6 Questions for The Tenors at their #BNAuthorEvent
How do you work together to come up with songs? What’s your process?
Sometimes one person comes with an idea. Sometimes we split up in twos and then bring things together. We love putting our blood, sweat, and tears into everything we do.
Do you usually agree?
No! Well of course we agree, but it takes some coaxing sometimes. We all have our input and very strong opinions and good opinions, but unfortunately you can only go with one. Sometimes there will be two good ideas you can amalgamate to create something magical. That’s the nice thing about collaboration—you might come up with something you think is great but when you bring it to the group you end up with something more than great. When it’s your baby, your creation, bringing it to a group, you think it’s perfect, even when that’s not necessarily the case. It’s great to have that sound board. We use each other as sound boards and we use each other’s creative talents to take it to the next level.
You have a song. You create it, you believe it in it, the label puts it out, the audience gives you feedback. In our case, we have three other artists that we give the song to and they can have an immediate response, so before the song goes out into the world you get to use that feedback to improve the song. Sometimes you nail a song the first time but often that feedback from your brothers really pushes you beyond your comfort level and sometimes it gets passionate. You have to fight for what you believe in. And in those moments, that’s when the true magic happens. Or you go in a totally new direction and it actually makes for a better song. We embrace the fact that we have four passionate artists and four opinions.
Do you think of yourselves as brothers?
Of course. We are on the road all the time. We see each other more than we see our families. We are definitely there for each other. We agree like siblings and sometimes we disagree like siblings.
Who was your favorite person to work with?
Darryn de Souza! (Musical director of The Tenors, was sitting in the corner.) If he wasn’t here it wouldn’t be the same. Sarah McLaughlin was amazing. We are big fans. We’ve done a few songs with Bob Ezrin, a great producer. Walter Afanasieff, he’s great, he worked with Mariah Carey on Hero. He’s an incredibly talented classical pianist. There are very few people on the planet who know music like he does, so to be able to work one on one with an individual like that is a real honor. We’ve also had some great young writers and producers that we think are going to be huge stars, like Tawgs Salter and Asher Lenz—brilliant mind, very young. Adam Crosley, another very talented individual. We like hunting down those up-and-coming artists to work with because they’re ahead of the curve a lot of the time. They’ve got their ear to the cement as to where the train is down the track. More in the pop realm, especially. With those artists we’ve been able to venture out more into the pop, mainstream world and it’s something that’s innately us as a group. It’s always been our mandate to push the limits and reinvent the concept of what a tenors group can be. We are two classic singers and two pop singers. And we’ve come together to create a unique mosaic.
Would you ever have a reality TV show? You could hunt for new talent and act as the judges.
We’re living a reality TV show right now. We’ve been approached about having a show that follows us around, into our homes, creating drama. But I think it would be more interesting doing a show where you’re putting together a new up-and-coming group or finding the next talent. We love finding new talent. A lot of fans send us videos of… their daughters singing. “She sings! She’s single! Look at her!” But every once in awhile you find a diamond in the rough.
You guys were in different rock bands before you came together. What were their names?
Banana Head. Doctor Jelly Jigger. The Twin Gods.
