Texas & New Mexico Marching Bands Both Eye Metallica Prize

Marching bands across the country are trying to win Metallica's "For Whom The Band Tolls" contest and a Texas band made the final 5.

Metallica opened up the contest to both high school and college marching bands across the country with thousands and thousands of dollars in musical equipment offered as prizes.

Metallica also allowed bands to use their music royalty free and had a ton of marching band charts for Metallica songs, done by Hal Leonard, posted at sheetmusicdirect.com.

In April, Metallica launched its inaugural "For Whom The Band Tolls" marching band competition. Metallica challenged marching bands at all levels to craft the most exciting, unique, and impressive performances of the legendary heavy metal act's music. Metallica partnered with sponsors to provide winning high school and collegiate bands funds for new equipment for their music programs. - Blabbermouth

I'm not sure how many schools entered in all but professional judges provided by Conn-Selmer whittled the list down to 5 finalists in each category.

Ultimately, Metallica will pick the grand prize winners themselves. The Texas college band that made the top 5, level 1, entrants ($75K prize) was UT Austin.

The level 2 category, ($40K prize), had bands from Texas and New Mexico, (West Texas A & M University in Canyon, Tx and Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, NM), make the top 5.

Texas high schools that made the top 5 in their categories, each trying for $15K, were Edinburg High School in Edinburg, Tx (small) and Boerne High School in Boerne, Tx. (medium)

In the large high school category, Texas scored 2 top 5-ers with Boerne, (again!?) and Lorena High School in Lorena Tx.

There are also 2 "fan favorite" winners to be chosen by the public, (sorry, voting has closed), who will get $10K.

See other videos here, final results coming soon ...