Hit The Lights, Thousand Foot Krutch, And Fireflight Are Feeding The Beat

posted by Matt on April 22nd, 2009 in Campaigns, Press Release

Like tacos? What about music? We got you covered…

For the last three years, Taco Bell has been hard at work feeding bands on tour as part of their Feed The Beat program. Last fall, 100 of these bands participated in the “Best Of the Beat” competition. Fans voted on their favorite bands and the top 3 went on to become the winners of the program.

Taco Bell just re-launched www.feedthebeat.com and is currently offering free MP3 downloads from the winners of the program. Some of the winners invested their winnings into recording new music while others opted to go a different route. Regardless, the singular mission was clear for Taco Bell, work to help expose the public to the best in new music.

Go to www.feedthebeat.com and download brand new songs from Hit The Lights and Thousand Foot Krutch as well as get a free download from Fireflight.

Also, next time you head to your local Taco Bell for some eats, be sure to read up on the bands on their sauce packets.

Here’s a widget we created to help you spread the word. Grab the embed code and share with your friends.

You can read the entire press release after the jump.

TACO BELL® TURNS UP THE VOLUME WITH FIRST FEED THE BEAT MUSIC RELEASE

“Best of the Beat” Contest Winners Hit the Lights, Thousand Foot Krutch and Fireflight Become First Bands to Partner with Taco Bell to Produce and Promote Their Music

IRVINE, CALIF., April 21, 2009 – For the past three years, Taco Bell® has been feeding up-and-coming bands free Fourthmeal® meals while they are out on tour as part of its Feed the Beat music program. Last fall, 100 of these bands participated in Taco Bell’s “Best of the Beat” competition, where they competed for a chance to record, have Taco Bell produce a single and gain valuable marketing support for that single. More than 180,000 fans voted on Feed the Beat’s Virtual Music Festival Web site (www.feedthebeat.com) and Hit the Lights, Thousand Foot Krutch and Fireflight outlasted the competition to win the bracket-style contest. Today they become the first ever bands to have singles promoted by Taco Bell’s Feed the Beat program.

Each band collaborated with Taco Bell on a specific plan that would help advance their music careers. Hit the Lights worked to tap producer Mark Trombino, whom the band found suited perfectly to its sound and wanted to make their new single available to its fans for free via download. Thousand Foot Krutch brought on a familiar producer to the band, partnering with Aaron Sparkle and will use it to tease its new album, due next fall, with a free download for their fans. Fireflight elected to have Taco Bell promote its existing single produced by Rob Hawkins and want to break through to a new audience, and will have that song available for a free download. All three singles are available to music fans by going to www.feedthebeat.com.

“Thanks to all the good people at Taco Bell for the opportunity to record with one of our favorite producers and then give it to our fans for free,” said Nick Thompson, lead singer Hit the Lights. “The only thing that would make this better is if we had some fire sauce to go with it.”

The singles, titled “Pulse” by Hit the Lights, “Bring Me To Life” by Thousand Foot Krutch and “Unbreakable” by Fireflight, will be promoted on www.feedthebeat.com and through a unique in-store effort, via Taco Bell’s iconic Sauce Packet. The packets, tagged with the www.feedthebeat.com Web site, will reach more than 208 million people through Taco Bell’s 5,600 restaurants over the next five weeks. Additionally, Taco Bell will conduct some online promotional efforts to bring attention to the singles.

“We’re excited to have been chosen to be part of Feed the Beat and a big thank you to everyone who voted,” said Trevor McNevan, lead singer Thousand Foot Krutch. “‘Bring Me to Life’ is the song we chose to record and we are stoked to share it with you! Thanks to Taco Bell, we teamed up with producer Aaron Sprinkle (The Almost, Demon Hunter, MxPx) and mix engineer Randy Staub (Metallica “Black Album”, Nickelback “Dark Horse”) for this one and it was a perfect match. BIG, crunchy, adrenaline rock…umm…yes please. Our new album is out later this fall, so please download this track as our free gift to you!”

“Thanks Taco Bell for introducing Fireflight’s music to new fans,” said Dawn Richardson, lead singer of Fireflight. “We love being part of Feed the Beat and for audiences to hear our song ‘Unbreakable.’ The song is about breaking free, I hope it empowers listeners to face fears and not hold back.”

Earlier this year, Hit the Lights, Thousand Foot Krutch and Fireflight were also featured in this year’s Winter X-Games telecasts on ESPN and ABC. Taco Bell worked with ESPN to have Feed the Beat music, as well as footage of the bands performing in Aspen at Winter X, incorporated into highlight packages that aired on ESPN and ABC. The packages were complete with band name and song identification, to broaden the band’s fan base and expose new listeners to great indie rock.

“The release of these singles from the winners of ‘Best of the Beat’ reaffirms our commitment not only to feeding bands, but also feeding music to new audiences,” said David Ovens, Chief Marketing Officer, Taco Bell Corp. “Our hope is to continue to grow Feed the Beat and reach more bands because we love music.”