What’s It Really Like To Win A Date With A Celebrity Contest? 

29. Friend of mine was ‘won’ a spend the day / ‘asked’ to sing with Shania Twain at a concert. She was the lead in a big play in the area, why she won.

She was picked up in a limo, brought to the venue & given instructions, saw Shania for about a minute, and then ended up singing with her onstage where Shania was quite the actress encouraging her to sing.

Then after the show they drove her home. So like a minute with Shania.

30. 20 years ago I won a contest to meet a famous (at the time) pop-punk band (MxPx) and go to the studio with them to see them record their new album.

It was actually amazing. They flew me and my girlfriend into LA and put us up in the same hotel as the band was staying. The guys in the band were surprisingly down to earth. They were funny, not stuck up at all, and really easy to talk too. The singer was a bit of a sex symbol but didn’t give off that vibe. He was a regular guy.

We hung out at the hotel the night we got in. We went to one of their rooms, listened to music, had some drinks (nothing exessive) a couple of the guys played PlayStation. I had a long talk with the drummer (who always seemed quiet) about a musical artist in another genre we were both obsessed with (Morrissey if you’re curious) and it was great.

The next morning we did a bit of tourist stuff in LA then they drove us to the studio. It was like in this garage in an industrial area, not at all what I expected. This was a really well known studio too.

So we go in there and we just hang out in couches, chat with the producer for a while (who did a lot of well known albums) and then the singer spends like 4 hours recording background vocals for a single song. It was very educational. The whole album was basically recorded on a computer and they had this computer ninja doing all kinds of edits on the fly.

Then we all went to Thai food and they took us to an awesome record store in Hollywood they liked.

We said goodbye, spent the next day doing more tourist stuff and flew home. It was an incredible experience.

When the album came out nine months or so later it was incredible to hear the song we witnessed recording. I still love hearing it.

The band and genre aren’t so popular these days but I still listen to them because of what nice, regular human beings they were.