GO! Get to know artist profile: BLENDED REALITY
Submitted photo
Blended Reality will perform at the Fayette Fair 1 p.m. July 30 (84 Lumber Stage).
Riley, Mack and Ty are Blended Reality.
Fresh off winning the 2016 Pittsburgh Battle of the Bands competition, Blended Reality, welcomes the spring and all its possibilities.
The sibling trio from Brownsville, with their mixture of country-pop-rock covers and original music in a three-part harmony puree, is poised to make its mark on the regional music scene including a upcoming gig at the Rex Theater in Pittsburgh.
Riley Higenbotham, lead guitarist and lead male vocalist, has been writing music since he was 11. He is joined by his stepsister Mack, who also handles lead vocals as well as bass guitar and piano, and Ty, the band’s drummer, who also rounds out the vocals, to complete Blended Reality.
Their energetic performances, acoustic or electric, are relaxed for the teens who are completely in their element making music.
“For me, individually and as part of the band, the way the music reacts to me or vice versa, it’s just always something of mine I have to have. It sounds cheesy but it’s the best way to describe it–I have to have music. I always have it playing around me,” laughed Riley.
For more than a year, the band has practiced daily, honing in on the biggest competition of their career thus far, edging out 20 other bands to take the title.
“For Battle of the Bands, basically we set one goal for about a month or so and we accomplished that goal. It was big for us,” said Ty. “To feel the crowd rooting for us was awesome.”
As a result, Blended Reality has gigs scheduled all over southwestern Pennsylvania as well as Cleveland and Morgantown for the spring and summer, hoping to gather new fans throughout the region.
The three self-taught singer-songwriter-musicians seem to have an innate music ability that they have shared with one another.
“Music has been around me and my brother especially, it’s been around Mack a lot too but me and my brother, since we were just out of the womb,” said Riley. “I taught my brother bass because I was on guitar. Then he went to drums and all that. We took what we had and gave it to Mack.”
But as Mack explains, Blended Reality, whose name stems from their blended family, had a simple origin.
“One day we were just in the basement and we started playing a song. This is before I knew the bass, so I was on piano. We started playing ‘If I Die Young’ by The Band Perry and that’s when we realized we needed to be in a band because we just work together so well,” she said.
With their voices seamlessly blending, the trio does covers of well known country-pop-rock from yesterday and today including “Brown Eyed Girl,” “American Girl,” “Dibs,” “Can’t Feel My Face,” “Royals” and “Uptown Funk,” just to name a few.
“First and foremost, we have two lead singers, actually we have three, but we have a male and a female lead singer and just the possibility of songs, whatever you want to hear, it’s unlimited for what we want to do. And we do tons of genres,” notes Riley.
In addition, together, Blended Reality, writes their own original music, including an upcoming single “Good Times (Don’t Wait Up).”
Individually they work on lyrics and music and then come together as a trio to work on a final product the band explained.
As a result of their Battle of the Bands success, doors are opening for Blended Reality; they are now represented by booking agents, Fuzion Entertainment and Talent Network Inc. of Pittsburgh, they are headlining their own shows, and later this year they hope to go in studio to record their first album.
The band is also increasing their social media presence on Facebook and Twitter (@blendedreality3).
Blended Reality hopes to build on the musical foundation it has established as the family watches their dreams unfold.
“I never thought I would ever be here. I mean even before the band started I didn’t think this would be how my life would go and for that to happen is amazing,” said Mack.