#heymonea

Brothers Dan and Nate grew up playing music and performing at local coffee shops and open mics since they were 16 and 13, respectively, and joined forces with Adam nearly ten years ago. Since then, the band has increased their fan base and popularity across the country.

The band’s music can be described as everything from pop/rock to country, to blues (or, as Dan puts it, “straight up rock and roll”). They point to musical inspirations such as Jackson Browne, the Beatles and the Eagles.

In 2012, Hey Monea got a big break when they won a worldwide battle of the bands competition. Dan noted that the band chose to enter after their friends from Buffalo, NY had won the year before. “The prize was good, and we were looking for a spark to take our career to the next level,” Dan notes. They entered the competition in Cleveland, Ohio (their hometown). After 2-3 weeks, the band made it to the next round, where they competed against bands from 91 other cities. The group encouraged their fans to vote through social media, and ultimately made the top 10, which was judged exclusively by music industry executives. A couple of months after winning the competition, the band reaped the full rewards of the contest and opened for Bruce Springsteen in London: “that was unimaginable. We played for a crowd of 60,000 people – it was nothing we have ever seen before, and changed us forever.”

Hey Monea is currently working on their next record, The Fifty, which is due out October 31. As Hey Monea gets ready to release their upcoming record (“it’s 90% done,” Dan admits), they are gearing up for their next headlining tour, as well.

The band is currently on tour supporting Tony Lucca, which they describe as “amazing – we are lucky to travel with an established artist like Tony and check out a lot of cities we haven’t been to before.” They are getting ready to return to some of the same cities and revisit their new fans in November for a three-week tour, which will span across the Northeast, Southeast and Midwest. In December, Hey Monea will play holiday shows in their hometown, before traveling to Guatemala with their label, Noble Steed Music, to support the MILE Organization with fellow musicians. Their whirlwind tour will continue on into January, where Hey Monea will be a part of Sister Hazels’ The Rock Boat XVI. Dan describes the 5-day cruise as a “floating festival,” in which the band will join other artists, including Gavin DeGraw and Bronze Radio Return on a trip form Miami to Costa Maya and Grand Cayman.