by erin thursby scopes1925@msn.com
What: Gym Class Heroes
When: February 27th @ 6:30 PM
Where: Freebird
If any band personifies hip-pop (a combination of hip-hop and pop), it’s the exuberant Gym Class Heroes. For those who haven’t followed their career, it seems like they’ve just burst onto the scene with ‘Cupid’s Chokehold,’ which climbed the charts in the last few weeks to settle into the 7 spot in Billboard’s Hot 100. The song had always had its fans, and two different versions of the video have kept interest in the song alive. It can also be found on the last two CD’s the Heroes put out. In an EU interview with Matt McGinley, one of the founding members of the band, I asked if he thought ‘Cupid’s Chokehold’ owed some of its success to the Valentine season.
“For me I feel like [Cupid’s Chokehold] started to take off months and months ago. It all started with a radio station in Milwaukee…They started playing ‘Cupid’s Chokehold’ again and then they started getting a lot of calls. It became the most requested song there.”
Their position in the top10 has made Gym Class Hero tour tickets a hot commodity. Something McGinley is very pleased with. “It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. It kinda feels like it takes off in increments…and I feel like it’s this snowball effect…We’re at the point now where stuff is really starting to multiply. A lot of these rooms that we’d just be excited to play in—period, we ended up selling out [many] of those rooms.”
Gym Class Heroes got their start in the late nineties when McGinley and singer Travis McCoy met in their high school gym class. Both had a quirky sense of humor and a passion for the alt-music scene. For about seven years, until 2004, the band was secondary to jobs and school, leading to spotty releases.
Besides ‘Cupid’s Chokehold’ two other popular songs from the Heroes are ‘The Queen and I,’ and ‘New Friend Request’ from their latest CD As Cruel as School Children. ‘New Friend Request,’ which is, ironically, one of the songs posted on their MySpace page, pokes fun of the culture of MySpace and the fight for one of the “top 8” on a profile. McGinley believes that MySpace is valuable for bands to “put your music out there” but has closed down his personal account.
“Myself and Travis recently started something we like to call ‘erase your face’ and it’s an attempt to get people to stop using MySpace and start having real life conversations with people. It’s just like a breath check. Really the real thing is we just came to a point where we were just sick of being on MySpace. We’re kind of like already put on a public pedestal…so MySpace only fueled the insanity. And plus I was sick of my girlfriend going on my MySpace and being like ‘Who’s THIS girl who says she misses you?’…and I’m like ‘I don’t even KNOW that girl.’ …this was bad for me. Actually, in the box where they ask why you’re leaving MySpace I just put ‘MySpace is ruining my life.’ Me and Travis both closed our accounts on the same day.”
Since getting off MySpace, he and the band still spend time on the computer, playing a popular online game. “Recently I’ve gotten into World of Warcraft…our whole band is really getting into it. We left for tour yesterday and our bus has wireless so, we’re really stoked.” The band mainly does that in their spare time, besides goofing off and hanging out. Says McGinley “This is a really fun part of my life right now… where I get to hang out with friends and get paid for it.”
As of this printing, the Gym Class Heroes February 27th performance at Freebird had not yet sold out.
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