Long odds pay off for young band

It's a dream come true that looks closer to a nightmare, a dark room bifurcated with blinding shafts of light, faces morphing into toothy, demonic grimaces.

And those screams.

It sounds like Satan passing a kidney stone atop a bed of broken glass.

The dimly lit, blue-hued scene in question is taken from the debut video of sandpaper-coarse, melodic Vegas metal sextet Kid Deposit Triumph.

The clip recently took top honors in the rock category in the Music Nation online video competition, landing the band a major label demo deal with Epic Records.

As he recounts his band's, uh, triumph, you can still hear the awe in KDT frontman Mike Otto's voice, so much so, that when he acknowledges as much it feels redundant in a way.

"It was just shock and awe, not to quote Bush too much," Otto says with a chuckle of his band's reaction to winning the contest. "It's like, 'Yeah, we did it,' and you put a big ol' smile on your face. At the same time, you're like, 'Oh my god, this is really happening.' "

One of three grand prize winners among more than 2,500 entrants, KDT won for its "Contrary to Popular Belief" video, a sharp-looking performance clip with CGI effects, multiple camera angles and some quicksilver editing.

The video was shot by up-and-coming Los Angeles-based director Erika Jacobsen, whom the band met online and who works for a motion and graphics company, MFactor Inc., that wanted to get into the music video business.

To this end, MFactor provided KDT with the resources to shoot an MTV-worthy clip.

"I'm sitting there, looking at my band, and I'm like, 'How did we get here?' " Otto recalls of the video shoot, which was done entirely on green screen in Huntington Beach, Calif. "You've got 20 people looking at you, you've got the gaffer, the director of cinematography, and they think you know what you're doing. It was a 2 1/2-day shoot. We did the song probably 140 times."

As KDT gets the legalities of its new deal in place, the young band, which isn't even two years old yet, already is planning its follow-up disc to last year's grim, galvanized "Our Peace Will Destroy Many," which smothers with swarming riffs and touches of brittle harmony.

"We're going to get faster, harder and more melodic," Otto says. "Basically, what I'd like to do, is take the Backstreet Boys and mix it with Deicide."

Sound improbable?

For sure, but these dudes have begun to fashion a career out of cashing in on long odds.

"When we won, it was very humbling," Otto says of his band's Music Nation victory. "It's like, 'OK guys, now is the time to sit down, go over how we feel about our music and get ready for the long haul.' This is an opportunity that we can exploit as a band, to really take advantage of this," he says beaming. "This is possible. This is doable."

Jason Bracelin's "Sounding Off" column appears on Tuesdays. Contact him at 383-0476 or e-mail him at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com.