2AM Club interview: Beatweek Rising Star 2011

Some of the hardest working boys in the business have just started working a little bit harder. 2AM Club is releasing their debut album, What Did You Think Was Going To Happen? on September 14, but the band has already been touring the country with other artists on the MTV VMA U Tour as well as Chiddy Bang and most recently, Mike Posner. A mix of rock, hip hop, funk and electro, 2AM Club’s music is a lot of things, but most definitely pop. Being a group of good-looking young men with smooth voices, it wouldn’t be completely off-base to throw out the term “boy band,” but these guys have cut their teeth on the road and in the studio, and are more easily compared to the likes of Maroon 5 than the Backstreet Boys.

“Whatever people want to describe us as is cool, as long as they enjoy the music and sort of take some time with it, and connect with it. If people want to call us a group of roaming zoo animals or whatever, it’s fine. As long as they enjoy our work and what we’re writing, we appreciate it,” said Tyler Cordy, one of 2AM Club’s lead vocalists.

The boys’ genre-bending style is a representation of the generation in which they were raised, explained Cordy. While most music lovers today enjoy on their iPods that can hold countless songs and playlists, 2AM Club is no different. “We combined what we all love which is rock, and hip hop, and soul, and funk, and electronic music because that’s what we listen to. So it really is that in-between area which hopefully can be kind of smart, and hopefully pop music that really combines everything that we love,” said Cordy. Vocalist Marc Griffin is a Sly and the Family Stone fan, while Ian O’Neill, the band’s drummer, loves John Mayer. Cordy admits that one current pop guilty pleasure for some of the guys in the band is the new Katy Perry album, Teenage Dream.

Similarly to their mix of varying music interests, 2AM club’s members hail from various parts of the country. Griffin and guitarist Matt Reagan grew up together in San Francisco, and Dave Dalton and Tyler Cordy grew up together in Seattle. O’Neill and keyboard player Dave Dalton are from the northeast. The band owes its namesake to a small dive bar outside of San Francisco that locals frequent. “We were out there doing demos with Jerry Harrison from the Talking Heads, this legendary music dude, and we were just running through names and visiting that bar after sessions at the studio, and it all fell into place really nicely. We were like, this is exactly the vibe around our music, and it just fit. So we ran with it,” said Cordy.

2AM Club’s west coast roots are prevalent in their album, which consists of party tracks with a laid-back vibe. The Maroon 5 comparisons are warranted, as many of the songs feature catchy vocals backed by upbeat instrumentals. But Cordy also does quite a bit of rapping on the record, which isn’t something you’ll hear from Adam Levine any time soon. Their single “Worry About You” has been well-received, and MTV featured 2AM Club as the PUSH Artist Of The Week in early August.

The sextet has been doing a decent job of carrying this relaxed party vibe with them on tour. As hectic as their schedule sounds, the guys aren’t too frazzled by the chaos. “We’re just trying to adjust to that lifestyle of constant motion,” said Cordy. Pre-show rituals include an “energy circle” that the band gets into in order to create a calm environment and “harness some cool energy.”

Although 2AM Club is no stranger to the road, this upcoming tour will be their first since the release of their debut album. Unlike their traveling counterparts Mike Posner and Chiddy Bang, 2AM Club has not released a large amount of free music, so they are looking forward to the new experience of having an album out while touring. “Hopefully it’s going to change the fact that so many people have to learn the songs through choppy, low-quality videos on YouTube,” said Cordy. “Now people have the actual recording, which is a relief for us…We talk to kids after shows and they’re like, ‘You know it’s so hard having to illegally record this stuff off of YouTube show footage.’ So we’re excited to finally give people the tunes.”

As for thoughts on the future, Cordy explained that they just hope to continue doing what they love. Creatively, the band would like to work with other artists that are blurring the lines of musical genres, such as rapper Drake. “There are so many places that you can take [pop music] right now. We’ll just continue to expand on that and hopefully get to work with a bunch of different people as we go through this journey.”

interview by Linda Domingo

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