Press Release

The Shana Stack Band wins Top Honor as Band of the Year
4th Annual New England Music Awards

Foxborough, MA, Saturday, April 18, 2015:  The New England Music Awards, held in Foxborough, Massachusetts, announced today the winners of their 4th Annual New England Music Awards. 

The New England Music Awards are presented every year to the musicians who call New England their home and whose dedication, spirit, and achievements over the last year have without a doubt established them as a contributing force to the most robust and diverse music scene in the country. The NEMA nominating committee consists of a variety of music industry experts including journalists from music publications, radio personalities, talent buyers, event planners, record label executives and more. This selection of professionals collectively represents all six New England states and every awards category.
 
The goal of the New England Music Awards is to celebrate and recognize some of the area’s best musical achievements. Every year NEMA nominates over 100 artists and/or bands spanning a number of categories and genres of popular music in New England.  This includes the coveted individual state awards, which recognize one act from each of the six New England states as its Best in State.

The Shana Stack Band, comprised of all New Hampshire musicians (Shana Stack, Ed Leavitt, John Sanchez, Kurt Ekstrom and Alec Derian), was nominated in the top category of Band of the Year.  The New England Music Awards receives thousands of perspective nominations each year and narrowed the field down to 26 categories and chose only 6 artists/groups to be represented in each category. They also chose Chris DeSimone as The Scene Award Winner, Grace Morrison as The Grassroots Award Winner and Chip McCabe as the Decade Award Winner. The Master of Ceremonies for the awards show was Boston Comedy Festival winner Dave Russo who has been featured on “Comics Come Home with Denis Leary,” the E! TV series “The Entertainer,” with Wayne Newton, NESN’s Comedy All-Stars, the Phantom Gourmet, Charlie Moore Outdoors, USO shows nationwide, and can be seen weekly as co-host of NESN’s “Dirty Water TV.”

At the awards ceremony presented at Showcase Live in Foxborough, MA, Saturday evening, The Shana Stack Band was announced as this year’s Top Award winner for Band of the Year for the 4th Annual New England Music Awards.  The Shana Stack Band members were thrilled about the news.  The band members Shana Stack Davis, Ed Leavitt, Kurt Ekstrom and Alec Derian accepted the award on the band’s behalf.  Their band manager, Conrad Farnham was asked to accompany them on stage.  Shana approached the microphone and began her acceptance speech with “O.M.” and Ed finished the statement with “G”.  The audience clapped and laughed along with the band’s excitement.  Shana then spoke to the audience with true emotion with “Thank you to everyone that voted.  We want to thank our families, our friends and our fans.  We are just so shocked to win this award.  We were up against such amazing artists that have thousands of Facebook fans.”  Shana continued on with introducing each of the band members and sending a shout-out to John Sanchez, Lead guitarist for the group and Wayne Braley the group’s sound tech, that were not in attendance for the big event.  Shana then turned her attention to Conrad Farnham, their band manager, to express gratitude on behalf of the band.  “Without Conrad, this would not be possible.  He works extremely hard every day to provide us with the opportunity to perform all across New England.  We are very lucky to have him.” Shana finished by saying, “We are all in this together.  There are so many amazing bands and artists in our genre of music (country) and many other genres.  We are all in this together.  Instead of competing with each other, we should all be supporting each other and helping each other when we can.”  The audience broke out in applause and screams.  Ed Leavitt then stepped to the microphone and continued the gratitude with, “We especially want to thank The New England Music Awards, Granite Coast Entertainment, the nominating committee members and especially Joe Graham, Mike Flynn and John Fleming, who founded the New England Music Awards.  We are grateful for all of that you do for the music industry.” To show how much The Shana Stack Band is appreciative of all of the support they receive during the year and their commitment to supporting other bands, Kurt Ekstrom quickly stepped up to the microphone as the band was exiting the stage, “Don’t forget to stick around for Pat & the Hats performance.”
 
The Shana Stack Band later expressed, “This is just so hard to believe.  Last month we won Country Artist of the Year from the 7^th Annual Limelight Magazine Awards and coming only a year after being awarded Country Act of the Year last year at the New England Music Awards. Then being nominated again this year for the Band of the Year category was so amazing.  We were surprised and thrilled at just being nominated again and we were honored to be in the category along with so many amazing artists like Twiddle, Kung Fu, Girls, Guns and Glory, Quilt and the Jason Spooner Band.  We wish to congratulate all of the nominees and winner from the 4th Annual New England Music Awards.  We hope that people will take the time to go and see these bands perform at music venues all across New England.  There is so much amazing talent and we are proud to be considered a part of it all.”

The list of awards The Shana Stack Band has won over the last few years range from Country Band of the Year and the Fans Choice Award by the Independent Country Music Association, to Wiles Magazine's World's Best Indie Artist to their awards for Country Act of the Year by the New England Music Awards and now their most recent awards for Country Artist of the Year by Limelight Magazine and Band of the Year by the New England Music Awards.  The band never takes these awards for granted and realize it is the fans and their family’s commitment that are the drive behind their success.  "Winning awards is amazing, but what these awards really show, is that the fans and the music industry really approve of what we do.  We love to make music and share it with everyone.  The fans are really what make this rollercoaster ride fun, exciting and truly rewarding.  We look forward to doing what we love, making music, for years to come.”

The band has released 4 albums in 4 years, "Then and Now" 2014, "Every Now and Then" 2013, "What You See Is What You Get" 2012 and "You Can't Make Me Fall" 2011. The band is looking forward to another successful year, traveling all across New England to perform for their fans.  They have opened for Country Superstars such as Reba McEntire, Sugarland, Travis Tritt, Rascal Flatts and the Band Perry and in September will be opening for Little Big Town at the Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion at Meadowbrook in Gilford, NH.  

You can view their website and order their latest CD by visiting www.ShanaStack.com

Congratulations again to The Shana Stack Band on their latest award as Band of the Year for the New England Music Awards.

Press Release

The Shana Stack Band wins Country Artist of the Year
7th Annual Limelight Magazine Music Awards

Plymouth, MA, Saturday, March 21, 2015:  The Limelight Magazine, located in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, announced today the winners of their 7th Annual Limelight Magazine Music Awards. 

Founded in October 2006, Limelight Magazine is one of the leading online destinations for coverage of the New England music scene and beyond, providing readers with exclusive interviews with musicians from all genres of music.

After five years of publication, including 12 issues, the print version of Limelight Magazine moved its operations completely online, while always reserving the right for another print issue.

Besides its online efforts, Limelight Magazine is committed to supporting the local music scene of New England with its annual music awards ceremony in the late winter/early spring. Each year dozens of musicians have been recognized for their immense creativity and talent.

The Shana Stack Band, comprised of all New Hampshire musicians (Shana Stack, Ed Leavitt, John Sanchez, Kurt Ekstrom and Alec Derian), was nominated in the Country Artist of the Year category.  The Limelight Magazine Music Awards received hundreds of perspective nominations and narrowed the field down to 15 categories and chose only 8 artists/groups to be represented in each category. They also chose the band "New England" to receive their Legend Award and "Robin Lane" to receive their Unsung Hero Award.  Ashley Jordan was the Master of Ceremonies for the awards show. 

At the awards ceremony presented at The Spire Center for Performing Arts in Plymouth, MA, Saturday evening, The Shana Stack Band was announced as this year’s Country Artist of the Year for the 7th Annual Limelight Magazine Awards.  The Shana Stack Band members were thrilled about the news.  Shana Stack Davis, Ed Leavitt and Kurt Ekstrom accepted the award on the bands behalf.  Shana spoke to the audience with sincerity with “Thank you for everyone that voted. I want to introduce this man right here, he is a genius, Ed Leavitt.  He is our songwriter.  We have put out 4 original albums in the last 4 years.  This is Kurt (Ekstrom) our drummer, I'm Shana.  Nice to meet you all.  Thank you everyone who voted.  And thank you to a very special guy in the audience, Conrad Farnham, we call him our Honey Badger, he's our Manager and he works wonders, we love him.  So thank you very much.”  The Shana Stack Band is appreciative of all of the support they receive during the year.  “Being awarded Country Act of the Year last year at the New England Music Awards and being nominated again this year for the Band of the Year is such an honor.  We were surprised and thrilled at just being nominated for a Limelight Award and we were honored to be in the category along with so many amazing artists like Ben Cesare, Kate Cameron, Matt Casey, Alec MacGillivray, Katie Perkins, Marian Rose and congratulations to Brianna Grace for being awards the Runner Up in the Country Artist of the Year category.  Congratulations to all of the nominees and winner from the 7th Annual Limelight Magazine Awards."

The list of awards The Shana Stack Band has won over the last few years range from Country Band of the Year and the Fans Choice Award by the Independent Country Music Association, to Wiles Magazine's World's Best Indie Artist to their awards for Country Act of the Year by the New England Music Awards and now Country Artist of the Year by Limelight Magazine.  The band never takes these awards for granted and realize it is the fans and their family that are the drive behind their success.  "Winning awards is great, but what these awards really show, is that  the fans and the music industry really approve of what we are doing.  The fans are really what make this adventure fun, exciting and sincerely rewarding.  We look forward to doing what we love, making music, for years to come.”

The band has released 4 albums in 4 years, "Then and Now" 2014, "Every Now and Then" 2013, "What You See Is What You Get" 2012 and "You Can't Make Me Fall" 2011. The band is looking forward to another successful year, traveling all across New England to perform for their fans.  They have opened for Country Superstars such as Reba McEntire, Sugarland, Travis Tritt, Rascal Flatts and the Band Perry and in September will be opening for Little Big Town at the Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion at Meadowbrook in Gilford, NH.  

You can view their website and order their latest CD by visiting www.ShanaStack.com

Congratulations again to The Shana Stack Band on their latest award and wish them luck on their nomination for Band of the Year for the New England Music Awards which will be held at Showcase Live in Foxboro, MA on Saturday, April 18, 2015.

Winner of World's Best Indie Band

The votes are in and The Shana Stack Band wins World's Best Indie Band from Wiles Magazine.  For the month of July Wiles Magazine featured 31 different acts, a different act each day in their online magazine.  Band and musicians solicited votes from their fans spanning all social media networks from Facebook to Twitter to comments on the Wiles Magazine website.  As voting was ending the competition came down to three acts that were leading the race.  Axe Man's Bridge, McKenzie Jones and The Shana Stack Band.  In the last hour of the competition, The Shana Stack Band pulled ahead with the win.  Family, friends and fans of the band have once again provided their unwavering support for the band and have helped them to win this incredible award.  The band had a full length feature in the Wiles Magazine.  Click here to read the full article.