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Getting 'Lovesick Electric' with Ryan Follese of Hot Chelle Rae
by Troy Rogers
New Nashville rockers Hot Chelle Rae have been
hard at work in the studio for months to hone
their debut release, Lovesick Electric, which
goes wide to fans on October 27, 2009. Fresh on
the heels of the recent announcement that Hot
Chelle Rae will be joining Third Eye Blind on
tour throughout October and a recent performance
of their lead single, "I Like to Dance," on the
popular Fox talent series So you Think You Can
Dance?, the foursome of Hot Chelle Rae - lead
singer and guitarist Ryan Follese, guitar vocalist
Nash Overstreet, bassist Ian Keaggy, and drummer
Jamie Follese - have been getting their music
to the masses.
After stepping away from their A-list family lineage in Nashville with high caliber producers Eric Valentine and Butch Walker to form their own identity, Hot Chelle Rae are establishing themselves as rising up and coming rockers to be reckoned with as they introduce fans to Lovesick Electric.
With only three weeks away from the release of Lovesick Electric, we caught up with Hot Chelle Rae lead vocal and guitarist Ryan Follese to get the hot scoop on the back story of the band, the meaning behind Hot Chelle Rae, performing live on So You Think You Can Dance?, and working on Lovesick Electric.
THE DEADBOLT: I've read that you and Nash didn't get along initially before forming the band. How did you guys get past that to get to this point?
 RYAN
KEITH FOLLESE: [laughs] It's the cheesiest
answer ever, but I really think the music kind
of brought us together. We didn't get along
in the sense like we just looked so different
from one another and we were younger and it
was immature. It was kind of high school the
way that we started. But we got together through
a mutual friend in town who is a really good
guitar player. He recommended Nash to me, and
me to Nash, and Nash and I finally got together
and we got a songwriting chemistry that we knew
was something really special. We just really
enjoyed writing with one another. So it was
just really easy to put it behind you.
THE DEADBOLT: So once the music was set, all of the differences went out the window?
FOLLESE: Yeah, pretty much. It's kind of weird, but yeah.
THE DEADBOLT: Since everyone in the band is from a musical background, was this inevitable or were any of you guys thinking about careers outside of music.
FOLLESE: Ian, our bass player, is a really talented photographer and I think he was going down that road, and he still does a lot of stuff in photography. My brother was never going to be anything but a drummer, that's just what he does. If you're born with it, you're born with and that's what he does. I don't think that Nash and I could've done anything other than music. I just don't think it would've worked out. I mean, I have stuff I like to do but I'm never going to be a pro baseball player or anything like that.
THE DEADBOLT: Well, at least you're lucky that you realized what you wanted early on.
 FOLLESE:
Yeah. I used to worry about that when I was
really young and I wanted to know what I was
going to be.
THE DEADBOLT: Lately, quite a few solo acts I've spoken to have used online avenues like YouTube and Myspace to break into the industry. Can you tell me how the Jive deal came about?
FOLLESE: The Jive deal, it's kind of a long daisy chain of people. But our first manager, John Hamlin, introduced us to Donnie Iner. Donnie Iner and John together, basically with their music business connections, which we're really blessed with coming out in front of people, we actually got to do one song with Eric Valentine, a producer. Through that one song that he did, which was slated to be one of our song songs, it got passed along to a handful of people. And one those people it got passed along to was Michael Tedesco. Michael Tedesco is West Coast A&R for Jive and was pretty much responsible for seeing us. He flew in the next day after hearing a song that we had done and when he flew in it kind of all came together. We had been showcasing for some labels and had some offers, but they were literally so bad that we couldn't take them [laughs]. It wasn't that we didn't want a record deal, because we wanted a record deal more than anything as a band, but our manager said, "You cannot take these other deals. You can't do it."
THE DEADBOLT: Lovesick Electric has pretty much everything - dance tracks, rock tracks, ballads. Would you say that this album sums up who you guys are, or are there still things left that the album just didn't have room for?
FOLLESE: I think that this album sums
up who we were when we finished it. But there
are definitely tracks that didn't make it. I
mean, we're pretty much 3/4 of the way done
with our second record and we're really happy
with where were going and what Lovesick turned
out like. It's everything that we were when
we finished it and who we still are, obviously.
But you definitely have to have somewhere to
go. You put it all on the first record, your
second is going to be pretty drab.
THE DEADBOLT: "I Like to Dance" was a perfect tie-in to So You Think You Can Dance? How did that gig come about?
FOLLESE: That came about through Jive. They pitched our song out to a bunch of different people and So You Think You Can Dance? was the first one to jump on it and come back. When we heard that song on there, I pretty much freaked out. One of my friends Tivo'd it for me and I got to go to them and listen to it. I don't know what it's like to have a baby born, but it was definitely the closest thing that I'm going to have right now [laughs].
THE DEADBOLT: What's the difference between doing a live show on tour and doing something for national TV?
 FOLLESE:
It's a very similar head-rush. I don't know,
man. National TV, you really don't know how
to respond to it at first. I didn't really because
I was with some girls watching it and I don't
really watch much TV. They all screamed and
I didn't really do anything. And they were like,
"Aren't you excited?" I was like, "Yeah, I just
don't know how to act. I don't know how to be."
But doing a live show is much more involved
and I feel like I know how to do versus something
I'm not very familiar with.
THE DEADBOLT: Since you've grown up with music and worked with other professionals in the business, who has given you the best advice so far?
FOLLESE: That's a good question. You
know, I would have to say probably my dad has
given me the best advice. He told me a quote
about songwriting that's pretty much responsible
for us writing as much as we write. He told
me that writing a hit song, or writing a song
that you're proud of, is kind of like your batting
average. He said, "If you think about Barry
Bonds, he's one of the best home run hitters
in the world. But he doesn't get up every single
time and hit a home run. He gets up one out
of ten times and hits a home run." And he said,
"If you can do that with songs, if you can write
ten songs and you have one of them that stands
out, that will put you on the path to writing
better songs." I never really though about it
like that and it really helped me a lot in my
life.
THE DEADBOLT: What advantages are there to having two brothers in the same band?
FOLLESE: Well, my brother is my best friend. So it's really a huge advantage for me. It's kind of like, Ian and Nash are kind of together because they've been best friends since they were children and it's really easy. It sounds so ridiculous, but I don't have to communicate messages. This is probably the best advantage, and this is really sad, but you don't have to communicate messages to everyone in the band. That's kind of a pain when you're trying to get everyone in the same room. So whenever we have something we have to do, whether it's practice or anything, I really don't have to tell him, we just go together. It's really easy, but there are lots of advantages.
THE DEADBOLT: Before settling on Hot Chelle Rae, what other band names were you guys kicking around?
 FOLLESE:
We were previously called Miracle Drug and that
was never gong to work. We didn't know that
it was a U2 song at the time. We named out band
and then that record came out like a week later.
So we kind of had to nip that one in the bud
before it got too serious. We kicked around
a bunch of names, a bunch of terrible names
actually, most of which I can't remember, which
I'm thankful for [laughs]. But Hot Chelle Rae
came to be through a random person that we all
knew named Chelle Rae. It was kind of random
how it all happened but we like it.
THE DEADBOLT: What do you think Nashville gives a musician that other cities don't?
FOLLESE: That's a good question. Nashville, as a musician it needs to be good or you're going to get killed [laughs]. It's just kind of how it is. And Nashville never ever makes you feel like you're good enough just because there are so many talented people here. So it's constantly bettering yourself either as a singer or a musician or anything. It constantly makes you strive to be better.
THE DEADBOLT: You guys wrap the current tour on October 29. What's next?
FOLLESE: Hopefully, more touring. That's
the end of the Third Eye Blind thing for us
and I hope we get to do more shows with them.
That would be what we really want to do. They're
going out on the west coast and we want to follow
them, man. It's a big deal for us to play with
them and we want to stay on that tour as a long
as we can.
THE DEADBOLT: Do you have any crazy tour stories you can share?
 FOLLESE:
We actually don't have that many crazy tour
stories. They're all super lame and not exciting
[laughs]. I will say that our first show at
The Roxy in L.A., which was our first west coast
show ever, when we walked in there was a metal
band shooting a video. So there was probably
like twenty or thirty half naked to naked women
when we walked in. Right after that, Ron Jeremy
was at the top of the stairs, which was kind
of interesting.
THE DEADBOLT: Now that you're signed to a label, has the business side of things been what you expected or were there surprises on that end?
FOLLESE: Unfortunately, there's always surprises. I hate the music business side of it. But I was told very early on the way that the music business is. I was kind of warned against it and I never really understood it. I was really young and my dad was like, "The music business, you've got to be careful. It's full of people that you really can't trust." And I was like, "Why?" You know, when you're a little kid all you ask is why. He was like, "You'll understand later if you get into the business." But he warned me against it and it's always surprising. There's a really famous music business quote, the music business is a cruel and shallow money trench where good men die like dogs and there's a negative side [laughs]. That's what it is, it sucks. It kind of sums it all up but the music part keeps you in it.
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