Tell someone you want to be a rock star and you might as well say you want to jump out of a plane without a parachute.

Two young men from Lehighton and another from Tamaqua made the jump and have landed solidly on their feet as members of the rock band Another Day Dawns.

The group had been playing local gigs until they were asked to enter a battle of the bands competition in Scranton where their musical talents caught the attention of John Phillips, a tour manager whose clients include Snoop Dogg.

“We won the battle,” said Dakota Sean, frontman and lead singer from Tamaqua. Their prize was a trip to Los Angeles for the national finals of the Next2 Rock contest.

Frontman

Sean comes from a family of musicians and was influenced by the music of Pearl Jam and Nirvana. He took guitar lessons when he was in grade school.

“When I was 8 years old, I was in a talent show. I sang a song by Uncle Kracker and I was scared.”

He got over his stage fright quickly and soon hooked up with Nick McGeehan and Tyler Ritter from Lehighton. The band were garage jammers before getting one of their first real gigs when Sean was just 12 years old.

“We played in the gazebo near the Jim Thorpe train station,” he said. They named their band ADD for Attention Deficit Disorder because “we couldn’t focus on one subject,” according to Sean.

Soon, the name was changed, but the acronym was preserved.

A passion for drumming

McGeehan is the drummer for the group.

The 22-year-old had performed in “Bye Bye Birdie” at Lehighton High School as a background singer. He had learned guitar and drum playing with influences from his brother, Matt.

Another Day Dawns writes and performs original music. McGeehan was asked how the band conceives and creates a brand-new song.

“It usually begins with humming a sound or a beat,” he said. “Then we’ll play that sound in a guitar riff or two and the music sort of takes off from there. The words come last.”

A love of the guitar

Ritter is the band’s guitarist, something he picked up literally and figuratively when he was a preteen. Inspired by groups like Van Halen and AC/DC, his heavy electric guitar play is the foundation for the sound that helped Another Day Dawns get to the final five band of the Next2 Rock competition in Los Angeles’ iconic Viper Room.

“We played in front of five judges and no audience,” said Ritter. “We didn’t win, but one of the judges was Desmond Child. He’s a producer for Bon Jovi and Aerosmith and he really liked our sound.”

Child took on the band and recorded of two of their original songs that are now getting major FM radio play.

“Psycho” delivers what you might expect from its title. Sean’s deep guttural voice perfectly delivers the dark theme of the song and Ritter’s electric guitar riffs add a rhythm of frenzy and chaos.

“Taste of Heaven” is about to become the band’s trademark single with several thousand social media likes, and as of last week, according McGeehan, the song climbed to 54 of 200 on an FM list of the most popular music of this genre.

Since signing on to arrange the band’s music, Child produced Another Day Dawns’ two EP albums titled “A Different Life” and “Stranger.” Both have received rave reviews.

Rising stars

As proof of Another Day Dawns’ incredible rise with hard rock audiences, their song, “Psycho” has 60,000 streams so far.

Coming from small town, Pennsylvania has its advantages and disadvantages for the group.

Sean likes “some alone and quiet time” and to play at local venues like the First Street Bar in Lehighton. McGeehan claims growing up in Lehighton keeps him humble with the band’s skyrocketing popularity. Ritter explains that the group must work twice as hard to extend their reputation due to the limited number of local music venues that can attract larger audiences.

The lights of the stage

Speaking of venues, Another Day Dawns was the opening act for Winery Dogs at Penn’s Peak and also for Godsmack at Bethlehem’s Musikfest.

“Looking out at 7,000 people from the stage at Musikfest was a little scary,” said Sean, “but once we played the first riff, we got locked into our zone and it’s just like we’re riding a bicycle again.”

The band also played at The Grammercy Theater in New York City.

“It was quite stressful for me driving our trailer on the streets of New York,” said Ritter with a laugh.

The band intends to add bass player Jerome Betz from Tamaqua to the band for its upcoming across Americas tour that will take them from Scranton and Northampton onto a Midwest swing of Colorado, Nebraska and Minnesota. Dates can be found on their website.

Dreams

The dream is only beginning, but they’ve already been a bit star-struck with their success. Sean now imagines what it would be like if Another Day Dawns becomes a household name.

McGeehan never thought he would move from the back of the stage in a school play to center stage at rock concerts right between his two childhood friends. Ritter enjoys the fantasy that someday he will invite his mother for a visit at his beach house in Malibu.

For the band, dreams are just dreams for now, yet after playing music together for more than 10 years that’s since formed a chemistry of great sound, they have lifted themselves out of the garage and into the high-flying world of the rock music industry.

With their original songs climbing the charts and their first major tour planned, why not shoot for the moon?