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Gym Class Heroes

30.06.2007 | KYS-Cam | 0 Comments

Gym Class Heroes aren’t your average hip hop group. Without a turn table in sight and tours with some of the world’s biggest rock bands, GCH do things on their own terms.

Drummer Matt spoke with us about their upcoming Australian tour and why hip-hop fans should give them a chance…

Gym Class Heroes interview w/ Matt (Drums)

Tuesday June 19^th

By Cameron Chambers

How are you today Matt? 

I’m good man. 
 

Do you have some time off at the moment before you hit the road again? 

Umm, I guess we’re in between shows at the moment. Actually, I’d say we’ve been “in between” shows for the past 3 years. We’ve pretty much been on tour for 3 years. Any time we don’t have a show is a break, you know? Ha ha 
 

You guys have been on tour since “As Cruel As School Children” came out last year – what have been some of the highlights thus far? 

Well, we were on Warped Tour when we released that record which was cool. Warped is a party every night so it’s like, a really good festival to be on when you have an album coming out – or about to come out. You can just get out there and sell records and get people to listen to your band. 

About 6 months later “Cupid’s Chokehold” exploded and now it’s a slightly different situation. We’ve always kind of like, well, we know what it’s like to come from the ground up so we know how to hustle to get people to listen to our music. We still have that hustle mentality. 

Sorry man, I’ve gone way off topic, ha ha. 

I’d say a highlight would be our first big headlining tour which we did in spring. It was cool because we were able to bring out bands that we wanted to tour with and see perform every night. We were able to take K-OS and POS which is great because they’re musicians we really like.  

I guess that’s the beauty of the music that we make, it kind of transcends genres and we don’t really get pigeon holed and stuck into thing so it gives us a few more options than most bands. 

That’s the cool thing about our shows, you can see a rap artist or a rock act and it helps because the fans we attract are an open minded group of people. It just brings heaps of positive energy. 
 

When you wrote “As Cruel As School Children” did you think that the record would take off the way it has? 

No way man, definitely not. We never write music to “take off”, you know what I mean? We’ve never compromised the bounds of our music or our integrity and I think that keeps our music fresh and good and relevant. We just make music that pleases us and our friends and that’s always been the working formula. I would never want to think of music that way. 

That’s good to hear man. 

Ha ha, definitely. We’re actually in the “infancy” stages of a follow up record now. It’s cool because musically we’re in a position where we can go in different directions. We definitely don’t want to do the same record twice. I’m really interested to see what we come up with! 
 

Your first trip down under is opening for Gwen Stefani – playing to 15,000 people a night isn’t a bad way to introduce yourselves to Australian audiences… 

Yeah man, it’s cool. The big shows are awesome. But after saying that, there’s nothing better than seeing a band and being 6 inches away from their face, ha ha. We’re just stoked to be coming there in general, just stoked to be visiting. Being able to perform in front of heaps of people is a huge bonus! 
 
What can people expect from a Gym Class Heroes performance? 

Well… first we take our pants off…. Ha ha ha. 

Nah, we don’t take ourselves too seriously. You know, every band comes out and says “we have a high energy stage show” but I really do think we have a high energy show, ha ha.  

We definitely have a lot of interaction with our fans. Sometimes we’ll just stop playing and Travis will ask a random person in the audience what they do for a living, ha ha. Actually talking to people is cool and we just throw towels and stuff from the stage at people. It’s a lot of fun when we play. 

We don’t play the same set every night which is cool. Every night we do something a little differently, something will get tweaked. You know, we’ll have a guitar solo, or a drum groove in a song, or a medley or another riff or something. We have a lot of spontaneity which is cool for the audience but it’s great for us as well because we don’t play the same thing every night which is a blessing. 
 

Is there anything that you guys will be doing differently for your side shows compared to your sets on the Gwen Stefani gigs? 

Well, we’ll probably play for a bit longer, ha ha. Umm, we’ll definitely drink more beer and yeah, ha ha, I don’t know. We’ll just play more songs and probably get more goofy than we normally would. It’s a little bit more uninhibited when you’re playing to a few hundred people rather than several thousand people. 

Headlining shows are awesome! 
 

Up until recently, Gym Class Heroes wasn’t a household name in Australia but since the release of “Cupid’s Chokehold”, you guys are everywhere – did you think that of all the tracks on the record that’d be the one to break you? 

Hell no! Definitely not! 

I mean, Cupid’s is on one of our old record and we kind of never really wrote that song to be a single or anything like that. We actually wrote that track before we were even signed. We wrote it in our friend’s bedroom, we just thought it was a cool song, you know? 

When we recorded it again we didn’t even think we’d put it on the album but management said we were crazy. I guess you could say we didn’t put all our eggs in the Cupid’s Chokehold basket, ha ha. We slept on that song and I guess you could say the rest of the world slept on it as well. 

The world is to blame! That song was around for a while before anyone started to listen to it. That goes with us as a band in general, it seems to take a bit longer for people to catch onto us, ha ha. 

We didn’t garnish the overnight success that a lot of bands get, which is cool as it helped us build an honest fan base first and be able to work for our audience. I guess Cupid’s is something to fall back on though if the rug is ever pulled out from under us, ha ha. I’m glad it’s picked up even though it’s 3 year old because it’s still a song that we wrote and believed in. 

Props to “Super Tramp” for even writing “Breakfast In America” in the first place, ha ha. But we never thought this would be our smash. We wrote it because it was a bit quirky. We never took it seriously as a huge single or anything like that. We just can’t believe it and we’re really stoked.  

I just want people to know that we have other cool songs as well! 
 

What’s the song writing process like for you guys? Is a Gym Class tune built around the beat, a lyric or the instrumentation? 

It’s simple really. I write all our songs on the accordion… ha ha ha. 

Nah, I don’t. It’s a democracy with Gym Class Heroes. Everyone brings ideas to the table. When I’m home from tour I don’t even really play drums that much, I usually just play guitar. 

Time off is good because it lets everybody get into their own headspace and write their own stuff. It lets everyone construct their own ideas so when we get together we move on to the next stage in the writing and recording process. 
 
I know most musicians don’t like labelling themselves but how would you describe Gym Class Heroes to someone who’s never heard you? 

Well, I guess its like, rooted in hip hop with the lyrics but it’s not restricted to hip hop. We have elements of rock, jazz, funk and other stuff which is separate to hip hop. We have a lot of melody as well but I guess it’s based in hip hop. 

A lot of kids at our shows are like “I don’t like hip hop, but I dig you guys are the shit”. I don’t really get it but its cool! 
 

There aren’t too many hip hop groups these days that approach the genre with an emphasis on live instrumentation – do you feel that gives you guys a bit more to work with when it comes to piecing your music together? 

Totally. I think it gives us more options to be honest. I think there are a number of different directions we can go when we write songs coz it’s not so sample heavy. It gives us more to create different vibes. 

First and foremost we’re band, that’s just the way we’ve always been. We didn’t know we were a hip hop group when we first got together – that was just the voice that came out. It felt natural to be playing hip hop influenced music. It’s not like we were like, “let’s make hip hop but we’re in a band”, ha ha.  

We’re just a band who happens to flirt with hip hop. 
 

A lot of Gym Class Heroes fans aren’t your run of the mill hip hop connoisseurs – do you guys play many straight up hip hop shows? 

Yeah, we’ve done hip hop tours. We just did a predominantly hip hop tour with K-OS and POS. We’ve been out with people like Louis Logic and People Under The Stars.  

Lately we’ve done a lot of radio shows with people like Ludakriss and yeah, just a lot of big name dudes. Kanye West as well! 

We’re actually going to be doing a European tour with The Roots which will be great. It’ll just be a really eclectic bill. 
 
 
The Roots and you guys are so different but from the outside I guess it looks the same approach to your music? 

Yeah man, we get compared to The Roots a lot. I guess because of our live band feel. But that’ll be a great tour. 
 
How does a traditional hip hop audience respond to the live band approach? 

With the hip hop audience I’m not really sure. Hip hop is a lot like rock in that you may be a fan of some rock, but not all of it. I mean kids who dig emo bands and dudes that dig metal bands fucken hate each other, ha ha. So hip hop is divided like rock. 

Some people only like mainstream hip hop but in general, the open minded fans appreciate us. 

I guess the thing is that we don’t focus on hip hop, you either like it or don’t. The last thing we’re concerned with is being accepted by a genre of people who just like hip hop. It’s like, everybody’s different and has different tastes and we just do what we do. 
 

As most people would know, GCH are signed to Pete Wentz’s Decadence label (which is an imprint of Fueled By Ramen) – what made you guys go with a label which built it’s reputation off the back of pop – rock bands? 

Umm, well, we were the first band to sign to Decadence – but we were originally picked up by Fueled By Ramen. They were a label who built their success of putting bands on the road and developing them, and that was our blueprint too! 

We were speaking to Major labels and some other indie labels, and once Fueled By Ramen became interested we were determined that they were the label we were going to sign with.  

It was the perfect situation for us as we were a band who wanted to play live shows and it was great to have a label that would keep us on the road and support us. It was just the most ideal situation for us! 

Another big factor with going to Fueled By Ramen was that a lot of other labels at the time had rosters that were like novels. They just had so many bands on the label! With Fueled By Ramen, they only had 7 bands you know, so it was cool. If we want to call John (FBR owner) at 2am and ask him a question, then we can do it. Having that exclusiveness was very appealing! 
 
Where to for Gym Class now? What touring plans have you got for the rest of the year? When can we expect a new record? 

Well, we’re mostly doing international stuff for the rest of the year. We’re doing radio shows throughout the US, but then we’re hitting Europe, New Zealand, Australian and then Japan. 

Once we get back we’re going to be doing a headlining tour in the fall and then right after that we’ll be doing a huge tour with Fall Out Boy.  

It’s going to be dope because Patrick (Fall Out Boy) produced some songs on our last record so we’ll probably get him to co-produce some stuff for the new record as well. We have a great relationship with him and he’s actually bringing a studio set-up out on the road so hopefully we can track some stuff on the road! 
 
That’s about it man, anything else you’d like to add? 

Umm no, ha ha. Thanks heaps for doing the interview. 
 

Not a problem. We’ll be seeing you in about a month.
 

For more info on Gym Class Heroes check out: 

www.myspace.com/gymclassheroes