Hey, Febreze, they're still waiting! lol
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Associated Press
Pueblo Chieftain
February 5, 2010
Original link:
http://www.chieftain.com/life/local/article_350fdacc-567f-5b22-9ffa-04047ab8ce14.html
NEW YORK — Imagine this: By day you’re a
typical businessman, working the 9 to 5. Your nights and weekends,
however, are spent sharing a stage with nine other guys just like
you — performing a cappella songs in small venues while recording
an album under Atlantic Records.
That was the double life for the members of
Straight No Chaser,
an a cappella choir of 10 men who formed in 1996 during their
college years at Indiana University.
They say their pursuit in music was experimental at first. Dan
Ponce even jokes that they got together because they ‘‘wanted to
sing to sorority girls.’’
‘‘It was an interesting balance for that first year,’’ said
Ponce, who formed the
group, which performs with eight of its
original members.
Charlie Mechling, to laughs from the other
group members,
recalled how he earned a lot of frequent-flier miles jetting
between his job and rehearsals.
‘‘I was leaving Friday night from my life in Vegas, coming to
New York, recording, rehearsing and then taking a redeye back,’’ he
said. ‘‘I felt like a businessman that didn’t have any benefits or
paycheck.’’
In college, some of the guys studied music, but not all of
them. Others focused on mathematics, journalism or biology, among
other subjects.
‘‘We were there connected because we all loved a cappella
singing,’’ Ponce said.
The
group first caught attention when the CEO of Atlantic
Records saw on YouTube its rendition of
‘‘12 Days of Christmas,’’
which has been viewed more than 10 million times.
Once signed, the
group recorded a Christmas CD, ‘‘Holiday
Spirits,’’ released in September 2008. It followed that with
another holiday album, ‘‘Christmas Cheers,’’ which has a studio
version of ‘‘12 Days’’ and was released last month.
‘‘Our first album is your more traditional,
gather-round-by-the-fire, relaxing, very soothing album,’’ member
Seggie Isho said. ‘‘ ‘Christmas Cheers’ is where you loosen
up your
tie, and it’s the party album.’’
But more than just creating CDs good for stuffing Christmas
stockings, the singers hope to be played on iPods offseason,
too.
While on a recently completed North American tour, the
group
performed holiday tunes as well as hit songs from the Billboard
charts. In August it released ‘‘Six Pack,’’ a six-song EP with
covers from Amy Winehouse’s ‘‘Rehab’’ to Stevie Wonder’s ‘‘Signed,
Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours.’’ The
group also says it’s working on
a pop album to showcase how it can be more than a ‘‘Christmas
comedy act.’’
‘‘Some of us have been concerned that people will only think of
us as Christmas
group, and that’s not the case at all,’’ Ponce
said.
Crossing over to
Top 40 radio with an a cappella sound and
style will be challenge — but one the
group says it’s
up for.
‘‘A cappella music still has yet to really cross to the
mainstream where we can be on a
Top 40 radio station,’’ Ponce said.
‘‘That’s bold. I think we can do it, but we gotta go with baby
steps.’’
The singers say they don’t always agree with one another and a
tour bus full of that many guys can be too much.
‘‘A lot of sprays of Febreze (odor remover) going on,’’ Isho
said, laughing, while Ponce added: ‘‘We’re thinking Febreze should
be our sponsor for this tour.’’
But they say they are confident they won’t end
up disbanded
like many musical groups. They say their musical brotherhood is too
tight to break.
‘‘We fight like brothers, we make
up like brothers, but at the
end of the day there really is a strong friendship and camaraderie
that you don’t see in a lot of modern pop groups,’’ Ponce
explained. ‘‘We weren’t put together by Atlantic Records, we
weren’t put together by Simon Cowell . . . we just did this
ourselves.’’
