After the battle: Winner tells all

By Catherine Amos

Published: May 8, 2008

In Culpeper’s first Battle of the Bands last week, relative newcomer to the local music scene “4th Degree Burn” took home the night’s highest honors.
The Star-Exponent had a chance to sit down with the guys and their band manager to learn more about Culpeper’s champions of rock.

CSE: What’s your sound?
David Gonzales: We mix it around a lot. We try to do something different from the norm. We’ve been working on our sound to get it perfected.
Austin O’Rourke: It’s from like rock to metal.
Cole Masaitis: Most of Culpeper, you ask them what kind of music they like and they say black or death metal.
Alex Casanova: Everyone in the band likes a different type of music.
Victoria Gonzales: They’re like rock that you hear, like that song Finger Eleven’s “Paralyzer.” It’s pretty much rock that you can hear and you can enjoy listening to.

CSE: Who are your influences as a band?
DG: Mostly the covers that we do are by bands that we enjoy listening to. We’ve done two Nirvana covers in the past. We’ve always liked listening back to classic rock, anywhere from the ’60s to today.
VG: We respect the classics. Like Jimi Hendrix.
AO: Beethoven.
DG: Me and him both get the influence to play keyboard from Mozart and Beethoven.
AO: And Bach.

CSE: Where did the name come from?
DG: It was during 4th grade in science class. We were talking about the different degrees for burns and I asked if there was such thing as a 4th degree burn. And I was thinking that it would be a really cool band name.

CSE: What is your goal as a band? What do you get out of being in a band?
DG: I just want people to expand their ears on what they listen to. Try to listen to something different. It’s not really about money for me, necessarily. It’s more just about if people hear my music or not; I just want to show everyone my work and all their hard work.
AC: I love being on stage.
CM: Same here. And I love to meet a lot of new people; it’s all about the experience.

CSE: Tell me about the battle. Were you surprised you won?
DG: I was surprised. I fell to the floor.
VG: It was amazing to watch. (David) had a wireless guitar and wasn’t hooked at all. It was fun to see because he was jumping off stage doing solos. All of them were getting into it. Some people used to just kind of sit there…
DG: Yeah Cole used to be kind of stiff, but after a year together, we’ve gotten that stiffness out. Honestly, I didn’t used to move around as much as I did during the battle.
AO: We’ve developed musically and stayed confident.

CSE: Where will you go from here?
DG: We’re pretty much about making our demo with Ryan Benyo, and teaching Alex the songs since he just got in. We might play at the state fair.

CSE: Why is 4th Degree Burn so awesome?
CM: Usually when people would see us, they might not take us seriously as a band at first, but once they hear us, they see us as having potential.
DG: Don’t judge a book by its cover. I really don’t see age as an issue. Because greatness can come from no matter what age. I want people to see me more as a normal person, not like, ‘oh he’s so young.’ I don’t want to be good because of that.
AO: With the whole Culpeper music thing, people look at each other as musicians rather than judging them like people do in school.
DG: I honestly think of myself as just a musician more than just a shredder or a guitarist or anything. I really want to be known more for the music that we create than just for my skills on the guitar. All these members here are very good at what they do. I don’t want the main focus on me, I just want the main focus on the music in general.

Catherine Amos can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 138 or .