Celebrity Rand Fan: JP Roney, of The Profits

From the Wisconsin State Journal’s coverage of the Madison Area Music Awards:

Saturday night’s second-annual Madison Area Music Awards ceremony was professional, streamlined and entertaining.

Madison musicians and fans nearly filled the 1,300-seat Union Theater as the award categories zigzagged across numerous genres. Even the nominees’ wardrobes were eclectic. Best underage artist Brittany Hayes wore a Grammy-worthy evening gown, while best new artist Dafino displayed thrift- store fashion.

And why would we care? Because this happened:

Presenter Sybil Augustine of community radio station WORT-FM delivered a well- received diatribe against the FCC, and Shinky of the punk band New Recruits gave his best Liam Gallagher impersonation while decrying the city’s upcoming smoking ban. The show’s only moment of awkward silence came after J.P. Roney of best overall artist and best acoustic artist winners and performers The Profits thanked, among many other things, “the philosophy of Ayn Rand.”

I have no idea who The Profits are, but it’s certainly enough to raise one’s curiosity about the band.

UPDATE: You can learn about the band at www.theprofitsband.com, where this bio appears for JP Roney:

John Paul Roney – vocals, acoustic guitar, piano

JP is a Senior at UW Madison majoring in Pre-Law. He started singing at the age of 5 in The Madison Boy Choir, traveling to Japan and Greece to sing for up to 300,000 spectators as a soloist, and performed a lead role in an opera with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra starring alongside Metropolitan Opera star Kit Foss. In 1995 he was selected to sing in the National Honors Choir comprised of the top 100 singers in America, who performed for President Clinton in the White House. In high school, he had a daily guest spot on Madison’s 92.1 WMAD radio as goat boy, performing and writing comic skits. He began college studying opera performance until he picked up the guitar and switched majors. His influences include folk, alternative rock and hip-hop.

His bio also includes a promotion of Atlas Shrugged and a link to the web site of our very own Sarah Saturday, whom we interviewed here about a year ago.

The Profits web site includes downloadable mp3s of their music. Check out “Sex at Six” if you want a grin. (There’s a live version available and a studio version too. The studio version is easier to hear.) For some nice acoustic guitar work, listen to “High Horse” and “Margot.”