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Trying their best: working for fame through the Web
By: Mark Hensch
Posted: 1/29/09
When bassist Alex Linebrink '08 woke on Jan. 6, he never expected to see his college band's debut album nestled between Elvis and the Killers on Amazon.com's top sellers.
But "Seraphim," the album Hillsdale's The Eastern Gate (formerly Seraphim) produced last summer, peaked that day as No. 1 on Amazon's Movers and Shakers List while reaching No. 200 on the Web site's top mp3 album downloads overall. The group now hopes to replicate that success on iTunes.
Using the power of networking Web sites like Facebook and Myspace, the group now seeks greater recognition through the power of devoted fans rather than advertising dollars.
"I did not know what anyone else was thinking at the time but I was prepared to sell maybe 50 copies of 'Seraphim' in my lifetime," Linebrink said. "Making the Amazon charts like we did is a win for independent bands everywhere."
Along with Linebrink on bass and vocals, the band members included lead guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Noah Kerr '08, violinist Meredith Bogacz '08, drummer Ethan Lewis '08, and rhythm guitarist/percussionist/vocalist Josh Peterson '08.
They formed the band as students in fall 2007 and quickly gained a devoted following among their classmates. From there, performances followed at Battle of the Bands and senior Mike Naatjes' downtown apartment, The Loft.
Their rise to Amazon's top spots is especially gratifying given that they almost failed to release the album at all.
They released six months late after rushing to finish recording their songs, and they ran out of time to finish mastering sound. They also changed their name to The Eastern Gate to avoid a potential run-in with a Taiwanese heavy metal band also called Seraphim.
Still, Linebrink said, the band's fan base kept them working for the album's release in spite of the obstacles.
"It is really quite amazing how devoted our fans are," Lewis said. "They believed in us before we believed in ourselves."
Such devotion has paid off. The band's success at Amazon opened the floodgates for The Eastern Gate and since then the band's Web site has garnered 1,800 views from 33 countries in 21 languages. Beyond this, the album now also sells on Napster, Lala, Shockhound and iTunes. Now the band is hoping for a big gain in popularity.
Linebrink said iTunes sales would be released the first week of February followed by Amazon's sales at the start of March.
"I do not know what success this album will have and that is the best part," Kerr said. "It can go any which way."
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