By Maggie Cassidy

To The Masquerade isn’t sure how it came up with its name.

“We really don’t know who came up with it,” said guitarist and backup vocalist Tim Miles.

Whatever its name means, fans are noticing its sound. To The Masquerade is rising to the top of the Rockstar Rising competition, hosted by online band-networking website Music Nation.

The band entered the New England-based contest at the suggestion of keyboardist Tim’s brother PJ. Across five weeks, two bands were chosen each week – one through online fan voting and one by representatives from record label, Epic, home to artists like The Fray and Shakira, and Music Nation.

Voted in by the public online, To the Masquerade is among the 10 bands in the quarterfinals, which will be narrowed down to a winner by a panel of judges by Nov. 19.

While the winner earns a slot on the WFNX 2007 Holiday Show and a record deal with Original Sound, a branch of Epic records. Tim said the band is happy just to have made it this far.

“I remember when we first signed up, we were in 34th place and we thought that was amazing,” he said. The band won the third week of the competition to advance and “now we just can’t wait for the next round,” Tim said.

PJ, Jon Giffen and Nate Stearns, who graduated in May, and Tim, a middler music industry major, make up four-fifths of the “power-pop dance rock” ensemble. Josh Seiler, a student at the Berklee College of Music, rounds out the lineup.

“Obviously, we hope we can win [Rockstar Rising],” Tim said. “If nothing else we can win some fans out of it and get some exposure.

Lucas Mann, co-founder and chief marketing officer of Music Nation, said the company aims to take online fan bases “to another level” through events like the Rockstar Rising contest.

“Initially the idea was to see if we could find some great bands and do that as a [scouting and artist development] tool for us and for Epic, and it evolved from there to ‘Can we create a platform that provides opportunities for bands?'” he said. “We wanted to be able to give different things to different bands and allow them to grow with us as a tool.”

He said while mostly rock groups entered the competition, the company and contest are open to all genres. Rockstar Rising, which is being run with the help of the Phoenix and WFNX, is only open to New England acts.

“We wanted [Rockstar Rising] to be broad and let it be defined by the type of people that reacted to it,” he said. “The way that we would like to do all things is not really to define how things are going to go, but let that come through the people the other way through to us.”

Tim Miles said fans have described To The Masquerade’s sound as a mix drawing from The Bravery, Foo Fighters and The Get Up Kids.

“It’s a bunch of different things mixed together,” he said. “We feel that it’s something anyone can listen to. It’s not genre stuck-to.”

Giffen plays drums, Seiler plays guitar and Stearns sings and plays bass.

The group, which formed in March, has played at house parties around Boston and opened up for The Receiving End of Sirens and Cadence at afterHOURS June 16. It is also scheduled to play a show at the Middle East Upstairs Dec. 11.

Tim and Mann said the spot in the WFNX 2007 Holiday Show and the record contract are great opportunities for up-and-coming acts.

“The development deal is an opportunity for them to showcase their talent,” Mann said. “It’s a tremendous opportunity for any act, but it really depends on what those guys make of it.”

Tim said the group hopes to use the competition to help the band grow.

“To even get offered any kind of deal with a branch of Epic Records, it’s pretty epic,” Tim Miles said jokingly. “It’s an opportunity for who knows what. It will be awesome if we win, and if not, it was fun doing it. It was definitely worth it.”

To learn more about To The Masquerade, visit www.myspace.com/tothemasquerade. For more information about Rockstar Rising, visit www.musicnation. com.