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By Lisa Millegan Renner
Modesto Bee
Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012
It started as a singing group at Indiana University and turned into a national sensation. Straight No Chaser, a 10-voice a cappella male singing group, has sold more than 500,000 albums, been seen by 35 million YouTube viewers and attracted more than 200,000 Facebook friends.
The group comes to the Gallo Center for the Arts in Modesto on Monday toperform a mix of holiday favorites and other music.
Charlie Mechling, one of the group's original members, said fans (known as Chasers) like the ensemble's back-to-basics approach to music.
"In a lot of ways, people get tired of how overproduced some music is and some artists are," he said in a phone interview. "Overproduction takes away some of the heart and soul of music. What we do is refreshing to a lot of people. We don't get on stage every night and put on a perfect show, but we do our show in our way and we invite the audience to enjoy it and experience all aspects of it."
When the group formed in 1996, the singers never thought it would become a career. They enjoyed performing when they were college students and went their separate ways after most of them graduated in 1999. But in 2006, a YouTube video of an old performance of the group's creative rendition of "The 12 Days of Christmas" went viral and the singers decided to get back together. They signed a five-record deal with Atlantic Records and have been performing ever since.
Straight No Chaser hit a wave of popularity for choral music. Not long after the group signed its record deal, Fox TV launched its musical series "Glee" about a high school choir group, and NBC began airing "The Sing-Off," a singing competition featuring a cappella groups. "Pitch Perfect," a movie about an all-female college a cappella group, came out this year.
"Everyone is helping to spread a cappella music," Mechling said.
Meanwhile, an all-male a cappella group continues at Indiana University, but it has changed its name to Another Round, to avoid confusion with the professional group.
Mechling said Straight No Chaser has thrived because the singers work well together — not that they always agree on everything.
"It's like a family," he said. "Sometimes we get along and sometimes we go off by ourselves. We're like brothers. Nothing lasts too long."
So far, the group has released three albums — 2008's "Holiday Spirits," 2009's "Christmas Cheers" and 2010's "With a Twist." Another nonholiday album is due out in February. Mechling said audience members who haven't attended the group's shows before will be pleasantly surprised at the quality of the live show.
"We have fun with the audience and break the fourth wall as much as we can," he said. "We're 10 guys who love music and goof around for two hours."
