Variety: After receiving more than 1,800 entries, Cumulus Media announced today the five artists selected as finalists for its inaugural neXt2rock competition. The winner of this four-month-long project will receive a record deal with Big Machine/John Varvatos Records, as well as exposure on Cumulus radio stations.
These five emerging artists will be judged in the finale by professionals including Big Machine Label Group President & CEO Scott Borchetta; musician, songwriter and producer Desmond Child; engineer/mixer Chris Lord-Alge; Sex Pistols’ guitarist and host of “Jonesy’s Jukebox” Steve Jones; Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale; and fashion designer and record label head John Varvatos.
The finale event will take place on December 12, 8 – 11 pm PT, at The Viper Room in Los Angeles., and will be streamed live at http://www.next2rock.com, starting at 7:30 pm PT. Music personality and longtime radio and TV host Matt Pinfield will host the evening’s festivities.
The five national finalists, selected by a panel of rock radio professionals, are:
*Marina City representing Chicago, IL (WKQX/WLUP)
*Ivory Black representing Kansas City, MO (KCFX/KCJK)
*Another Day Dawns representing Wilkes-Barre, PA (WBSX)
*Will Evans represnting New London, CT (WMOS)
*Migrant Motel representing Los Angeles, CA (KLOS).
Cumulus reaches over 245 million listeners weekly, and is home to many of the country’s major rock stations, including KLOS, KQRS, WLUP, KATT, WGRF and KSAN. Last week the company filed to reorganize in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with $2.4 billion in debt. It has reached an agreement with 69% of its term loan holders. Cumulus’ pre-packaged restructuring agreement with lenders will reduce the company’s debt by more than $1 billion.
neXt2rock2017 is Cumulus Media’s second installment of its “Next” franchise, which was launched in 2015 with NASH Next, the country version of the competition.
