Scraping for Change hits No. 1 in Indonesia
Cassandra Moser
Issue date: 9/27/07 Section: News
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The NDNU-based band Scraping for Change hit Number One in Indonesia with their single Crazy Mary. The band toured on the Soundrenaline 2007 Rock Festival, the summer's biggest Asian rock festival, which was nearly four weeks long and hit five cities.
Scraping for Change met in Belmont in 2003 and debuted less than a year later at NDNU. The band members are bassist Manny Gonzalez, 24; vocalist Anthony Andrade Jr., 24; drummer Joe Szulkowski, 25; and guitarist Sterling Selover, 23.
"Our manager, Steve Selover, gave our full-length CD to Charma, the owner of Prambors 102.2 FM, a popular Indonesian radio station. Charma liked our music and started to give us air play. We started getting more and more radio play, and people just kept calling in and requesting our song. Our single Crazy Mary went to No. 1 on the Top 40 radio play list," said Gonzalez.
"It was awesome to play in front of 50,000 people. You walk off stage and have people grabbing at you asking you for your clothes or what ever they could have. Most people wanted my sunglasses, and I even had a male fan offer his younger sister to me, but I passed," said Szulkowski.
Gonzalez said he was excited but nervous to go to Indonesia because 80-85 percent of the population is Muslim. He thought they would not like Americans.
"It was the complete opposite," Gonzalez said. "They were completely humble and welcoming."
Szulkowski said it is an honor to be recognized in another country.
"It is cool to be recognized in the United States. That's a large feat as it is but for a small band based out of Belmont to be No. 1 in a different country and have them accept us and our music as an American is awesome," said Szulkowski.
Mother Nature was active while the boys were overseas as an earthquake and mudslide occurred while they were there.
"We told Joe that he caused the earthquake because on the night of it, he hit his base drum so hard that the drum went straight through, causing a huge hole," joked Gonzalez.
Despite the earthquake, the band partied like rock stars at clubs and bars. They found that some things, like beer, were harder to come by.
"Hotels were cheap, food was cheap, but the alcohol was very expensive because it was all imported," Szulkowski said. "Our beer of choice was Bintang which means star in Indonesian."
The boys managed to visit some tourist hot spots between all the hype. Szulkowski bungee-jumped off the world's second tallest building, and the band went river rafting and rode on elephants.
The boys finally started to feel like mainstream celebrities as they walked through local malls and were asked to sign some autographs.
"We walked in this one store, and they immediately recognized us and asked us to sign their dressing room mirrors and that was pretty sweet," said Szulkowski.
Scraping for Change met in Belmont in 2003 and debuted less than a year later at NDNU. The band members are bassist Manny Gonzalez, 24; vocalist Anthony Andrade Jr., 24; drummer Joe Szulkowski, 25; and guitarist Sterling Selover, 23.
"Our manager, Steve Selover, gave our full-length CD to Charma, the owner of Prambors 102.2 FM, a popular Indonesian radio station. Charma liked our music and started to give us air play. We started getting more and more radio play, and people just kept calling in and requesting our song. Our single Crazy Mary went to No. 1 on the Top 40 radio play list," said Gonzalez.
"It was awesome to play in front of 50,000 people. You walk off stage and have people grabbing at you asking you for your clothes or what ever they could have. Most people wanted my sunglasses, and I even had a male fan offer his younger sister to me, but I passed," said Szulkowski.
Gonzalez said he was excited but nervous to go to Indonesia because 80-85 percent of the population is Muslim. He thought they would not like Americans.
"It was the complete opposite," Gonzalez said. "They were completely humble and welcoming."
Szulkowski said it is an honor to be recognized in another country.
"It is cool to be recognized in the United States. That's a large feat as it is but for a small band based out of Belmont to be No. 1 in a different country and have them accept us and our music as an American is awesome," said Szulkowski.
Mother Nature was active while the boys were overseas as an earthquake and mudslide occurred while they were there.
"We told Joe that he caused the earthquake because on the night of it, he hit his base drum so hard that the drum went straight through, causing a huge hole," joked Gonzalez.
Despite the earthquake, the band partied like rock stars at clubs and bars. They found that some things, like beer, were harder to come by.
"Hotels were cheap, food was cheap, but the alcohol was very expensive because it was all imported," Szulkowski said. "Our beer of choice was Bintang which means star in Indonesian."
The boys managed to visit some tourist hot spots between all the hype. Szulkowski bungee-jumped off the world's second tallest building, and the band went river rafting and rode on elephants.
The boys finally started to feel like mainstream celebrities as they walked through local malls and were asked to sign some autographs.
"We walked in this one store, and they immediately recognized us and asked us to sign their dressing room mirrors and that was pretty sweet," said Szulkowski.
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