[youtube]http://youtu.be/h5aO_PUmogU[/youtube]
Machine Head have officially ended their online search for a bassist. Now comes the unenviable task of sifting through what are likely hundreds of audition tapes and contacting those that made the cut for in-person auditions. And while the instructions stated that all entrants had to sing, the band stated they were moved to tears by the above cover of “This is the End.” Frank Memolo was born with cerebral palsy in his arm, but is still a pretty damn good bassist. In fact, he’s quite possibly better with one arm than you’ll ever be with two.
Here’s what the band had to say about the submission process, as well as Frank’s performance:
Auditions are officially over, and Machine Head would like to thank each and every person for their YouTube submissions as part of the bass / vocal auditioning process. A lot of hard work and effort went into each and every submission, with many people bravely making them public for the whole world to see and judge both their singing and playing, mostly fairly. It took a lot of brass to do that and we earned an even greater respect for our fans in doing so. There are some incredible musicians out there, fantastic players who unfortunately did not make an attempt to sing, and thus were ineligible, but you should absolutely keep at it! In fact, in the course of these submissions, it looks like many people have earned a lot fans in doing so. Congrats!!
We will now begin the process of having our top picks come down and jam with us in person, and get a feel for each other, both musically and on a personal level.
We have posted this reply on our websites as many submissions came via YouTube with no way for us to reply to them directly, so in order for all people to see it we felt this was the most effective.
On a final note, many of the men and women who sent in YouTube clips performing, did so with the utmost passion and intensity, but of all the submissions, this man deserves a special mention. He learned and played not only the hardest song of the submission “This Is The End”, but played it with only ONE HAND. It moved some of us to tears, it took a lot of heart to do this, cheers Frank Memolo.
