Somerhill

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Somerhill Photo by Kevin Stiffler

Somerhill

Somerhill Photo by Kevin Stiffler

Somerhill

It didn’t take Somerhill long to make an impression on the local music scene after forming in the summer of 2006. With a growing catalogue of songs that fuse jazz, funk and world beats with some good old up-tempo jam rock, Somerhill has quickly attracted a loyal fan base both locally and in Pittsburgh, where they have become regulars at Diesel, a popular music club in the city’s South Side district.
After winning last year’s competition, the band has signed on to a contract with Pittsburgh-based music distributor Core Media House. The band are currently polishing a new batch of tracks for their upcoming release, Today or Tomorrow, which should be available by November.
Not even one year has passed since Chad Gontkovic, Greg Kehl, Bill Rose and Steve Page first bounced around the idea of starting a band. But when the members of Somerhill recall the band’s earliest days, they sound as if they are speaking about a completely different time.

In a way, they are. When Somerhill formed last summer, the only thing Gontkovic, Kehl, Rose and Page wanted was to have fun playing original music in front of local audiences that consisted largely of friends and family.

“It was a free-for-all,” Kehl remembered of the band’s first days. “Our first show was probably six weeks after we got together.”

Still, the band had already compiled a line-up of at least 15 original songs, a catalog that impressed local fans.

“They actually believed in us,” Gontkovic recalled. “That is something we weren’t really expecting at first.”

Since emerging on the local music scene and winning Our Town’s Rockin’ in the Valley original music contest last fall, Somerhill has accomplished and experienced more than many bands ever do.

“We’re definitely expanding,” said Rose, listing tour dates lined up for cities as far away as Philadelphia and Fairfax, Virginia.

The band is also playing regularly at Diesel, one of Pittsburgh’s premiere venues for live music.

“We’ve almost become the house band there,” Rose said. “Every time they have an opening, they contact us because we pull a crowd there.”

That included playing on the same bill as American Idol alum Chris Daughtry last February, an experience that gave the band perhaps its first real taste of rock stardom.

“There were definitely some girls who came up to us because we were hanging out with Daughtry,” Rose joked.

“What’s great about that is we did all of that ourselves, before we brought in our management team.”

In January, the band was presented with a contract from music distributor Core Media House.

“When a contract came in front of that, that was reality setting in,” Kehl said.

“It takes it to where you start thinking of yourselves as a product and the music you’re producing as a product,” Gontkovic said.

For bassist Greg Gillen, however, the contract meant added pressures and responsibilities. Gillen left the band in early March.

Rose contacted fellow Richland High School graduate Andrew Heinze to fill in on bass on a temporary basis.

“I had four days to learn 13 tracks,” Heinze said. “I came home from work every day and played bass for five hours a night.”

Within a week, Heinze and his new band finally signed the contract, putting Somerhill under the direction of manager Jason Zulueta and producer Constantino.

“He’s just a musical genius,” Rose said of Constantino, who is helping the band refine and revise its music.

“He’s adding multiple harmonies, different back-up vocals, different types of singing, and different instruments that we hadn’t even considered.

The band is now recording sessions under Core Media House.

Once completed, the songs will be available on iTunes and will be shopped to television and film studios for soundtrack placement. The management team will also help the band line up shows and appearances in Los Angeles.

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