Ambulance, a local Indie Rock band made up of three Ballard boys, will be rocking the stage at The EMP Sound Off! competition on February 12th.

The EMP Sound Off! is Northwest's largest underage battle of the bands and after submitting CDs for three years in a row, Ambulance finally get a chance to showcase their talent.

Celebrating its tenth anniversary, Sound Off! is known as a launching pad for musical careers. It has paved the way for bands like The Lonely Forest, Schoolyard Heroes and Brite Futures (formerly Natalie Portman's Shaved Head.)

The competition supports the local underage music scene by giving young artists from different backgrounds a unique opportunity to showcase their work and connect with the larger artistic community.

Ambulance is a collaboration of Ballard High School senior Spencer Miller on bass and vocal, and BHS alumni Sam Peterson on the guitar and vocals and Dillon Christopher on the drums.

Out of approximately 130 band, they were one of 12 bands to be selected. The Battle of the Underaged Bands winner will get an opportunity to play at Bumbershoot 2011.

“We submitted CDs three times but this is the first time we got in,” Peterson said.

“That first year, when we first started playing together we were just god awful,” Christopher added.

Now, the boys said they’ve solidified their sound and showcase their new sound on their latest self-released album titled “People in Places”.

“We’ve just been tweaking our sound and we’re happy with it and the crowd seems to like it more than our old stuff,” Peterson said.

“We played an unnecessary amount of shows which tightened us as a band and bettered our song writing,” Christopher added.

Their musical influence comes from a variety of bands. Miller said he’s heavily influenced by 80s bands such as The Strokes and Joy Division whereas Christopher prefers the 60s. Peterson doesn’t even own an iPod, is not really a fan of hard rock and listens mostly to classical music and KEXP.

Catchy yet aggressive and moody, their music commonly gets compared to The Strokes and Interpol, the boys said.
“It’s also because of Sam’s deep baritone voice,” Christopher said.

A prolific writer, Christopher writes in his notebook every day and comes up with the lyrics for the songs. Peterson adds his riffs and Miller the final touches.

Peterson and Christopher have been jamming together for five years and Miller joined the band almost three years ago. Christopher and Miller are both members of the BHS marching band.

Miller said they’re organized at their practices and practice at least twice a week at Jamm Box in Queen Anne or at his parents’ house.

“We’re the kind of band who feels like they haven’t practice in years when it’s only been a week,” Christopher said.

Sound Off! is Ambulance’s biggest achievement yet but they’re looking to make it big or at the least, liveable.

Peterson dropped out of Western Washington University to be closer to the band and Christopher said he’s going to community college as a Plan B in case the musical career doesn’t pan out.

“I got to do what I want to do,” Peterson said. “This is the time to go for it. You can’t be a rockstar when you’re old.”

Miller said they already play at the level of many professional bands and work really hard.

“We’ve got something to offer and so we’re going to go for it,” he said.

Despite the fact that they’re an underaged band, Ambulance has been making many appearances at bars. Locally, they’ve appeared at The Sunset Tavern and The High Dive but they’ve also been traveling to Bremerton and surrounding areas to gain new audiences. The money earned at bar shows goes in the band fund, which is paying off debt they’ve accumulated by making CDs and merchandise.

“The band circuit here in Seattle has been pretty supportive about underaged bands,” Miller said.

Christopher said they enjoy playing at bars and “having to win over the adults that haven’t met us yet.”

Ambulance’s records are available at Sonic Boom Records and Bop Street Recordsin Ballard as well as on the web via iTunes.

Tickets for Sound Off! go on sale tomorrow, January 20th, and are available here. Tickets are $10 for general admission, $7 for students and EMP|SFM members.