The Otago Boys' High School band, The Sun Animals, consisting of Year 13 students Tom Sharp (lead guitar), George Alexander (drums), Seddie Hewitson (Bass), and Year 11 student Jack Fisher (vocals and guitar), have successfully made it through the Smokefree Rockquest heats and finals, and are now hard at work to create their audition tape for the national final.

It has been very busy, elating, and temporarily heart-breaking week for the band. After confidently making it through the heats, the boys had high expectations of achieving their goal to make it through the regional finals as well. The night of the finals was bittersweet; Guitarist Tom Sharp received the award for the overall top musician, however, the band had just missed out on the necessary top two finish to advance, being placed third. 

A few days past, and along with the very positive mark sheet, the band received the news that due to marking mistakes Sun Animals would now be selected to enter the next round. Sadly, this did not reroute the prize money or previous band publicity, but the boys are just stoked to get reward for their hard work, and to be able to continue in the competition. They will now frantically work away at producing a 15 minute audition video with the goal of making the national final and the chance to win the top prize of $10,000 worth of musical equipment, plus recording and creating a music video.

This is a fantastic achievement for the boys. Not only have they worked hard individually on their instruments, but they have also put in a massive amount of time and effort together to create and rehearse their original music. We look forward to following their progress in the Smokefree Rockquest and wish them all the best.