It’s highly unlikely that the pals Kevin Steinhauser used to pass homemade CDs to in Westford ever expected him to be invited by Red Hot Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis to play a festival that includes Bob Dylan, Gnarls Barkley and the Raconteurs.
But Steinhauser and his buddies in Math the Band will be heading to Pittsburgh to play the first New American Music Festival just as soon as they finish their own tour with Harry and the Potters and Uncle Monsterface.
“When I started doing music for fun, I would just burn CDs and give them to my friends,” said Steinhauser, a 21-year-old UMass-Dartmouth elementary education major. More recently, a CD of Math the Band found its way to Kiedis, the curator for the New American Music Festival, who decided Math the Band was a worthy college addition to his lineup.
Not that Steinhauser or his band mates - Justine Mainville and Zach Burba - have ever spoken to Kiedis.
“To be honest, the person I got a phone call from never expressed who they were, but it probably wasn’t (Kiedis) because they mentioned him by name,” Steinhauser said of the invitiation to play in Pittsburgh on Aug. 8 and 9. “Unless he talks about himself in the third person, it probably wasn’t him.”
Steinhauser believes Math the Band’s route to Kiedis’ attention started with a show in New York City last Thanksgiving. After the gig, the band’s music was passed on from an industry insider to a music production company in Los Angeles and eventually to Kiedis and the New American Music Union, which seeks to present established acts alongside college bands that will be judged by musicians, journalists and other music business professionals.
