Hot Chelle Rae visited the Valley on Sept. 12 with Carly Rae Jepsen at Comerica Theatre. The State Press sat down with guitarist Nash Overstreet, bassist Ian Keaggy and drummer Jamie Follese to talk about the band’s recent touring experiences, new music and what it was like opening for Justin Bieber.
The State Press: As a band, you all started out playing in small venues and stages, and you’ve really moved up. How does it feel to be playing such big shows all around the world?
Nash Overstreet: It’s definitely crazy. I mean, it’s a lot of fun. We love doing it, and you go to so many places and you do so many things that you kind of forget which places you’ve played until you go back to them. As crazy as it all is, it’s definitely a blast, and we love every minute of it for sure.
SP: What has been your favorite memory from the last year?
Ian Keaggy: We just did the (Justin) Bieber tour in America, which was sick. The only other prior arena tour experience we had had was with Taylor Swift in Australia and New Zealand last year. Justin was really cool to us, and every show was 15 to 20 thousand people a night, just screaming fans that you basically just can’t help but have a great show every time. It was pretty special.
NO: I mean, that was really incredible being part of the Justin tour and now being out with Carly Rae right after that. Going to Japan was amazing. We love it there, and we definitely did a lot of exploring. I opted to go two days early to go shopping ... and I went out and hit the bars and the restaurants and tried to experience as much as I could. It was a lot of fun. The fans over there are so nice, so cool to us. We like going back and traveling over there as much as possible.
SP: Have these tours changed your fan base at all?
NO: I think we fit pretty well with the Bieber fan base and the Carly Rae fan base. It definitely expanded it like you were saying, but as far as changing it, I don’t think so. A lot of our fans get worried on Twitter. You don’t change who you are because you get more fans. You just touch more people, and you get to share whatever they love you for with a bunch more people.
IK: We’re still doing the same thing. There just might happen to be some more people at our shows the next time we come through those places again, which would be nice.
SP: You play to some younger crowds now, and you censor some of your songs. Is this because of the demographic, or is it something you’ve adopted into your regular set?
NO: Well now we swear as much as possible, especially when the crowds are young. (Laughing) To be honest about it, we like making sure that everyone can enjoy it ... you’re writing stuff, and you may swear, you may be obscene, and that’s up to your artistic expression. But when somebody comes to your show and you’re opening for somebody else, it’s just courteous and respectful ... (to) kind of tone it down and appeal to as many people as possible.
IK: Cursing doesn’t make your show better. We’ve actually had parents come up to us and be like, "We really appreciate the fact that you didn’t cuss the whole time on stage." They appreciate it because they want to enjoy themselves, too.
SP: Are you working on new music?
NO: We are really close to starting to release some new stuff. We played a new song on the Justin Bieber tour. We played a new song on some of these Cary Rae dates. We’re kind of slowly leaking them into the Internet and doing the live YouTube stuff with them and all the studio versions have not come out yet. We’re kind of holding those until they’re all done and we’re ready to release them.
Reach the reporter at okhiel@asu.edu
