Wonderwall

615 Spotlight: Scarletta Gets 'Island Fever'

The Associated Press, Wednesday, January 9, 2013, 12:12pm (PST)

Billboard -- The winter might not seem like the perfect time to release a single with a tropical bent, but then again Scarletta is not your normal country act. The trio -- comprised of lead singer Aubrey Collins, fiddle player Nathan Stoops, and guitarist Benji Harris -- are proud to share with Billboard the debut of their brand new single and lyric video, titled "Island Fever."

The track will be the first single from a project the band is working on, and Collins says being in the studio with their new producers has been a liberating experience. "We are so fortunate to be working with a production team called Seathedesert - comprised of Steffon Hamulak, and Eric Torres," she says. "They let us be us. We got to use our own drummer, and we were all in there together. It was like a performance. It was so much looser, just letting us be the band we are."

Scarletta will be making the rounds at radio this year to promote the single. It's a trek they know well, having introduced themselves to stations last year with their single "Right Here Right Now."

"We did the radio tour last spring, and it was very much worth it," Collins notes, and says it was important for the group for more reasons than one. "It was just the three of us, and we split time driving, and a lot of bonding. That's when we became a solid unit. We really became super close," she says.

615 Picks: Scarletta Among 10 Artists to Watch in 2013

One of the aspects of Scarletta's sound that sets them apart is the wide and varied influences the band claims. "I listened to Motley Crue then Patsy Cline," says Collins, who also enjoyed a stint as lead singer of Trick Pony. "So my background was very eclectic. That describes my personality. I'm a rock and roll chick, but would also like to hang out at the farm one day and not hear any noise." Stoops - who has played fiddle on several season 10 and 11 episodes of "American Idol," goes in a different musical direction altogether. "There's a good deal of counter balance within this band," he said. "My background is in classical music." Harris took a completely different path to the band. "I just put a band together in the garage with my buddies, completely untrained. That's my background. I was always playing lead guitar and singing harmony- which is what I always wanted."

With the new single out, the band plans to hit the road in a big way. "Starting this month, we've got about a dozen dates through the summer pushing the music. We're starting to see some markets emerge as fan bases for us based on the fact they saw us, and came back, and told some friends about us," says Stoops.

Word of mouth has had quite an impact, says Harris. "It's so encouraging, because you can look out and see people mouthing the words to your songs, while wearing your t-shirts, and it's like 'Wow, we have fans! That is a great feeling."