Gym Class Heroes

Gym Class Heroes stopped by ABC News recently for an interview. Check out the link here. Matt and Travis talk about their musical influences and the sense of humor in their music. I’m not really confident how familiar this journalist is with GCH, but it’s still a pretty decent and lengthy interview. I thought I’d share it with ya. I also noticed Travie’s Styrofoam cup sitting in front of him during the interview. I’m questioning the content of that cup and wondering if it is indeed what I’m thinking, how he managed to bring it into the studio and on camera.

Also, Gym Class Heroes recently won an Okay Player Music Award from okayplayer.com. Not exactly sure what that means, but I guess it’s a good thing. GCH won the 2007 Rookie Of The Year – Rock award, which isn’t an actual award, more like just a picture of them posted on the Okay Player Site. Check out the complete list of winners and runners-up here. The winners were chosen by site visitors who voted from a list of nominees.

And finally, Brightcove TV recently did a feature on Gym Class. Check out the video below. Travie wasn’t there for the interviews due to an apparent infection of the “black plague”, according to Matt, but all the other members were there. Check them out as they answer questions and do a little jam thingy. Matt also reveals plans for Gym Class Heroes to tour Mars in the near future. Thought I’d share it with you as well because Brightcove allows you to embed their videos. Check it out.

With 2007 drawing to a close, Myspace is featuring artist interviews to talk about their favorite albums and artists of the year. Travis McCoy was one of the artists they talked to – check out the interview page and his videos here. His taste seems to have a nice balance of hip-hop and rock, which undoubtedly comes through in the music of Gym Class Heroes. His top album of 2007 is the Arctic Monkeys’ Favorite Worst Nightmare, but also gives props to Devin the Dude, Every Time I Die and Kanye West for their efforts this year. There are a couple of other short videos you can check out by following the link above. Travie also talks about his top five favorite singles of the year and the top five performances he witnessed during ’07 – not surprising Hall and Oates made that list. It’s also notable that he’s wearing a Hatebreed hoodie during the interview, which I found surprising. I guess if Hatebreed put out an album in ’07 they would have made his list as well.

In other Travie news, a new snippet of a song from his side-project Tequila Mockingbird has been released. Check it out here. Tequila Mockingbird is a collaboration between Travis and Nick Scimeca, a good friend of Travie’s and the dude responsible for the signing of Gym Class Heroes. The duo is describing their music as “hip pop”. Not exactly sure what that is, but I guess just go to the page and check it out for yourself.

After just performing earlier this month on Last Call With Carson Daly, Gym Class Heroes made another appearance on December 18th. If you weren’t home or were unable to catch it for some reason, check out their performance of “Shoot Down the Stars” below. I did happen to catch it live on NBC, but thankfully someone was thoughtful enough to post it on Youtube. It’s funny that GCH would perform twice on the show within such a short period of time – perhaps the last time they were on they brought in a lot of ratings. I know the GCH message boards and web site were buzzing about the performance so I’m sure a lot of people tuned in. Check out the performance from the Corona stage at the bottom of this post.

In other Gym Class Heroes news, the boys are playing an upcoming show in the Sacramento/Orangevale area. While they aren’t currently touring and are reportedly working on material for a new album, they are apparently playing one show on January 11th at the Boardwalk. I’m not sure where that is or if the show is even 100% confirmed, but if you live in the area or somewhere within reasonable driving distance you may want to look into it.

There is also a whole bunch of new pictures and posts on Travie’s Blog. He seems to be updating his new blog regularly, which is pretty cool and gives us a reason to keep logging in. Go check it out and check out the Last Call performance below.

Travie will be the host DJ of MTV’s New Years Eve Masquerade, hosted by reality star Tila Tequila. The party will be held at the network’s Times Square studio and air on MTV from 11:00 PM ET to 12:30 AM ET on New Year’s Eve. Along with Trav on the 1’s and 2’s, the event will feature a whole bunch of performances from the likes of Mary J. Blige, Fabolous, Kid Rock, Wyclef Jean, Good Charlotte, Cobra Starship and others. According to MTV, more performers are yet to be confirmed but there will most likely be some additions to the lineup. Travis will definitely be spinning all night, so if you’re home on New Year’s for some odd reason you can check it out live. If not, there’s always TiVo. Check out the official press release on Tila’s Hotspot.

Also, Travis has added a whole bunch of new stuff to his brand new blog that he just started a few days ago. One thing you can check out is a new track he recorded with 5G, remixing Gym Class Heroes with old school Hall & Oates tracks. It’s some pretty original stuff – just posted a few hours ago, so go check it out. There’s also a bunch of clips of Travis filmed of himself sippin’ on some syzurp and talking a bunch of shit as well as a bunch of new pictures including one of him and Rihanna (lucky prick). There’s also a bunch of tips from Travie on ways to make yourself feel sexy 45 minutes before you go out.

Travie has started a new blog located at Traviesblog.com. He just started the blog three days ago, but there is already some cool stuff to check out that he’s posted. For one, you can sample a track from Travie’s new side-project Tequila Mockingbird with good friend Nick Scimeca. The track is called “Brooklynbasement” and is definitely more experimental stuff, yet not unlike the laid-back hip-hop of Gym Class Heroes. Travis writes that the song was inspired by living in Luis Logic’s Bushwick basement and that he plans to put out a Tequila Mockingbird EP “really soon”, which should be pretty cool.

Travie’s Blog also features self-filmed videos of himself, including one where he eliminates the trend of keeping your New Era sticker on your cap. I can say that I, for one, never kept the sticker on my cap even when it was “cool”. There’s another video of Travie at the airport with Ax and Boogie on their way to Miami screwing around with his camera. What takes the cake is a friggin’ funny video of some fat kid getting his bicycle tire popped by some skater dude after they get into an argument. Travis promises that if you don’t have a seizure or begin to convulse while watching the video he will deposit 7 cents into your paypal account. While I did laugh, I actually didn’t do either of the two so I will send him an e-mail and see if he is a man of his word.

There’s also a bunch of brand new photos and self-explained captions that Travie has posted over the past few days. There’s one where he purchased a disturbing Michael Jackson lamp and is apparently in love with it and other shots of him drinking and stuff. You should check out Travie’s Blog regularly as it looks like he’ll be updating it often.

After finalizing the Young Wild Things Tour the other week, Gym Class Heroes guitarist Disashi just put a major slice into his finger while on break. He was opening a can of soup when his hand slipped and the opener gashed his middle finger. The good news is the band is currently on a break from touring and Disashi will have plenty of time to heal. Below is the entire blog, as written by Disashi. Also, check out the picture – pretty gruesome.

“So I was fixing up a savory can of Campbell’s soup. As I began to pull off the metal lid, my floaty Sashi brain started making a routine trip to La-La Land. Big mistake brother. I returned to reality just in time to realize that there was blood gushing out of my middle finger. Apparently I was gripping the can so tight that it somehow slipped and cut pretty deep. “oooooh boy…” Were my first words. A big bandage from nurse Bluejay held me over ’til we were able to get to a Dr.”

“I got stitches once in high school when I slipped on some ice while running to catch the school bus and landed chin first on the concrete. You’d think the patch of red-ass snow and ice next to my face would’ve evoked some sort of sympathy. You’d have thought wrong. I looked up at the bus driver. He acknowledged my pain with a head nod and drove off into the distance.”

“For whatever reason, stitches in the chin were really no big deal. But stitches in the finger… now that’s just wrong. I clenched my teeth through the five stitches and a couple of broken blood vessels. Good times?… not so much. I was put on a strict finger-funless diet consisting of no Guitar, Guitar Hero, or sweet-ass high fives (at least not with my dominant hand).”

“Here is a pretty cleaned up version of the Franken-finger. I’ll be fine, but it just made me think about how quickly your life can go from red to blue in an instant. What if that’d been a different finger? What if I’d cut way too deep, or if I somehow lost a finger permanently? I guess this is the reason something like an education can go from seeming trivial to being a means of survival. Pretty crazy. Lucky for me, I won’t be giving up the shred sessions any time soon. Trust me, as soon as Guitar Hero is safe FOR me, it won’t be safe FROM me. Well, maybe in this time I can work on becoming ferociously ambidextrous.”

I Love mah liiiiiife
Disashi

Gym Class Heroes label Fueled By Ramen just released a limited vinyl version of As Cruel As School Children yesterday. You can order a copy by clicking the link to the Fueled By Ramen webstore.

The vinyl comes in blue and is going for $12 US. Only 1500 copies have been printed, so you better hurry if you want one. It was made available at midnight EST last night and apparently the Fueled By Ramen server was so jammed a lot of people were unable to order a copy.

The initial Fueled By Ramen holiday sale came to an end on December 9th. Whoever took advantage of the sweet deals was entered into a contest to win some free stuff including a GCH cap. There are still a bunch of sale items available through Fueled By Ramen, however, including a bunch of stuff from their other bands. The Gym Class “Sidewalk” design T-shirt has been reduced from $15 US to $8 US plus shipping charges. There are only youth medium and large sizes still available, so check out the link here if you want to take advantage. FBR is also selling a cool Gym Class Heroes hoodie called Flashy. The front of the hoodie contains a patch with the Gym Class Heroes logo with stripes printed on it. The same neon stripe pattern located on the patch is also found inside the hood. There is also an extra storage zip compartment in located on the lower pockets. On the back of this hoodie is a printed Gym Class Heroes Upstate Berzerker. Most of this hoodie’s stiching is accented with neon green. Check it out here.

The Gym Class Heroes performance on Last Call With Carson Daly has been posted on Youtube. You can check out the video at the bottom of this page for easy access. There’s also a little “behind the scenes” footage, as they call it, of the guys goofing off in their tour bus. The performance of “Viva La White Girl” originally aired on Thursday, December 6th, as reported in an earlier blog. It’s pretty nice to see GCH on a hugely syndicated television series and in such a nice setup on the Corona Outdoor Stage. It is definitely huge exposure for the guys.

In other GCH TV news, they have music featured on a couple of commercials airing right now. One is for Verizon wireless, a company that is working closely with Gym Class as the band has also done a few Verizon in-store signings and performances in the past few weeks. The commercial other is for Sunkist, which I haven’t seen yet. You can’t seem to find the commercial anywhere on the internet, but apparently it airs on MTV fairly often. Apparently Sunkist was also holding a contest where you could win some GCH stuff, but I think the promotion may already be over.

And finally, the band has announced they will begin working on a new album as they wrap up The Young Wild Things Tour. During their down time they will get together to write some new material and get creative. Fans can expect a new album from them most likely sometime during the summer of 2008 or perhaps even before then.

Tune in to NBC late tonight if you wanna catch Gym Class Heroes perform on the Corona Outdoor Stage. Not sure exactly which songs will air, but it should be a cool chance to see the guys perform on TV. It’s a good opportunity for them as well, with huge exposure to a lot of people who have probably never heard of Gym Class Heroes. Check your local listings for times and channels, though Last Call normally airs around 1:30 am. Check out the Last Call web page here for a bit more info on it.

In other news, punk web site absolutepunk.net just released information on some of the confirmed guests for next summer’s Warped Tour. Gym Class Heroes was among those listed, which would be the first time the guys have been a part of a traveling festival. In a more punk-oriented tour, this should give Gym Class the chance to expose their music to a more diverse crowd and some new people. With Warped Tour ’08 so far away, there’s no telling what could happen between now and then as far as bands dropping off. I’m also not sure how reliable the list is, but Buzznet has also announced the list of confirmed acts on their web site. Check out the entire list on Buzznet. If the sources are indeed reliable, other confirmed acts for Warped Tour ’08 include The Academy Is…, The Bronx, The Devil Wears Prada, Every Time I Die, From First to Last, The Lordz, Norma Jean, Reel Big Fish, Relient K, and a few others.

Fueled By Ramen has recently announced a new holiday sale, offering 10% off a bunch of merchandise including CD’s and clothing, plus a whole bunch of other sweet deals and contests. If you’re interested, check it out here, but that’s not really the reason I’m posting this.

There’s a funny new Youtube video of Matt promoting the sale – I posted the clip below. As he makes his podcast from tour bus, he also takes the camera-time to announce his personal wish list in the hopes that generous viewers will respond bearing gifts. Apparently Matt has a love for oversized sheriff hats and time-travel. Check out the video below.

Here is the official posting about the Fueled By Ramen holiday sale from the Gym Class Heroes Myspace:

Matt from Gym Class Heroes has a special holiday video for you below as part of The Fueled By Ramen Holiday Sale ‘07. Click the banner and you can get 10% off select items, find tons of new merch designs, get free shipping on any order over $100 and buy one CD & get one for only $7 in the webstore!

We’ll have one more video and prize for you tomorrow from the FBR bands. Make sure you visit The FBR Webstore to see them all and check out the deals. And since GCH is today’s featured band, if you order something today will be entered to win a signed drum head and a limited GCH New Era cap!

Happy holidays from myself and all your friends at Fueled By Ramen and Decaydance!

-fueledbyadam

The new Kelly Rowland single “Daylight” featuring Gym Class Heroes was officially leaked today. Check out the link at the bottom of this page.
A small sample of the track was released on the ‘net late November as a teaser to fans who had heard rumors of the collaboration. Members of the Gym Class Heroes fan-club were sent special invitations to attend the video shoot in England and word of the collaboration quickly spread. The short snippet of the song has gotten a lot of attention around the internet, spawning fan-made videos on Youtube as posted in one of my earlier blogs. Apparently the music video for “Daylight” has already been filmed in England, though there is still no footage of that yet. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until some sort of on-set or behind the scenes footage should pop up.
“Daylight” was released as the first single off the re-worked Kelly Rowland album Ms. Kelly. The album had already been released earlier this year, but with lackluster sales it was pulled off the shelves for re-working. Among one of the new tracks is the collaboration with Gym Class, an unlikely pairing that has worked extremely well. The new track is a nice blend between Ms. Rowland’s R&B style and Travis’ laid-back rhyme style.
The short snippet of the song created quite a buzz about the upcoming Kelly Rowland album, especially from GCH fans who want to hear the collaboration. The re-worked Kelly Rowland album is expected to be officially released early January 2008, for those anticipating the release. For now, check out the full-length version of “Daylight” here.

A brand new video of a GCH performance was posted a few days ago on Youtube. Posted on November 28, the video shows Gym Class performing “The Make-Out Club” during what looks to be a pretty exclusive outside show for the Sugar Hooker Event in Virginia Beach. For those who don’t know what Sugar Hooker is, it’s a clothing with pieces exclusively designed for females, from shirts to hats to bags and other accessories. If you want to check out their site, click here. I’m not sure why GCH are performing at the Sugar Hooker event, but it’s a cool little performance regardless. Check out the video posted at the bottom of this blog.

In other new GCH news, they have a brand new 90-second clip on the Wild 94.9 FM web site. If you live outside of the US, you won’t be able to view any of the footage because of some stupid law. I live in Toronto so I can’t view the footage, but apparently it’s a 90-second interview with Matt in which he admits to having a crush on Hillary Duff. There is also a newly-filmed home video personally filmed by GCH you can view on the Wild 94.9 site as well. Check the videos out here.

Also, if you haven’t seen this footage yet, there are a few clips on the MTVU site from GCH at the MTVU Woodie Awards, accepting their award for Woodie of the Year, backstage interviews and clips of them on the carpet before the ceremonies. Check those videos out here: