Hello Mark! Hello all! Chris from Sonos here.

I write in affectionate response to your post. My goal is quite simply, clarification. Firstly, considering the premises under which viewers will (naturally) assume we appeared on the show, you are absolutely right about everything. “The Sing-Off” is a competition show in which the groups with the most energy, the biggest sound, and the most fun had on stage are the champions. Groups perform choreography, wear brightly colored costumes, and for the most part, perform music penned by staff arrangers. All with nothing but the crisp, clear, unaffected human voice.

These (in addition to our pre-existing record deal) are the very reasons that we declined to participate in seasons 1 and 2 when the show’s producers reached out to us. We were (and remain) deeply grateful for the show’s existence! It is one of the healthiest things ever to happen to a cappella music. But by no stretch of anyone’s imagination does the Sonos approach to a cappella fit into “The Sing-Off” universe.

This year, the producers reached out again, this time encouraging us to participate as ourselves. With pedals. Without choreography. Our own arrangements. Just Sonos being Sonos. They even offered to try and work around our pre-existing record deal. Their stance was that they wanted season 3 to be as diverse and interesting as possible, that they loved what we do exactly as we do it, and would we please just come audition and at least have the conversation.

For all five of us, Sonos is our livelihood. We’ve toured almost non-stop for 3 years, building a fan base and refining our live show. It has been an unbelievable blast and none of us would trade it for anything in the world. In order to survive and hopefully thrive as a working band, it is imperative that we increase our listenership. What better way to do that than perform our music for an audience of millions? We decided to audition and performed 3 songs, exactly as we do them in our live show, pedals and all. A week or so later, we go the call:

“You got a unanimous YES, …but the network won’t allow the pedals after all”.

We said “Well, thanks anyway.”

They said “Please think about it over the weekend. We love your group’s sound, and you can’t buy this kind of exposure.”

We said “Well, that’s true. All right. We’ll think about it over the weekend”

We asked our closest friends in the music industry. All of them said the same thing: “You’re idiots if you don’t do the show. I can’t believe we’re even talking about it. If you want to grow your audience, you have to perform somewhere they’ll see you. This show has millions of viewers. What is your problem?”

We realized they were right.

And thus, people watched as we performed 2 songs from our own rep (obviously modified) and 1 new song I arranged specifically for the show. I’m proud to say I did my best to keep to the Sonos approach. It was a short ride, we had a glorious good time, and a few million people were given a stripped down glimpse of what we do (while dressed in weird, cartoon clothing). If any of them thought we were interesting enough to investigate further, they can find us and listen to what we actually do online.

And now, a few direct answers to direct questions:

“If The Sing-Off won't let you use pedals, why even go on the show?  The grand prize, that's why, and because it's an amazing way to market yourselves.”

We’re half-with ya here. Marketing: absolutely! Grand Prize: you flatter us. To be entirely candid, at no time did we have aspirations of winning the show. Considering the amount of re-arranging we’d have to do with the absence of pedals, and that there is not a bass voice among us, we had the lofty goal of lasting several weeks. Mission accomplished! (2 constitutes “several”, right?)  =P

“What SONOS should have done (and the producers should have suggested) is been featured as a guest performance.

We agree 100% with you here, and in fact, this is what we counter-suggested with every time we were asked to participate as contestants, but this proposition was not of interest to them.

“If The Sing-Off won't let you use pedals, why not add group members to fill out your sound?  SONOS was once six people.  Why not expand the group to seven members? Eight? Ten?”

We agree, this would have been the perfect solution and probably very effective, had we hoped to win the show. However, the single motivation behind our decision to participate was the opportunity to expose a larger audience to who we actually are and what we actually do, and not a false version of Sonos modified for TV. If someone offered your band a free 2-week giant billboard placement on every major street in America that included your band’s name and pictures of everyone, would you take it? Of course you would. Now what if they offered to pay you during those 2 weeks and play recordings of “unplugged” renditions of your music? Exactly; best gig ever.

To anyone we’ve offended or disappointed, whose feelings we’ve hurt, we sincerely apologize. We didn’t mean to let anyone down. Only to put our music in front of more people. Thanks y’all.  =)

(From Pitchpipe: You can buy SONOS music here)