CANBERRA muso and theatre identity Ben Drysdale has been honoured in the Nashville-based “Unsigned Only” music competition for 2022.

The competition is geared toward music artists who are unsigned to a major record label or its affiliates.

When we contacted him, Drysdale said he had entered his unreleased song “I’m Flyin’ Now”, co-written with CoyoteBear and produced at Amberly Studios, into the competition, going up against 7000 entries from 120 countries.

In one email from “Unsigned Only”, he was told the song had had received an honourable mention in the top 15 of the “Folk/Singer songwriter” category, which he  was “super stoked” about.

But then a second email revealed that “I’m Flyin’ Now” had been judged one of the top three in the “Win Some Love”, earning him a swag of prizes, not least a music production suite, a performance microphone and an artist care package.

The judging panel of music artists and industry experts included Nicholas Petricca (Walk The Moon), Robert Smith and Darryl McDaniel (Run DMC) and Derek Brown (The Flaming Lips).

“Sometimes it feels like you’re beating your head up against a wall trying to create art… then sometimes it’s like…. Yay, omigod,” Drysdale said.

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