With boy-band looks and pop-punk sounds you could say that the latest addition to the Victory Records family, "Count the Stars" have the necessary ingredients to hit industry paydirt. These trendy mall punkers have all the spunk of Avril Lavigne and the next door charm of New Found Glory and their shiny happy stylings should provide high markings within the TRL genre. "We 're a young band, we work really, really hard and our music is poppy rock & roll," agrees Count The Stars drummer, Daivd Shapiro. "We just have fun doing what we're doing and if you come and see us play you'll see that our live show is really great and it's a lot of fun to be at. The kids really like it and we just try and put on a crazy high-energy show every night."

High-energy is certainly not a problem for this Albany based 4-piece whose oldest members are only 20 years old. Count The Stars; who also includes vocalist Chris Kasarjian, bassist Clarke Foley and guitarist Adam Manning; are all between 19 and 20 years of age and definitely have enough pep to keep the party going for hours on end. Their music is addictive and contagious, filled with catchy sing-a-long choruses and upbeat gitty rhythms that'll get you on you feet and vibing along with them whether you intended to or not.

Count The Stars were recently in NYC shooting their very first music video for the single entitled "Taking It All Back." The tune is a solid pop-rock jam about breaking up with a girl and taking back all of the good things he' d ever done for her. The video mixes performance bits with a tongue and cheek story line where singer, Chris Kasarjian is trying to escape from his psychotic ex-girlfriend. "Everything between this girl and our singer just gradually gets worse and worse," explains Shapiro of the videos concept. "In the end she comes onto our set where we're playing and she's trying to sabotage him and we do our best not to let her (laughs). It's a really cool and fun video."

These young men have come a long way from their days working in a radiator factory in Albany and were reveling in their new found success while on the video set. They had an absolute blast both on and off camera just watching the magic unfold before them. "It really was surreal," admits Shapiro. "The video shoot was one of the most fun things we've done yet. It was just so fun doing that the whole day. Chris actually turned to me at one point and said, 'how did we get here?' It was pretty crazy (laughs)."

Yes, Count the Stars have a very bright future ahead of them and have a jam-packed schedule to prove it. They will be touring the nation all year round with bands such as Madcap, American Hi-Fi and Taking back Sunday as well as a feature slot of 2003 Vans Warped Tour and the guys are looking forward to introducing their band to the masses. "We're really excited about this upcoming year," Shapiro says, "We're stoked and our goal for the year is to just keep touring and getting our music out there."

Count The Stars' debut album, "Never Be Taken Alive" is now in stores & does does deal mainly with adolescent relationships and coming of age antidotes that serve up to the High School crowd, but that doesn't mean that it can't appeal to older crowds as well. I mean, hey- we all went to high school. www.countthestars.com

© 1998-2003 Sinbad Productions / BallBusterHardMusic.com
No Material, Written, May Be Reproduced Without Permission From SinBad
Prods/Communciations and or the Recording Artist and Their
Representation