Indie band with local roots vies for X-Games Austin contest

By FRANCISCO E. JIMENEZ
Staff Writer
reporter@sbnewspaper.com

(Courtesy photo)
Indie alternative band Vinyl Dharma has members hailing from Brownsville and San Benito. They’re shown here in a promotional photo of the band.

They’ve been battling for stardom since they first moved to Austin eight years ago. Since then, Vinyl Dharma, a talented indie-rock band with ties to San Benito and Brownsville, have been making huge waves around the local music scene including a more recent online competition for the X Games Austin Battle of the Bands.

“This year is the first year that Austin has ever hosted the X Games,” explained John Montemayor, who is a graduate of San Benito High School and plays lead guitar for Vinyl Dharma. “They’re having a national battle of the bands competition.”

Vinyl Dharma consists of Montemayor, lead singer and rhythm guitarist Johnny “Dharma” Marroquin, a graduate of Brownsville Lopez High School, bassist Fernando “Nando” De La Garza, a graduate of Brownsville Porter High School, and drummer Josh Ybarra, a graduate of SBHS. According to Montemayor, if his band wins the competition they will be awarded $25,000 as well as having their performance taped and aired on ESPN.

The competition is currently being held online. Vinyl Dharma was one of over 200 bands to enter the contest. By the end of the first round, the band held a firm grasp of the top spot. Now into the second round, Vinyl Dharma is currently maintaining the top spot out of seven bands with 5,843 votes as of press time. The second place band, SUPER bob out of Washington D.C. and Charleston, South Carolina, has 5,570.

“The first round was based off of online voting, so we had to generate votes through social media, friends on Facebook, all those types of networking websites,” Montemayor said. “Basically, what they did is they chopped it down to seven bands for the second round. This round is based off of online voting again, but these seven bands actually get to go play a show out there either Friday or Saturday, depending on what day you are assigned.”

Montemayor said that he considers the band “fortunate” for receiving a 6 p.m. timeslot on Saturday, June 7.

“That is actually the best timeslot out of all the groups performing,” said Montemayor. “Some of the groups go on at 11 in the morning, which is kind of tough because not too many people are going to be out there that early. We are very fortunate with our timeslot.”

Montemayor said that his band will actually be opening for hip hop recording artist Kanye West. If they make it to the third round of the contest, then the band members will follow up their performance with another one on Sunday in which they will open for the rock band, The Flaming Lips.

“Right now, what we’ve been doing is just practicing a lot,” Montemayor said. “We’ve played two pre-shows. We did one last Saturday then we did another one (Tuesday) night.”

Vinyl Dharma’s music could best be described as a balance of rock and electronic. The band recently released an album titled “The Lost Years” on May 17 of this year, which can be purchased on iTunes. Before entering the contest, the band has seen spurts of success in recent years. They played for the MTV New Year’s Eve Bash in Times Square in New York City as well as being featured on MTV2 for Austin Week, which was broadcast nationally.

“We’ll see how it goes,” said Montemayor. “We moved up here about eight years ago and we’re just trying to follow our dreams. For us to play MTV and get featured for Austin Week and now with the Battle of the Bands, we’re getting national exposure for a third time. It’s pretty exciting for us.”

Voting for the X Games Austin Battle of the Bands will end at 9 p.m. Saturday, June 7. To vote and help send Vinyl Dharma to the next and final round, visit xbands.xgamesaustin.com/most-votes.

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