the other bands that were chosen.”
Regardless of what happens, one thing is certain: Duke Junior and the Smokey Boots will not be forgetting their roots--musically or geographically.
“We’re just going to do what we do and what we know, and we are going to play it as best we can. And hopefully, that will be enough,” multi-instrumentalist Kyle Martin concluded. “Regardless of whether or not we win this contest, simply having our name involved and getting people excited about voting for us puts our band name out there. All in all, I see it as a win-win situation.”
If Duke Junior and the Smokey Boots are chosen to represent the Midwest, they will be leaving for Vegas the day after they play theNelsonville Music Festival. However, since they are now accustomed to rushing about, they are looking upon that challenge not with apprehension, but with anticipation.
“Hopefully we can bring our Athens sound to Vegas,” Kauffman said. “We just have to make it through this round.”
