Cochlear Implant

TV Heart Attack with Sloan and Magneta Lane
The Starlite Room (10030-102 St.) Dec. 12, Doors @ 9pm
Tickets: $20 @ Ticketmaster, Megatunes and Blackbyrd

Although it’s not exactly like American Idol, touring as an emerging band is a lot like an audition.

Audiences are a fleeting bunch. We are all too aware of how an artist can be the new black one day and left for dead the next.

Even if the audition goes well night after night, success doesn’t often follow. The unfortunate reality exists: music is a cut-throat business and the avenues an artist paves and the connections a band creates make the difference between getting noticed and being forgotten.

Vancouver’s TV Heart Attack has a plan. They might not take over the rock world anytime soon, but they’re relentless in their pursuit of achieving their goals day after day. Through their connection with audiences and their ability to promote themselves, they’re building their own brand.

“When you’re touring across Canada and you’re hitting these cities — these towns — [and] it’s your first or second time going there, and the hours are long, is a pretty exciting time for us,” says TVHA frontman, Jason Corbett. “It can be tough, but to steal something from Jeff Buckley: ‘after awhile you’re like a football player who’s out of gas and you make moves that you never thought you had in you.’ You just base it on instinct.”

And while they have the opportunity to tour and play to crowds¬ — large or small — TVHA certainly hasn’t mailed it in with their efforts, as they’ve pursued every aspect of their band’s success. “There are people out there who are interested. There are people following us. You’ve got to keep working, keep giving them content. That could mean that you keep twittering or maintaining your online presence. Because there are people out there watching and listening. You’ve got music you have created and there are people who want to hear it….hopefully,” Corbett laughs.

TVHA’s latest, Lost in the Sway, has allowed for their fans to come en masse and things haven’t looked better for the foursome. Corbett admits that they are now doing a lot of condensed press and how, through meeting people and making positive connections, they’ve engineered some unbelievable opportunities through sincerity and networking.

“We’ve been doing so much press lately and it’s amazing. We’ve got a new video that should have cost us $150,000, but it only cost us a couple of thousand because of people we knew through networking. We’ve been really lucky. People in the film industry like us, people in the video game industry like us.

We’re in the new Vancouver Olympics video game by Sega – it’s going to be sold all over the world,” says Corbett. “We’re credited right on the back and in the rolling credits. That’s some major exposure. We’re even in NHL ’09 — it’s a really crazy feeling lately.”

“But you know what I’ve worked hard at? Being sincere with people. I see the way certain bands act towards people and I just cringe, and I can’t do that. Over the years I stuck to my guns about the way I treated people and it paid off, not that I expected any reward, but it’s sure nice when people come out of the woodwork for us.”