by Bryon Rossi
Bassist & Singer, The American Secrets

I’ve been looking forward to this past week for about five months (since I first found out that we were going to be showcasing at SXSW.) Every unsigned artist knows that SXSW is THE place to get to in order to have the best chance of being noticed. For about a week the entire music industry converges upon the city of Austin for 5-6 days of non-stop music, meetings, posturing, hand-shaking, partying, watching, staring, longing, crying (probably), lying, eating, judging, promoting, and walking around…while on as little sleep as humanly possible.

It’s pretty awesome.

Because of our individual schedules, we (The American Secrets, a.k.a. the freecreditscore.com band) had not been able to spend a lot of time together before our arrival at Austin. We decided to get in a day early and rehearse our material. My brother (Danny) and I actually missed our plane to Austin, so we ended up catching a later flight…and thus, delayed rehearsal that night. In doing so, we also forfeited any sort of grounds for ever coming at any of the other guys in the band for being late to anything.

Rehearsal went well, then our official SXSW experience began. There were a number of new bands we met, old friends embraced, and star sightings during the week. Now I am going to describe some of those moments to you…

New Bands I Am Now Hip To
Brent Amakar and The Rodeo, Generationals, Operation Juliet. Operation Juliet was the most pleasant surprise for me. I had gone back to the venue that we showcased at on St. Patrick’s Day a couple hours later to catch the official headliner. We hit it off with their management and just wanted to hang later on with them. I ended up showing up too late, but was taken aback to see Sean Lennon setting up onstage. Even though I’ve never been to the East Village, I felt like I was there. Go ahead and try to unpack that statement if you want, but you can’t do it.

Celebrity Sightings
SXSW wouldn’t be complete without some Grade A celebrity sightings. I’m a musician and artist, but I’m also a fan of music. Seeing Sean Lennon play was awesome. Having the chance to meet other celebrities during the week was pretty awesome too. I was able to share and elevator with Ron Sexsmith, have a very pleasant exchange with Kid Rock at our hotel, watch LL Cool J walk through the lobby at our hotel, take a picture with Pos from De La Soul, chat with Sway from MTV, hang with a couple of the guys from The Buried Life for a few minutes, open for Liz Phair, and see Perez Hilton walk out of one of our performances. Awesome.

Food
One of the highlights for me personally was being introduced to, and experiencing, a bacon milkshake. You can watch the documented journey here. It was a glorious moment that I shant forgot soon. Verily, I say.

Playing Music
Showcasing at the SPIN loft was awesome…most industry shindigs are properly run. Also, the IFC Crossroads House was professionally run and a pleasure to experience. I say this regardless of the fact that there were free drinks there…but that fact also made the event great. VEVO also was amazing for us to work with. Great crews, great producers, super comfortable, and they understood our humor (ie. They have a good sense of humor.)

Summing Up
All in all, this is another great notch in the belt, feather in the hat, ice cube in the ice tray, etc. Freecreditscore.com has been nothing but completely supportive of us as a band creatively. They took amazing care of us this week and I know that I speak for the rest of the guys in The American Secrets when I say that we love working with them and look forward to more experiences with them. (I swear there was no arm-pulling in writing of this last statement)

Pretty Dang exciting, eh?!

– Bryon