Another band from Ames has been signed, seemingly under everyone’s noses, to an international management firm and national record company, all without ever playing a single show.

Aaron Bell, self-professed computer geek for a company in Des Moines and former music teacher, is the driving force behind Degree Absolute, the latest band to be signed to Sensory Records, a label based out of New Jersey.

Degree Absolute’s musical roots stem from thrash, jazz and technical metal.

Its debut album is slated for a fall 2002 release and will be mixed by Grammy-award winning producer Neil Kernon (Queensryche, Kansas).

In today’s music industry, bands can tour and play live for years and never get the attention of a record label. But Degree Absolute has never existed outside of the recording studio.

“In the fall and winter of 1999 I started to record a four-song demo in which I basically performed everything on it,” Bell said.

“Eventually that made its way around to Intromental Management, who I started working with.”

Intromental’s Lars F. Larsen said the band’s special way of playing and the extreme progressiveness was what made Degree Absolute attractive.

“We knew some record company would be interested,” Larsen said. “It wasn’t much of a decision.”

Bell said he knew Intromental was the company that could help him get his dreams off the ground.

“After discussing things, we produced a six song demo with some musicians I had known over the years,” he explained.

Intromental and Bell had a pretty good idea which company would be interested and knew exactly who to contact next.

“We only sent it to one label in particular: Sensory,” Bell said. “That was the target label I had wanted to be signed with from the beginning of the whole thing.”

He said Sensory has a great reputation in the prog metal genre and was the perfect match for Degree Absolute.

This still doesn’t exactly explain how his band got signed without ever having set foot on a stage.

“It’s a bit of a foreign concept to some people,” Bell said.

The nature of Degree’s music is an important factor, he explained. These kinds of bands are not typically supported or known in the mainstream music business.

“I knew from the beginning that I had no intention of trying to shop anything out to the major labels,” he said.

Bell said he knew the only way Degree Absolute could succeed was if he had enough independence to see his vision through.

“I had done the band thing for a while, where it’s a democracy and everybody has their own input and responsibility,” he explained.

“I was really looking to get into something that was more all my own. Without any compromise, I guess. I just started writing and recording at home and everything kind of fell into place from there.”

The only other members of Degree Absolute work on a hired gun basis, both of them having known Bell from previous groups.

“I’ve known Doug for ten years and Dave for five. Dave and I played in a band for a little while. Doug is actually in another band currently [called] Defyance.”

Doug Beary, drums, currently lives in Knoxville and Dave Lindeman, bass, lives in Marshalltown.

“It’s a bit of a project,” Bell said. “Basically I had written the material. I would record versions of it and send it to the other people who are involved. They would learn the stuff. We would practice it and hit the studio.”

Many of the bands that comparably sound like Degree Absolute aren’t anywhere near as famous in this country as they are in others.

“It’s an underground somewhat, especially over here in the states,” Bell said. “In Europe and Japan there’s a much larger market for it, and somewhat in South America.”

Larsen offered an explanation.

“It’s not like Linkin Park or Limp Bizkit. It’s not music which would appeal to a big audience normally,” he said.

Not only are the majority of Degree Absolute’s fans overseas, but Intromental, their management company is actually headquartered in Denmark, something that has so far caused little trouble for Bell.

“That’s worked out great. He (manager Claus Jensen) and I are in contact at least once a week, almost every day. He’s been doing it for a while and he has a really good feel for what’s out there and what needs to be done.”

Bell has a hard time relating his work to any other band better known.

“The closest comparison as far as mainstream bands is, I like to describe it as a heavier Rush with some jazz thrown in.”

Bell does think that typical fans of this genre will identify with his work in Degree Absolute.

“I think that when the CD comes out a lot of the fans of some of the bigger underground bands like Nevermore and Fate’s Warning; this might be something they were interested in.”