Near Misses

Opening with a splash of bluesy angst, three-piece rock group Near Misses, the second-place winners of Battle of the Bands, opened with “Into the Sea.” The song that dances over genres is about front man Will Hancock’s engagement to his fiancé.

“And I went upstairs on my guitar and tried to like, kind of hash it out, play it,” Hancock said. “I had this recording going of that sequence that just came to me while I was laying in bed. And then I just started writing words over it. That’s kind of like how I would like to do my writing process, if I could do it ideally. Just having things spontaneously come to me in an original way.”

The band got its initial start when Hancock and bassist Cole Ancelet had broken off from a former band and decided to play together. After finding Davin Knapp to be the drummer in early 2018, Near Misses was born.

Hancock said the band was a fusion of psychedelic rock, jazz, and rock n’ roll.

“A big influence of mine would be Tame Impala,” he said. “But other than that, like, I love ‘70s bands or ‘60s even, like Cream or Yes. As for jazz,  I’m a big fan of John Coltrane.”

The band is releasing a self-titled album at the end of September, produced by Flat Black studios. It will be their first professional debut.