Radial, a Puerto Rican rock band now based in Los Angeles, topped a field of 29 other Latin artists from the Western U.S. to win the Música Unsigned contest, sponsored by Verizon, Cookman Management and Nacional Records.
The winners of the search for “unsigned músicos” will record an album with Grammy-winning producer Andrés Levin.
Radial’s members made a name for themselves in the Puerto Rican indie rock scene with three previous albums. The band formed in 2005 and relocated to Los Angeles in 2012. The foursome was previously a finalist in Latino channel MTV3’s “Dame a Break” band contest.
Verizon Wireless, L.A.’s Cookman Management and Nacional Records, also owned by Tomas Cookman, opened the competition for unsigned bands in February. The geographical boundaries of the contest were specific, and includes only artists who live in Washington state, Utah, Colorado, California, Arizona, or El Paso, Texas.
Altas, an instrumental-post rock band from Denver; and reggae-rock band Dankrupt, pop artist Mitre, and pop-rock duo Vanaz, all from Los Angles, were also finalists in the competition. Finalists were decided by over 20,000 fan votes cast though the contest web site. A panel of judges chose Radial as the winner among the five finalists.