There is no short cut to fame, as Gianluca Gibbons and Hannah Eggen have found out. Five years into it, they are still trying to get their soul/pop band Heritage off the ground.

A near-complete album with “multi-platinum record producer” Tommy Daugherty and a partnership with Arbonne Charitable Foundation, a global organisation that helps develop confidence and self-esteem in teenagers, is giving them high hopes.

Lifestyle talked with the California-based couple about the inroads they are making in the music industry.

Q: You’ve been travelling a lot lately. Your most recent trip was to The Mesa Music Festival in Arizona. Why there?

Gianluca Gibbons: Festivals can get you in front of a lot of eyes very quickly. There are music festivals all over the States. The general process for any band is to make a submission to a festival and, based on what they’re looking for, they get back to you. The Mesa Festival was great for us because it’s focused on emerging artists, on independent artists. So it was a great place for us not only to perform but to network.

Hannah Eggen: Festivals allow you to showcase your music and connect with new fans, to meet key industry players — which is important for us as we’re gearing up to release an album.

We’re looking to make contacts so we can secure cool opportunities as we look to finish up [in] distribution, in licensing, in placements. Because we’re independent [artists] we’re doing the brunt of the work ourselves.

So it’s about doing shows, putting on shows so that you can collaborate with other musical artists, so your fan bases can co-mingle and you can create new fans. It’s really about word of mouth.

Q: Tommy Daughtery has worked with Tupac, Céline Dion, Snoop Dogg, Paul McCartney and Prince. How did you hook-up with him?

HE: It was quite serendipitous. We were on set for the movie Dirt Merchants: Rebelistic [that Ginaluca acted in and composed music for] and a gentleman started talking with us — he was working on some music and wanted Gianluca to play sax.

One of his friends came up and said ‘Hey, come. I want you to meet somebody.’ Tommy and I and Gianluca really just connected and continued that relationship after that one meeting. He was more than open to doing [an album] with us.

GG: He’s worked on multi-platinum records and he’s on the Grammy board [which] helps in the process of being considered for a Grammy nomination.

We’ve been working with him since last November and it’s been a wonderful journey. He knows so much and has worked with so many people and in the studio he’s so humble, so open to our ideas but the important thing is he knows how a platinum song is put together.

Q: How do you describe your music?

GG: As a band we kind of touch