If asked 12 months ago where Stereos imagined themselves in a year, the answer would never have been on a cross-Canada tour and with a couple of hit singles — yet this is their reality.

Stereos, formerly Stand By Me, started off as an Edmonton-based band playing local shows and hoping for a big break.

“I was sending my demo to [Canadian musician and producer] Greig Nori, who was on [MuchMusic reality show] DisBAND, about six months before the show [began] trying to get him to produce our album,” Patrick Kordyback, Stereos vocalist explained.

“MusicMusic had come to [Nori] with the show idea and he put us in touch with them. We had been working so hard to get kids out to our shows in Edmonton, and it wasn’t really working, so we figured doing it on TV couldn’t hurt,” he added.

WE ARE SO CRUNKROCK. They began as an unknown band in the outskirts of Edmonton and now the Stereos’ are on a cross-country tour with number one singles.

DisBAND is a show that gives struggling artists guidance and exposure to Canadian music industry executives. In the case of Stereos, their experience on DisBAND caught the attention of Mark Spicoluk of the Underground Operations record label.

Spicoluk contacted the group after their episode of DisBand aired and asked them to play a showcase for Gene Simmons, followed by another showcase in Toronto. Prior to the Toronto showcase the band name was changed from Stand By Me to Stereos. The success of the showcases led to Stereos being signed by Universal Music Canada.

“Before everything kind of happened we didn’t even think we would get to this,” Kordyback says. “Our goal was never to get signed — it was just to make music as much as possible and eventually quit our day jobs.”

Stereos’ popularity rose immediately following DisBAND, as their first single, “Summer Girl,” hit number one on iTunes less than 48 hours after the show aired in May. “Throw Ya Hands Up”, their second single, made Stereos the first band in history to have two consecutive number one hits on the Billboard Canadian Emerging Chart.

The group released their self-titled debut album on Oct. 20 and they describe the sound as “crunkrock” — they draw from a wide range of genres, from 50s and 60s Motown doo-wop to catchy punk rock. Kordyback cites The Supremes, The Dream and Rancid as big musical influences.

“Crunkrock is basically a way of explaining that we are R&B meets pop, meets rock and hip-hop, meets 50s Motown. So we came up with the word crunkrock,” he says.

It seems crunkrock is making Stereos’ dreams come true.

“Number one singles is stuff that we never thought that could happen to us. It is everything we dreamed of,” he says. “We could not get a hundred kids out to our shows in our hometown before and now things are going crazy for us. We are living it right now.”

Stereos will be making their debut London performance tonight at 7:00 p.m. at London Music Hall with openers The Midway State and The Artist Life. Tickets are available at London Music Hall’s box office.