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"There's something about flying"

Just when we thought we've heard about all the possibilities of the Internet, something else pops up ... This time, that something else is a pop band called "There's something about flying."

The band is comprised of five musicians. Lead singer Eric Liang is a senior law student at Duke University, lead guitarist Dave Lee is a 1999 Georgetown University graduate, bassist Jason Wu is an engineer in Berkeley, California, Keyboardist Eric Ng lives in Chicago and is studying medicine.

Drummer and fourth-year College student Andy Lin said the band was literally born because of the World Wide Web.

One can say that the group's formation was fate; Lin said he met Lee when they were children attending the same church in Maryland and the two have been friends ever since. Lee went on to attend the University of California-Berkeley where he met Wu, Liang and Ng at the church they each attended.

Lin said the five musicians have only played together one time, and that was four years ago.

Lin said Liang had each of them in mind eight weeks ago when he entered a song he wrote and recorded into an online music contest called "Born on the World Wide Web." If his song won, he would be able to record a demo album, part of the prize, with his four friends.

"If it weren't for the contest we wouldn't have come together," Lin said.

After Liang realized that his song had a good chance of winning the contest, he contacted each of the four and asked them if they wanted to join together as a band.

Last Saturday Liang received a phone call from the contest's president informing him that his song had won the award for Best New Pop Band category.

"I was really shocked," Lin said. "We didn't expect to win. Up until Saturday when we won we didn't even consider ourselves a band."

The band was awarded a $25,000 record deal from American Records, who also have the Black Crowes and Johnny Cash on their label. The money goes towards a demo album that the band has two months to complete.

The contest was held online and voting was conducted from Sept. 10-23.

All five band members will fly out to Los Angeles Monday courtesy of artistcdirect.com, the sponsors of the contest. Lin said they will record a music video Tuesday at the House of Blues that will be played at the awards ceremony, and on Wednesday they will do some sightseeing around the city. On Thursday the band will attend the awards ceremony with artists including No Doubt, Cyprus Hill, Chris Isaac, Eminem and The Offspring.

The awards ceremony will be broadcast live on the Internet at artistdirect.com beginning at 8:30 p.m.

Lin said the band's main influence is U2 but they have been likened to The Goo Goo Dolls, REM and Bare Naked Ladies.

"You can tap your toes to it," Lin said. "It's pop rock, it's pretty mainstream."

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