“The Next Great American Band”: The Likes of You
Whether or not FOX’s “The Next Great American Band” can reach the large fanbase “American Idol” procured, the show does feature some talented bands. Last week, Los Angeles based band The Likes of You did not receive enough votes to move forward to the top 10, which surprised lead singer Geoff Byrd.
“There were only a million and a half votes all together … I don’t feel like it was representative of all of America, but at the same time it was a bummer,” he said.
However, Byrd said it only took him about a weekend to get over it. After all, there were thousands of auditions narrowed down to 12 for the show. His five-month-old band The Likes of You is looking to get into the studio quickly.
“Looking back on it, I feel like it was the best thing that could have happened to us, for sure,” Byrd said. “We can actually move on to make a CD.”
The show will now move on to an all cover format. Byrd said this is a result of the show moving from two hours to one hour, which means there is only time for each band to play one song rather than two.
“The show is now doing only covers from now on,” Byrd said. “The only reason I wanted to get involved with it is original music.”
He likened the experience of being on the show to a band boot camp. It’s easy to see how that could be the case for a band that just started five months ago. Byrd has plenty of solo material from previous years, but said he wanted to deal more with new songs with his band.
“I wrote about seven or eight songs in two weeks, which is basically the crux of the new record,” Byrd said.
He said the new record is all written and the band will begin recording soon. The group’s chemistry has been solid from the beginning.
“We all got into a rehearsal and there was no trying out for the band,” Byrd said. “After the first song it was so good that it was like ‘Oh, this is a band.’”
For more information on The Likes of You, check out their Web site. “The Next Great American Band” continues tonight on FOX.