From the children's television show, "Carmen San Diego," and commercials to selling out concerts, Jeff Thatcher of Rockapella talks about the a capella group's rise to success.
DM) I became a fan of you guys from what I thought was the oddest source,
"Where in the world is Carmen San Diego?".
JT) It's not odd in the least. (laughs)
DM) I didn't expect that to be the source of musical inspiration.
JT) When you're working in the music industry, you've got to take what you can get,
and that's a case in point right there. But the cool thing is that all the kids that watched it are now
in college, or just out of college, and are now fans. And the moms of those kids still love us, too.
So we've got this built-in audience that we're trying to reach and let know that we're still out there...because they love what we've been doing, and they still love us, according to what
they tell us when we do shows.
DM) Was it ever odd singing about the joys of the state capitals?
JT) It's a job. Musicians do all kinds of jobs. Plus, Rockapella created all of the music there,
unless they sang a cover, obviously. All the original music was created by them. I was only in
it for one year of that, the last season. That was three years ago.
DM) So you weren't there for the whole thing, then.
JT) No, but I was there for the best season, in my opinion. They had a new director, and the
show was very creative. Everybody was surprised that it was canceled. I think it got too successful, because it's a public broadcasting thing. I think it became too expensive for them to do, and they
just scrapped it, and that was really a shame. But we've done a lot out of fact, and it's definitely
a publicity vehicle to this day. It's incredibly flattering, and I appreciate hearing it.
DM) Musically, did the regularity of the show ever turn the music more into a chore than a pleasure?
JT) No, not at all. I think that taping the season's worth of a daily game show in a few months was fun.
The music part was fun and we used really colorful sets.
The host and everybody involved was really great, too. The actual making of the show was a total pleasure--well, mostly a pleasure.
DM) Mostly? Why "mostly" a pleasure?
JT) Because of the early morning time, every day. There's always negotiations in between seasons,
but besides that, once we were there on the set, it was a blast. It looked like fun, didn't it?
DM) Yes, it did.
JT) A perfect example would be the chase; do you know the chase? That's okay, you probably
don't know. (laughs) Well it's this thing in the middle of the show, entry to introduce it, usually the
music for the chase, and then we went across the screen with strange objects in our hands,
singing the chase song. Well, that shows the spirit of the show, the spontaneity. We knew that
we were doing something special, and we were very happy to be there.
DM) Now, when you guys perform lately, do you ever get requests to sing any songs from the TV show?
JT) We get requests to do the theme song, but we do that anyway. It's funny, Rockapella is a multi-media band in the truest sense of the word, because we followed whatever opportunities came to
us. We've been in just about every possible venue of exposure, and to do the folders commercial,
or to do the Carmen San Diego theme at a show is part of us. We always joke at the show,
"You really don't want to hear that." But they always want to hear it. They want to hear the Folgers ad, and they want to hear the Carmen San Diego theme.
DM) So, you sing commercials and theme songs at your shows.
JT) It's part of our notoriety. Many of our audience members know us only from the commercial
or the TV show. And they say, "Oh, those guys." It's so consistent. When I meet people on the
street or via a friend of a friend, and I'm introduced as "that guy in Rockapella who does the
Folgers ad," the response is invariably, "Oh, I love those guys." Those very words come out of everybody's mouth over and over again. That's the battle that we're up against because we
have a small label,
and those people know who we are, they like our sound. So we need to go and show them
that there is an album they can order either online or in your store. And that's what we're up
against, as opposed to other bands which have no exposure at the present time. We have that exposure, and we're trying to let anybody know that we're alive and kicking in every respect.
Rockapella的vocal percussionist: - Jeff Thacher訪問
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