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DALLAS — Kohn — a pop music duo consisting of brothers Brand and Kohner Rice — has yet to make noise in the local music scene, but has found indisputable success when looking at the numbers: their YouTube channel has more than one million views, thousands of fans follow them on Instagram and Twitter, they’re hundreds of hours deep into recording their first album and they’ve just been narrowed down as one of 25 finalists from around the globe in Macy’s iHeartRadio #RisingStar contest.
“We were so surprised and super excited,” Kohner said. “If we win this contest, we’ll be the only opening act for a huge music festival; and we’ll perform on the iHeartRadio float at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.”
Kohner said the duo submitted two of their songs for consideration about six months ago, never expecting to hear anything back.
On March 31, the duo was named a finalist with 24 other acts from around the world. “There’s even finalists from Sweden, London and Switzerland. These people are not only from around the country; they’re from around the world. That’s a huge honor,” Kohner said.
The brothers, sons of Mark Rice and Doreen Rice, said their competition is tight and they’re even a little intimidated.
“As excited as we were when we found out…that we were finalists, we also got stressed. The winner is based on votes. Some of the finalists have a huge following as famous YouTube cover artists or from bigger cities with large fan bases. We’re just two brothers from Dallas, Pennsylvania,” Kohner said.
Kohn is campaigning for support from the community via social media. Votes can be cast now through April 21, by visiting macys.iheart.com.
Still, despite their triumphs, naysayers —including friends —question the legitimacy of their following since they cease a strong connection with the local music scene.
“Originally, when we started, we understood we weren’t going to have too much of a local fan base because pop isn’t ultra-relevant around here. But, with that being said, we said if we are going to do this, and we are doing to do this right, we aren’t going to let that limit us,” Kohner said.
Brand Rice added: “Locally, I feel like you have to be an ’80s cover band to be taken seriously.”
The brothers decided to jump the hurdles of working their way through the local music circuit by executing thoroughly thought-out and seemingly brilliant marketing strategies.
“We hired internet celebrities with a big following on social media to be in our music videos. For example, Andrea Russett, who has a social media following of more than, like, 5 million followers. Now when you type in Andrea Russett, which people do every day, we’ll come up, too,” Kohner said.
Russett, a well-known YouTuber, helped introduce more than 436,000 views to Kohn’s 2014 music video, “La La La.”
Kohn went the same route by hiring Chantel Jeffries as the female lead in their next music video, “Back to You.” Jeffries was the blond beauty by Justin Bieber’s side — his rumored girlfriend at the time — when he was arrested for drag racing a Lamborghini under the influence in Miami early last year. The video with Jeffries racked up nearly 750,000 views, introducing Kohn’s music to people all over the globe.
Hiring internet celebrities and reserving studio time is expensive. Though Kohn abstained from disclosing the amount of money it cost to convince Russett and Jeffries to appear in their videos, they did reveal it would cost somewhere around $10,000 to record their album.
They aren’t scrimping and saving to afford studio time, either. They have the opportunity to work with high-profile investors, who the brothers chose not to disclose, who believe in their talent — something the brothers conceded to be both a blessing and a burden.
“We both have had to work on recording without investors, so we know how it is having to pay on our own,” Brand said.
One of those investors helped connect them with a spot performing on network television. Kohn was featured performing “La La La” on the Jan. 26 episode of NBC’s “The Celebrity Apprentice.”
As they watched their network television performance debut, Kohn couldn’t help but laugh at the irony that they almost never collaborated in the first place.
“I didn’t want to perform with Kohner at first. He was my annoying younger brother that was playing music that wasn’t my style,” said Brand, who originally performed in a band called Evolve 180 with his sister, Brittany.
Brand performed rock music and Kohner was into rap and pop music.
Though contrasting, the entire Rice clan shared an interest in music. They come from a family with six musical siblings: Brand, the oldest, sings and plays guitar, bass and piano; Brittany, 25, sings; Tyler, 23, plays bass, Kohner sings, raps and plays the guitar and piano; Arden, 17, plays piano; Larson, 15, plays the guitar and sings. Their father, Mark, plays the guitar and sings while their mother, Doreen, is the family’s No. 1 fan.
In 2012, Brand overheard Kohner messing around with a beat on his laptop. The brothers felt the beat would make for an epic song, and Kohn was born.
Three years, and a sufficiency of international success later, Kohn is looking to the future with their first full-length album and aspirations to change the game. That includes making a mark in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
“We actually have our first local show as Kohn, with a full band, coming up on April 25, at the Jazz Cafe in Wilkes-Barre. It’s a Friday night. We don’t know the exact time yet, but we have a date, and we’re excited for that, because it’s been hard for us to figure out where we belong as far as playing out. I think listening wise, everybody loves listening to some pop music, but the local scene doesn’t support indie pop acts,” Brand said.
“We don’t know who to open up for or what venues to really perform around here because local bars and music venues don’t have pop acts perform,” Kohner said. “I mean, if One Direction wasn’t famous and the were trying to play at places that require you to be 21 and older, would they be taken seriously?”
Kohn aspires to show the world their definition of a pop star and change music with the release of their album later this year.