KUCHING: Local rock band, Mystical Mirage is scaling yet another height in their career, just after their recent haul of two awards in the coveted 5th Voice International Music Awards (Vima) Malaysia.
This time the band has been chosen to take part in an international competition known as Hard Rock Rising 2014, touted as “THE Global Battle of the Bands”, which is taking place online in 82 participating Hard Rock Café locations around worldwide.
The winner will get to perform in front of 40,000 music fans at “Hard Rock Live Music Festival” in Rome, Italy.
Band vocalist and front man, Kenneth Ho Hong Hui, shared the band’s exciting moment with The Borneo Post in an exclusive interview, saying that this is yet another milestone they hope to achieve.
“It all started when I received an email from an online musician platform Reverbnation, asking us to submit our profile for the competition. I asked our manager to send it and after a week, we received an email saying we have been selected.
“We were speechless and excited because we will be competing with talented bands around the world and only a few bands will be selected. This is a chance of a lifetime. We will just try our best and hope to move further,” he said.
“Since I’m from Kuching I hope our achievement will encourage more Kuching people to take up music and never give up on their dreams,” he enthused.
According to Ho, the band has started to create awareness through Facebook and other offline means after the fan online voting process began.
Voting closes on February 17. “To vote for us just download our song ‘Heroes’ from the site (http://reverbnation.com/contests/2728/artist/3526752).
“After that 25 bands with the most votes will be reviewed by an industry panel of judges selected by Hard Rock International and the select five semi-finalists to compete globally,” he explained.
“The song ‘Heroes’ is the most unique Mandarin song ever done by us. It blends Chinese traditional musical instruments with modern rock. It is a song about musicians’ struggle, courage and persistence to get their songs heard.
“When I first composed this song, it was not like this. It was less ethnic. However, the composition was lost when my computer was stolen during a house break-in.
“Luckily I had a copy of it at home in Kuching and when I took it back to Kuala Lumpur, I met up with Ryan Tan (of local rock band Daydream).
“He suggested that we do a collaboration so I recomposed the song and it became what it is today,” he said, hoping to get support and vote for the song so that the band will have the chance to advance in the competition.
Mystical Mirage is a five-piece band consisting of Ho, Jimmy Pui, Jared Ng, Authur Cham and Aaron AC. It originated from Kuching and is now based in Kuala Lumpur. The band launched their first EP titled “Prelude” in Kuching last October and to-date
over 300 copies have been sold nationwide.
For more updates about Mystical Mirage, follow the official Facebook Page (http://www.facebook.com/mysticalmirageband) and official YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/m2musicband).