ORANGE County Register– What’s more important than being right up against the stage taking in some face-melting rock riffs? Staying alive.

At least that is the message from the musicians’ national anti-drunk driving group, RADD. RADD, along with three dozen health and law-enforcement groups held a teen battle of the bands at The Block at Orange.

The pop/grunge act, the Nicky Barot Band won first place of the three finalists who played live at the Block. The pop-grunge act played a couple songs, including “Easy to See,” the more technically demanding of their originals.

Nicky Barot, 14, of Los Alamitos High School writes most of the music for the band. He described his chosen genre as “rock with pop influences.”

The event, accompanied by doctors, police, drug experts and exhibitors, kicked off Red Ribbon Week. The yearly drug and alcohol awareness campaign was set up to commemorate the murder by drug cartel members of a local undercover DEA Agent.

The three acts were pulled form more than a dozen applicants were picked to play live Saturday, leading up to a performance from MySpace recording artist Samantha Jade. Jade was one of the judges, as well as KIIS FM DJ Fat Daniel and Steven Lambert, a musician and one of the event’s organizers.

Coming is second was Along These Lines, a trio with ties to Tesoro, Capistrano and Saddleback Valley Christian high schools. Cole Patterson – one of the guitarists – couldn’t make it because Capo High’s Homecoming dance was Saturday.

“Our music is mostly based off lyrics,” said Ryan Holley, 15, who writes music for the band.
“If the lyrics are more serious, the music will be heavy,” added band mate Tyler Spry 15.

The heaviest of all the bands, which ranked third, was Sidistic. Marked by speedy melodic metal riffs and growling vocals, Judges said Sidistic won on energy, but missed out because theirs chosen genre had a smaller niche audience than the other groups.

“I like metal,” Lambert said. “But it was hard to measure in terms of popular appeal.”
Most of the members are 18 and 19 and graduated from Perris High School in Riverside, but one member is still attending Gilbert High School in Anaheim.

“Our music is heavy, but it has a melodic side,” said Sidistic’s lead guitarist and songwriter Juan Perez.

The Nicky Barot band won several hours of professional recording time in a studio, along with producers and technicians to handle the session.