Interview Time: Gym Class Heroes 2007

You’ve been described as ‘genre busting hip hop rockers’. How do you see your music and how would you like people to respond to it?

I’d like for them to be very confused and draw no conclusion. That leaves the pallet open for us to do whatever we want. If labels are necessary than so be it but at the end of the day, if you asked me what it was I wouldn’t be able to tell you. What we do is definitely based in hip hop but musically it’s a mixture of genres.

Have you found that that fact has made it harder to market your sound?

It’s definitely been very hard. Even now we still don’t know what to do with it. We’re just going with the flow.

But at the same time, it opens you up to different audiences…

Definitely. I mean it’s cool, it’s really hard to pinpoint our audience, they’re from all walks of life; adults, thugs, housewives…when we perform it’s everybody. It’s funny ‘cos we just did this thing for MTV called Hard Rock Live and it was weird- so many different people; on one side all these hard gangsta dudes, then all the little girls sprinkled at the front…there’s something really special about looking out into a crowd and seeing so many different kinds of people.

Who have you found to be most supportive and loyal?

Housewives. With housewives, once they’re into you they’re into you. They’re not as fickle as the kids are. Housewives are there for you ‘til the bitter end, and I respect that. ‘Cos I’m there with them ‘til the bitter end.

How do you attract the housewives?

I think initially they’re there to drop off their kids and then they notice how drop dead sexy we are!

Do you think audiences are getting tired of the same old formulaic stuff that’s being pumped out there?

Of course. It helps us out a lot as we’re definitely something refreshing. There are times when something works and everybody hops onto that side of the fence, but we’ve always gone against the grain. It’s frustrating sometimes and it’s like ‘man, what if we just did some watered down bullshit?’ We’d sell a million records and live the life, but then it’s like ‘fuck that, we want longevity’.

How do you feel about hip hop acts that sample to death?

If it’s done in good taste then I back it. I mean hip hop was built on samples. But if you’re just sampling for the hell of it, then come on!

Was it a conscious decision to keep it mostly live or did it just turn out that way?

That’s just how we’ve always been. It started off a lot more segregated, like ‘this is our rock song, this is our hip hop song, this is our funk reggae song’…but as the years passed they all just started to merge.

How would you describe your own musical tastes, and who are some of your influences?

I grew up listening to a lot of Prince. I’m really really into Amy Winehouse right now, I love her, I think she’s amazing. I heard her voice and thought it was a sample, you know, some old Billy Holiday type stuff, and then I heard she was this young woman and was like wow. There’s a lot of stuff over here in the UK that I’m into, like the Artic Monkeys. I feel like what they do, The Strokes try really hard to do, and they do it really easily. That’s really funny to me. I’m also into Kano, I think he’s amazing. I’m not so into The Streets. I’ve been listening to a bit of Plan B, that tune ‘that’s the mentality of kids today’…I heard that a long time ago. I also found out about this kid today, Ghost Poet, and I’m interested in hearing more shit from him.

Would you say you’re more involved with the rock or hip hop scene?

We definitely tour with a lot of rock bands and we’ve gained a lot of fans in that genre, but now that we’re more in the public eye it’s everybody.

What do you see as some of the parallels and differences between the two industries?

I think right now they’re both equally garbage. It’s that whole thing about formulas that work, and it goes on in both worlds, you know? I think creativity just gets sucked out of people ‘cos they start mimicking what they see. And then they sell records and they’re not really concerned about making quality music and I think that’s bullshit. But there’s also bands out there that are boiling something fucking awesome and pretty soon it’s gonna bubble over and wipe that shit out, so I’m waiting for that to happen. Hopefully we’ll set the revolution.

You once said that you feel you sucked 10 years ago. How do you feel your sound has developed since then?

I don’t think any band comes right out the gates strong. Even though we did suck, in our heads we were rock gods! And after a while you convince yourself and the music starts to follow (laughs). We just convinced ourselves!

How do you see your musical journey over the years?

It’s been a long hard road, it definitely has. I can say that with conviction, it hasn’t been easy at all. People throwing shit at us…we didn’t care, we never gave up. I think then people who weren’t into us respected the fact that we had balls.

What responses do you tend to get from your music?

People say it’s different. A lot of people would take that as an insult but I love it.

Do you ever get any negative responses?

Oh yeah all the time. Whether it be on the internet or whatever, people say ‘oh, you guys are soft, you write songs about love’. I’m like, here’s the thing; I’ve never shot anyone, I don’t know about stabbing anybody or taking their money, so why should I write a song about that shit? I know about video games and eating food and making out, so I write songs about that.

Do you feel that you haven’t gotten as much commercial success as you deserve?

I think we’d all have houses in the hills right now, but they wouldn’t be well earned and we wouldn’t appreciate it as much. Now if we got a house it would be like, ok, we’ve busted our arses for this shit.