MUMBAI: Kerala based Malayali rock band Avial is positioned at number 13 on US based website WorldSings.com, a music and social networking community which is organising a music competition for solo singers or bands across the globe.

The bands are being shortlisted on the basis of voting by registered members for their favourite songs. The top 20 bands will compete in the Worldsings Concert to be held in Las Vegas and the winner stands a chance to grab $1,000,000 as prize money.

According to the organisers, 800 musicians have signed up on the site that opened in September.
The process will stop in October/November 2009 and the winners
will be chosen at the live concert in January 2010. The top 20 finalists will be selected according to their top vote getting entry by the public and will be eligible to compete at the Live Concert. Performances at the Live Concert will be judged solely by a select six judge panel. Ranking of the finalists for the grand prize and runner up prizes will be determined by combining the scores given by the judges at the Live Concert with results of the member voting phase. The judge's scores and the results of the Member voting will be weighted equally.

Apart from a grand prize of $500,000, there are others -
a second prize of $200,000, a third prize of $100,000, a fourth prize of $40,000 and 16 finalist prizes of $10,000 each.
A record and managment deal will also be awarded to the top person if
that pesron does not have representation. If he does it will passed
along to the next highest ranked candidate, say the Worldsings site.

Says visibly excited Avial vocalist Tony John, We are already in the top 20 and are waiting to perform in Las Vegas. We received a call from the website and we listed our track �Chekele' with an audio and video on their website. I guess we are the only Indian band in the competition....

Earlier this year, the band had travelled to Mauritius for a world music festival. We were the only band representing India at the festival. There were contestants from 54 countries and it was a great experience to make the 4,000-5,000 Mauritius crowd tap to our Malayali rock genre. Many times, we would halt to explain them the meaning of the lyrics....

The band has launched their album in February this year on the Phat-Phish label and are working on their second album. We have already worked on the lyrics of the next album and also have frame work ready so you can expect the next album in another one and half year....