Awsten Knight says he made a tweet as a joke but fans took the challenge seriously
Music awards for “best fans”? Who needs that? All you have to do is give your fans a challenge and promise them to release new music that same day if they succeed. Except when Waterparks singer Awsten Knight challenged fans to get his tweet 20,000 retweets today in exchange for a new album, he hardly believed they’d pull it off.
At first, Waterparks were skeptical they would see such a mind-boggling number under their tweet. But fans took it seriously and the numbers kept rising. That’s when the band realized what a loyal and active fanbase they had. It was time they started uploading promised tracks to SoundCloud.
More: WATERPARKS release new track ‘High Definition’ and music video
And then it happened. “YALL ARE UNHINGED. AIGHT. I PROMISED. HERE IS THE DELIVERY. HAVE FUN,” wrote Knight when they hit 20,000 retweets. But not that it was a new album per se. Waterpartks have released a collection of demo tracks titled 1 (A COLLECTION OF UNRELEASED HOME DEMOS, THIS IS NOT G, OR EVEN AN ALBUM, SHUT UP ENJOY).
You can stream all the tracks on SoundCloud below.
Knight and his mates could barely believe it all had happened and happened that fast. The vocalist wrote:
“OK. GENUINELY MADE THAT TWEET AS A JOKE BUT 20,000 RETWEETS. GOOD GOD. YOU WIN. HERE ARE A BUNCH OF SONGS GOODNIGHT. RETWEET OR ✨YOUR CLOSEST FRIENDS WILL SUFFER 😦✨”
Watch: WATERPARKS wrap themselves in garlands in new Christmas single ‘Lucky People’
Or did the band actually foresee such magnitude of loyalty and social media activity from their fans? As an intro to one of the unreleased demo tracks, ‘LIFE IS PUKE’ we hear Knight discussing the tweet in question reaching 20,000 retweets:
“Ok so you guys are assholes. I did not think this was going to get 20,000 and everyone is so mad at me. I hope you guys like this shit at least a little bit,” he says. “Maybe Drake gets 20,000 retweets? I’m going to go look at Drake’s Twitter. Why can’t I find it, ah, Drizzy I’m sorry. Yo, straight up, Drake doesn’t even get 20,000 retweets this is crazy.”
Did the vocalist add his comments on fans’ determination during the day, on top of the track, recorded long ago? Or had the challenge been planned long beforehand and Knight’s comments on two possible outcomes had been recorded separately? Curious!
In either case, it’s great to have a collection of previously unreleased demo tracks by Waterparks. Give it a listen below. Stay tuned with us on AlteRock Facebook and AlteRock Twitter!