MUSIC INTERVIEW: GYM CLASS HEROES

Older, Wiser Travie McCoy Welcomes a New Round of Warped, 'Papercuts'

By: Team Buzzine

November 18, 2011

Travie McCoy and Matt McGinley met in 9^th grade gym class in Geneva, New York. Honest. They officially formed Gym Class Heroes in 1997 and recorded three self-released albums between 1999 and 2004. Everything changed in 2005 with the solidifying of the line-up (Travie and Matt, joined by Eric Roberts and Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo have all been ever-constant musical companions since then) and the release of The Papercut Chronicles on Pete Wentz’s Decaydance Records.

Over the seven years since, GCH have enjoyed global success, MTV Music Awards, and multiple laps of the country as a headlining act on the Warped Tour. A couple of months before the release of the new GCH album, The Papercut Chronicles II, Buzzine’s Stefan Goldby headed down to Carson, California to catch up with Travie in a backstage shady spot to talk about how far the band has come since their first Warped Tour chat back in 2005…

Stefan Goldby: Summer is here, you’re out travelling the country on Warped Tour and the Papercut Chronicles is about to come out… Wait: didn’t we do this before? Deja vu, right? [smiles] How are things different now from the first set of ‘Chronicles’?

Travie McCoy: It’s been years, and I feel like we’ve definitely grown and matured as men, as musicians, as songwriters, and experienced a lot of awesome stuff – success and all the madness that comes with it. And it’s just a huge learning curve… kind of being tossed into this wonderful world of entertainment. And from being a naïve kid who thinks he knows everything, and when you’re young you know absolutely s*** about this business. But that’s when you hit the books and that’s when you take note of everything that’s gone on around you. But a lot of things have happened since the first time we spoke – quite a few more albums, I put out a solo album, a couple of the guys have had kids, I just hit the dirty 30 club three days ago…

SG: After you completed the solo record and a couple of the other guys worked on other projects as well… What did that do for you as a band when you all came back together to work on this new album?

TM: The misconception is that we split apart. Throughout the entire cycle from my solo album, we were writing for The Paper Cut Chronicles II, and Eric [Roberts] and Tyler [Pursel] had Polar Shift and they played SXSW, and kids were really into what they were doing with their project. But since Gym Class Heroes started we’ve all had other musical outlets, but Gym Class Heroes was always the priority, always will be.

But as far as getting back together and playing shows, that was, for me, like the pinnacle. Like, “Wow: This is what it’s supposed to feel like”. Not to take anything away from what the solo cycle and all that did… I actually learned a lot – having to do all the press myself… Being a front-man, you’re, by default, the center of attention. But when you’re touring solo, it’s all eyes on you, and that, for me, was a little strange at first. Going from this place where I’d look to the left or right and pull energy from guys that I’ve lived with and spend a lot of my life with, to hiring musicians…which became family as well, but it was definitely different.

We actually did a show before our Warped dates started. We did a show in LA, and I think it had been a year-and-a-half since we played a show, and it just went off flawlessly, and kids were crying. I was just like, “They love us! They really love us!” There was just something about that show that made me go, “All right: We’re not going anywhere.” Love us or hate us, we’re gonna be here for a long time!

SG: New record began life in Miami this time around, right?

TM: We’ve actually been recording in Miami, New Jersey, New York, on the road… [Laughs] It’s been a puzzle, to say the least, but all the pieces are coming together, and the ‘little kitty’ is starting to show.

SG: Is there a particular session that stands out most in your mind?

TM: A lot of the Miami sessions were really, really great, but when we were working with our dude Rob [Freeman], who’s actually in a band called Hidden in Plain View that we toured on Warped Tour with… We recorded with Rob and those sessions were so easy-going and so relaxed. It was to the point that we could just give Rob a look and he’d be like, “All right.” He gets it. So some of those sessions were really great.

SG: What are you most excited to share with people about this new record?

TM: For me, I felt like, after we put out the first Papercut Chronicles, I was like, “All right everyone, this is me: Take it or leave it.” And then after that, as things progressed and the band gained a little more notoriety, I realized that my life was up for public consumption, and I wasn’t sure how to deal with that. There’s no instruction manual on how to deal with being in the spotlight or people wanting to know what’s going on in your personal life.

But at the same time, I’ve always been open through music… whether it’s through music, or my blog, or whatever... But there came a point where I wasn’t comfortable sharing those deep, deep personal feelings with people anymore. I was like, “All right: I gave you guys me on this record, now we’re just gonna have fun making music.” And I’ll give you bits and pieces here, but you’re gonna have to scratch the surface a little bit. You’re not gonna get it easy this time.

And then it got to a point where I felt like Lazarus – even though there were a few personal moments on the record, it was just a fun summertime record. And I felt like it was needed with the climate and everything that was going around: the economy and everybody was going bonkers. I was just like, “Sit back and just breathe and listen to this album. It will be all right.” But now I found that it was really therapeutic on The Papercut Chronicles getting all those feelings out and letting all that shit out, as opposed to internalizing it and having it eventually make me miserable and depressed. [Laughs] So in a sense, it’s me going back to that, and music has always been therapy for me.

For me, on this album, just the introspective moments in me putting my heart back on my sleeve in hopes that it will connect – people can connect to the things I’ve been through, as opposed to me going, “All right, guys. This is my life.” And just seeing how kids react to some of the more personal songs pushes me more to not be so selfish or naïve with my experiences. To think that no one has gone through what I’ve gone through is silly, and that’s one thing that I think we’ve always prided ourselves on, is the fact that we have this connection with our fans that you can just feel. And that’s one thing that I never want to lose.

SG: I guess another way of widening that focus is to share the spotlight with another vocalist: How did your new single with come together with Adam Levine come together?

TM: With “Stereo Hearts,” the first single, I remember when we first signed with our management company, Crush, and first signed with Fueled by Ramen, I was talking to my manager and he was like, “If you want to do a collaboration, who would it be?” “I was like, “Adam Levine – Maroon 5.” And this was when Songs About Jane first came out and I was just in awe of this band, like, “Who are these rock dudes with these soulful-ass vocals?” It was amazing – like a Stevie Wonder-esque voice with these… I don’t know… just really, really awesome progressions.

“This Love” dropped and I was just completely like, “This band is the s***: They’re amazing.” So I said, “Adam Levine”, and when we went in to record our next record, Matt [McGinley] actually brought Songs About Jane in as a reference for how he wanted his drums to sound. So they’ve been a huge influence, as well as just a band that we look up to. So we were working on “Stereo Hearts,” and we actually did that song with Benny Blanco, he had his friend Amir sing the reference hook. And then someone hit up Adam and was like, “Hey, are you down? Here the song…” and he came right in, and I remember watching him cut his vocals and he was like, “No no, let’s do it again,” and I was like, “What?! What are you talking about? Keep that!” He’s like, “No, it’s s***, it’s s***.” I’m like, “If that’s s***, I quit.”

It was just amazing, and he was so into it. And then this crazy thing happened where we were rehearsing and they were filming The Voice a couple studios down, and I go outside for a cigarette, and I look over and see Adam, and he runs over and he’s like, “Are you guys playing ‘Stereo Hearts’ right now?” We were rehearsing and I was like, “Yeah.” So he runs in to the studio, grabs the microphone and just starts singing, and the guys are like, “What the hell just happened?” And he’s like, “I’ll be right back.” So he goes and grabs the camera crew from The Voice and brings them in, and he does this whole random, serendipitous moment that was caught on film. It was amazing – so random…

SG: Less random is Gym Class being here on Warped Tour - at this point, you guys are the veterans – Warped Tour Champions, reigning undefeated… What is it that makes Warped so special: Why do you sign up for punk rock summer camp year after year?

TM: It is just that… it is punk rock summer camp. I feel like the term “punk” doesn’t necessarily pertain to a type of music… I think it’s a mentality. To be around like-minded people and around a lot of bands that we’ve toured with over the past however-many-years… there’s a sense of camaraderie that everybody’s got everybody’s back on this tour. There’s some s***ty bickering here and there between bands, and some bands will talk s*** about each other on stage, but at the end of the day, if a bus breaks down, there are three buses behind it that are going to stop and try to see what’s going on with your bus.

Just the other day, during Set Your Goals’ set, there was a kid that was getting pummeled by a security guard – a young kid – and the band completely stopped their set, got off stage, and pretty much brutalized the dude. In a sense, I don’t condone violence, but when you’re a huge security guard taking out your anger on a 13-year-old kid, there’s got to be some kind of consequence. And it was amazing because they handled business, made sure the kid was all right, went back on stage and finished their set. It’s that type of sense of family and brotherhood that I admire about this tour. This is our fifth time doing it, and it definitely won’t be our last.

Gym Class Heroes' new album, ‘The Papercut Chronicles II,’ is out now on Decaydance/Fueled By Ramen.