Gym Class Heroes drummer Matt McGinley spoke about the band’s college tour and his band’s upcoming album, before performing Saturday night at the Smith Center.
The Gym Class Heroes, an alternative hip-hop band best known for the songs “Cupids Chokehold” and “Clothes Off,” are performing Saturday night as the headliner for Program Board’s Spring Fling event.
McGinley said GW is GCH’s second stop on their college tour. The band arrived this morning from Daytona, Fla. where they played for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University last night.
“The college tours are always incredibly fun because, I mean, we are playing respectively to kids that are kind of around our same age which is cool,” said McGinley in an interview with The Hatchet.
He added, “You have to prepare a little different for college shows. I mean, you can play for like, an all ages show and to be honest those kids will scream for anything. You could just come out on a stage and wave and those kids will scream their faces off. When you play college shows, I think the kids are sometimes, like, just getting out of a night class or something, or maybe had a long day. A lot of the kids are really taking it in and absorbing the music, but you are not getting the same ‘Oh my God!’ freaking out.”
GW students can expect a mixture of old and new songs at tonight’s event, McGinley said.
“We mix it up quite a bit,” McGinley said. “We wouldn’t be like, we’re just gunna play new songs because we want to play our new material and we want everyone to hear it. Its more, just like, we pick songs based on how we think they’ll be received.”
Despite being from New York where many GW students call home, McGinley said he has not heard much about the University.
“Do you guys have a good basketball program?” McGinley asked. “I definitely filled out the March Madness bracket and I did not see George Washington’s name on the list.”
This morning McGinley said he walked around GW’s campus with the band’s Bassist, Eric Roberts.
“Its really cool here,” McGinley said. “Me and the bassist, Eric, walked around and kinda just checked out the campus. Its nice, we commented that the buildings all looked incredibly old, which is cool… it all looks colonial or whatever, so you see a lot of pretty interesting stuff.”
He also commented about the cherry blossoms blooming around D.C. and said he was excited to be here during the time of the year where they are in bloom.
“Me and Eric were blown away by the cherry blossoms,” McGinley said. “Its so awesome to be here during that tiny little period where they are in bloom.”
McGinley also talked about the new album GCH has been working on and said it is a lot different than the past three albums the band has released.
“(The new album) is different for us in the respect that we took a different approach when recording it,” McGinley said. “We recorded about half of it live.”
Usually the drummer of the band will record his part, the bass player his and so on and each respective part is then melded together. However, McGinley said the band decided to record the songs all together in the studio, which he said gives the record a different feel.
“We got in a room together and recorded the stuff all at the same time and basically, like, I think it allowed us to get more creative and original takes rather than ones that are just polished up studio edits,” said McGinley. “I feel like we are giving listeners the side of us that shows we are real capable musicians instead of just fabricated studio musicians.”
McGinley left GW students with a final thought.
“May your dreams fly as high as your hats,” He said. “Its from The Office actually, you can quote Michael Scott.”
The band is set to take the stage at 5:30 p.m. tonight in the Smith Center.
Check out the full article on Spring Fling in Monday’s Hatchet.
