Palaye Royale Shock Musical March Madness With Win Over Linkin Park
Coheed and Cambria, Green Day, Tokio Hotel, Ed Sheeran ... Palaye Royale? Raise the banner to the roof, because unsigned Las Vegas glam rockers Royale are now officially in the pantheon of Musical March Madness champions.
In the biggest bracket-demolishing upset in MMM history, the shaggy-haired, floppy hat-wearing trio from Sin City steamrolled their way through the bracket, taking out such major players as Coldplay and 2012 champs Tokio Hotel before cruising past Linkin Park in the championship game.
In fact, in the end, it wasn't even close, with Royale besting LP by a 63 to 37 percent margin during an MMM contest that saw more than 5 million votes cast throughout the entire tournament.
In victory, PR not only become the first unsigned band to win MMM, they also have the distinction of being the only act to take the title without ever releasing a full-length album. When MTV News spoke to guitarist Sebastian Danzig last week, he said the band were hard at work in the studio recoding demos for their debut, which is not yet scheduled for release.
How did they do it? After beating Tokio Hotel, Danzig [article id="1725494"]gave all thanks and praises to the Council[/article] . "They're incredibly loyal," Danzig said, noting that he'd heard stories of Council members staying from work and school to keep the voting going.
The victory is even more amazing given that Royale beat Vampire Weekend in round one and Coldplay in the second round before getting past #4 seed Bastille in the sweet 16 and TH in the Elite 8. Once they slipped past We Are The In Crowd in the Final Four, well, even we didn't think they'd be able to topple veterans LP and their fan army, the Underground, in the title game.
So, congrats to the Royales on an impressive victory. Now let's see if they can defend their title when we do the whole damn thing again in 11 months! Keep your fingers nimble Aliens and, just think Underground, there's always next year.
[uma_snippet id="1725514"]
