News

Church's Chicken songs bring the spice

November 10, 2010

To celebrate Church's Chicken's new Spicier Spicy Chicken, the company held a contest to find the best song that represented the item.

During the company's convention for its franchisees and team members in Las Vegas, contestant Ben Backus performed his winning song live. Jedidiah Brown, who made a video for his song "Chicken & Fries" which inspired the contest, also performed.

Backus, a 22-year-old college student at Louisiana Tech University and a member of a band called Heavens to Betsy, sang his winning song titled "Chicken Genius," which is available on iTunes. Backus won $3,000 and a year's supply of Church's Chicken for his video and song. Backus produced a music video with his longtime friend Ben Butwell, a 26-year-old videographer.

Brown, 17, has had more than 2 million views for his song.

"Competition for Church's Spicier Spicy Chicken Song Contest was fierce. There were so many talented people who submitted some very cool and creative videos," said Bonnie Warschauer, vice president of communications, Church's Chicken. "It was extremely difficult to choose the winners. The final voting was very close."

Customers and a Church"s Chicken team voted for the top six and then narrowed the field to three.

The second place song was "No Spice, No Dice," and was a collaboration of three friends. Michael Stettes, 26, works for the Department of Transportation in Washington, D.C. as a writer and editor and created the song. Ben Stahl, 25, is a high school music teacher and, along with Stettes, recorded the song. Bob Rose, 29, an independent videographer and film editor, shot and edited the video. All three will split the $1,500 second place prize.

Sebastian Castro from San Antonio came in third place with his song "Getting Out of Work Early to Feed the Spicy Cravings." Castro won $500 and wrote the song and directed the video himself. The song was performed by Kurt Mouton, also of San Antonio.