Sustayn Vying for Awards
~ by Boris Ladwig
Recently formed Brown County-based rock quartet Sustayn is vying for some national awards by the International Singer Songwriters Association that will be announced this summer in Atlanta, Georgia.
The band’ s co-founder and lead singer, Amanda Webb, said Sustayn is among the finalists for band of the year, album of the year, single of the year and video of the year, while the band’ s drummer, Jared Asher, also is up for sound engineer of the year.
As with many bands, Sustayn’ s creation came about partly through coincidence and a bit of good fortune.
Webb’ s band was playing a gig at Hard Truth Distillery, and the audience included Asher and his wife, Nicohl, who had originally come to Nashville to see Blues Traveler at Brown County Music Center. As the Blues Traveler show got postponed, the Ashers went to the Hard Truth instead.
Webb’ s band drew a capacity crowd that night, and the Ashers ended up sitting with Webb’ s mother, Pam Boer, who got into a lively conversation with the couple and introduced them to Webb after the show.
The Webbs and Ashers hit it off and, shortly thereafter, the couples jammed together.
Webb, who has performed regionally with her band and in the blues community for about seven years, said she was looking for a new project.
Thanks to their immediate rapport and similar musical interests, Webb and her husband, Brian Webb, and the Ashers decided to form an original rock band, with Amanda Webb on vocals, her husband on guitar, Nicohl Asher on bass, and her husband on drums.
Webb said the band members chose rock in part because they all had an affinity for the 1980s rock with which they grew up.
“ Just because you’ re older … doesn’ t mean you can’ t rock out or that you can’ t have new music influences in your life,” she said.
The band invites fans to sign up for updates on its website < sustayn-official. com > with the words,“ Join the Rebellion.” You can sample their songs at the site.
Webb describes the band as a femaledriven AC / DC that takes inspirations from such acts as Heart and Halestorm and produces rock songs about love, perseverance, and dreaming of rock stardom.
The band’ s single“ Born with the Horns,” plays into that theme, with the video showing kids pretending to sing the song, a throwback to how the Webbs and Ashers, like many, dreamt of rock stardom when they were young.
60 Our Brown County • July / August 2024