THE Shonas haven’t packed out arenas like ACDC, but they did bring the house down at the Battle of the Bands on Friday, June 17.
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Hastings Secondary College Port Macquarie Campus year 11 and 12 students Lachlan Byron (keyboard), Billy Axford (lead vocals), Aran Dennis (drums), Liam Clark (bass) and Ethan Dennis (guitar) played in front of a full house at Camden Haven High.
They were competing against seven other bands from four high schools in the area.
The Shonas formed a couple of years ago and didn’t manage to place in the Battle of the Bands in 2015.
Plenty of practice and jam session have improved them out of sight, clearly, as they took out the title this year.
“It was surprising to win it,” Billy said.
“All of the bands were great, the level of bands jumped up heaps this year so we didn’t expect to win.”
Apart from winning, they said their biggest thrill was to play in front of Grinspoon front man Phil Jamieson, who was judging with Adam Barbuto.
“When we heard Jamieson was judging we thought it was funny because we played one of his songs last year,” Lachlan said.
As for their name, that is an interesting story.
“It was two weeks out from Battle of the Bands last year and we needed a name,” Liam said.
“We were sitting in class trying to think and Lachy looked at classmate whose name was Shona and said ‘why don’t we just call ourselves the Shonas?’ so we did.
“She didn’t like it at first but she had no choice. She likes it now.”
The group formed through their mutual interest in music at school.
Brothers Aran and Ethan relocated to Port Macquarie a couple of years ago.
“The first time we met was basically the other guys asking us to join the band,” Ethan said.
“We practice once or twice a week but it’s not really practice, we just sit around and have fun. We start practicing more seriously a few weeks before a gig.”
Their ultimate goal is to perform at FOTSUN, the town’s premier music festival.