Hot Chelle Rae's appearance at the 9:30 Club Wednesday evening brightened up this overcast week, and fans were waiting outside in chilly temperatures long before the night fell. I arrived at 3:30 p.m. for my interview and there were already 30 fans in line, all of whom were under 18. Which high school teacher allowed their early dismissal for a pop concert, and why they didn’t work at my school?
Hot Chelle Rae's lead singer, Ryan Follese, dressed the role of a rock star sprinkled with American Apparel. When we reached the green room, we joined the rest of the band.
The members of the band have been playing music for most of their lives. They are all from musical families and have writers and performers as parents.
“We were all surrounded by production, writing, performing, and studios, just every aspect of music growing up, and by the time we were in high school, it was like we had already gone to college for it,” guitarist and vocalist Nash Overstreet said.
Because their parents were all in the business, they only received support from them.
“It’s a real job to them, it was never ‘drop this and go to college’,” Follese said. Overstreet added, “We were very fortunate to have parents that really supported us and were excited by us going into music.”
“I’ve had fans’ mom get mad at me for encouraging their child to play the drums … multiple times,” drummer Jamie Follese said.
So even though they’ve had supportive families, their fans' families may not be as enthusiastic about a career in music.
The original band name was Miracle Drug, which eventually morphed into Hot Chelle Rae by way of an interesting backstory.
Some bands, like Hot Chelle Rae's opening act, Action Item, find their name in a movie. Some, like Evanescence, find it in the dictionary. Hot Chelle Rae based their name off that of a girl who stalked them on their MySpace page. The girl, they later found out, was actually fake.
“You would not believe what guys will believe or put up with if a girl is pretty in pictures, whether it’s the real girl or not,” Overstreet said. “She had stolen some model’s pictures and was way too adamant [about becoming friends] with us. For some reason we believed it."
"But, what a ring to the name," he said. "It’s really unique and identifies to our music only so when you look it up on the internet, it’s exclusive and we like that.”
“When you Google Miracle Drug you can get a U2 reference or some magical cure for AIDS,” he said.
Continue Reading
_296.jpg)
