The RMA Awards For Rock, Metal, Prog were held for the first time this past April 4th. Nominees were announced earlier in the year and then voting took place amongst the members of the RMA and their panel of judges to determine who would receive awards. The award winners were announced in a two hour video livestreamed on Facebook in which the award announcers appeared remotely from locations across the United States and Greece. The requirements to be considered for The RMAs are that releases be within the eligibility period, be commercially released professional quality recordings, and be some form of rock, metal, or prog music. Some of the artists nominated and awarded this year include: Small Town Titans, Orianthi, Daughtry, Alter Bridge, Halestorm, Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, Kansas, Dream Theater, Gary Hoey, Jason Charles Miller, Ozzy Osbourne, Ross The Boss, Smackbound, Butcher Babies, In This Moment, Edge Of Paradise, Within Temptation, Lamb Of God, Rammstein, Nita Strauss, Angel Vivaldi. 127 RMA Awards were announced not including Judges Spotlight Awards and President’s Spotlight Awards making The RMAs music’s largest awards presentation.
Eric Bettelli, Music Connection Publisher
The RMA Awards are produced by the Rock Music Alliance and when asked why launch an awards organization for rock, metal, and prog music RMA founder and current president Cole Coleman explains “It’s clear at this point in time that other major awards organizations are not representing rock, metal, and prog music in any meaningful way to the public. If you read about the founding of the Oscars, the Grammys, the CMAs for country music, part of their original purpose was to promote the new releases of the year to the public and to award achievements in the arts; and that hasn’t been getting done for rock music as a whole for about the past twenty years; and so, the general mainstream public perception is that rock music is fading into oblivion. That’s not the case at all. There is a thriving, growing, and evolving rock, metal, and prog community of musicians worldwide. I’m the inventor of the Thimble Slide guitar slide and I travel the United States, Canada, and parts of Europe selling my product at music equipment shows and what I hear people listening to outside the major cities as I travel along are varieties of rock, metal, and blues rock. The genres of rock I see growing in the U.S. and Europe are Alternative Hard Rock/Metal, Symphonic/Gothic Rock/Metal, and Instrumental Rock/Metal. You don’t have to look very hard on Instagram to see scores of young musicians showing off their shredding skills or young rock and metal bands launching their careers. It’s just not being represented to the public like other genres of music are. That’s certainly our purpose with the Rock Music Alliance and The RMA Awards; that’s our mission statement: ‘To raise public awareness of new releases in rock, metal, prog and provide professional peer recognition of excellence to the musicians creating it.’”
Ron Keel
The Rock Music Alliance was founded in January 2020 and was beginning to organize the RMA Awards when the Covid19 pandemic hit. “That put everything on pause; but, we decided to do interviews and launch a podcast. We’re keeping that going and evolving it into a video livecast. There’s a lot that we want to do including providing scholarships to music schools, public events, charity events; concerts, internet radio, maybe even a produced show for streaming; as well as producing The RMA Awards. But, we need funding; we need major businesses to contribute in exchange for branding, and as many individuals as possible to support us with Patreon or similar if we launch that.”
What does the next year look like for the Rock Music Alliance? “Our main goal for next year is to do The RMA Awards live at a venue in Hollywood where artists and members of the industry can join us and we’ll livestream the event. The way we produced the first RMAs the stars of the show are the award announcers. We recognize fourteen genres of rock, metal, prog and we did our best to have a different person announce each genre’s nominees and award winners. For the first RMAs - award announcers include: Tony Kaye (Yes, CIRCA), Sam Bam Koltun (Dorothy, Budderside), Jes Fama (broadcast host), Ron Keel (Keel), Bjorn Englen (Soul Sign and Dio Returns/Dio Disciples), Claudio Pesavento (Chris Squire Band, Spelled Moon), Eric Betelli (Publisher of Music Connection), Francesco DiCosmo (Thin Lizzy, Evanescence), Toni Aleman (Renaissance Rock Orchestra), MELIA, and Andry Lagiou (The Harps). We also did special appearance interviews with Sin Quirin (Ministry, Siglos), artist Glen Wexler (famous for album covers and digital art), Al Bane (Al Bane For Leather), and Pam (Vampire Rockstar). We’ll do a similar production next year with award announcers and special appearances; but, we’ll be open to doing more if we can. Ultimately, The RMA Awards should be an event on par with The Grammys and The CMAs; an event that reaches the general public and shows them each year the best of what’s happening in rock, metal, prog and the amazingly talented musicians creating it.”
The RMA Awards, livecasts, and interviews they do can be seen on their YouTube channel.
For links and contact information visit their website: RockMusicAlliance.com
