Underdog victory lap for Gym Class Heroes
GYM Class Heroes frontman Travis McCoy has Stockholm syndrome. No, not the clinical psychological response of a hostage sympathizing with his captor. His is the more common variety: “I’ve never seen more beautiful girls in my entire life,” he exclaims on the phone from a tour stop in Sweden. “It’s kind of surreal. I keep pinching myself.”
That’s when he’s not already pinching himself over the astonishing breakthrough of the band, which plays KIIS-FM’s Wango Tango on Saturday. “Cupid’s Chokehold” has shot an arrow to the top of the charts. The tune originally appeared on the Geneva, N.Y., quartet’s second album, “The Papercut Chronicles,” but didn’t pick up steam until after the band had already released follow-up “As Cruel as School Children,” its first record on Fall Out Boy Pete Wentz’s Decaydance imprint.
“Cupid’s Chokehold,” McCoy’s rap about a revolving door of girlfriends wrapped around Supertramp’s 1979 tune “Breakfast in America,” gained momentum after a Milwaukee DJ chose to play it instead of the label-sanctioned single. Fast forward several months later and the label has stripped “Cupid’s Chokehold” onto “As Cruel as School Children” and the song has soared to the top of Billboard’s Pop 100 Airplay chart, where it has remained for four weeks.
In a perhaps fortuitous move, Supertramp vetoed using a sample of the original song, so Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump sings the hook. He also appears in the video.
As for this weekend’s concert, McCoy is especially “stoked” to share the bill with Robin Thicke (“I can’t even believe that guy came out of Alan Thicke!”) and Ludacris (“He’s a lyricist who doesn’t get enough credit”).
To hear the 6-foot-5 McCoy tell it, GCH’s victory with “Cupid” is not only for himself but also for all the late bloomers. “I’ve been 6-foot-plus since fifth or sixth grade; not only that, but being chubby, being multiracial, being into rock music and having piercings and tattoos, I had all odds against me,” he says, recalling his formative years. But now life is sweet. “It’s awesome because I’m making it cool for underdogs to get laid. I feel like there’s enough boy toys out there; there needs to be a pretty haggard, tall, awkward-shaped guy out there getting chicks. It’s giving the underdogs some confidence.”
McCoy and drummer Matt McGinley met, yes, in high school gym class in 1997. A few years later, they teamed with guitarist Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo and bassist Eric Roberts. The foursome combine McCoy’s sloping, smooth rapping style with full rock instrumentation, but the music leans more toward emo than, say, Linkin Park’s aggressive, rap-rock hybrid.
The group’s next single is “Clothes Off,” which is built around an interpolation of Jermaine Stewart’s 1986 hit “We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off.”
The choice causes McCoy a little concern: “I don’t want to be pigeonholed as that group that takes old songs and makes them cool, but that’s what hip-hop is -- taking something that an artist thinks is cool and putting their own spin on it.”
However after a crash course in the rigors of how tough it can be to clear sampled music, McCoy says, “We’re staying clear of that on our next record. Ultimately what we want to do is make records that people years from now sample.”
*
Wango Tango
What: KIIS-FM show with Gym Class Heroes, Kelly Clarkson, Fergie, Ludacris and others
Where: Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, 8808 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine
When: 5:30 p.m. Saturday
Price: $40 to $199
Info: (949) 855-8096
The biggest entertainment stories
Get our big stories about Hollywood, film, television, music, arts, culture and more right in your inbox as soon as they publish.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
