FemaleFirst Teatro Exclusive Interview

Wednesday 14th November 2007 - 16:38:17

Plucking four random young men out of obscurity and putting them in a band is common practice in the music industry working for acts like New Kids On The Block, Take That and Boyzone. And the birth of the band Teatro was no different except one thing... they all have a background in musical theatre.Signed to BMG Teatro are already being labelled Theatreland's first supergroup and release their debut album on 26th November.I caught up with three members Jeremiah, Andrew and Stephen to discuss this unique protect and their rise to fame.

What is it like being the first recording artist to all come from a musical theatre background?

(J)First of all it’s a tremendous honour obviously it’s an absolute whirlwind to be honest with you. We are in a business were the tone and tempo of your career can change in a heart beat and it’s amazing to be part of the first group actually. and all the would agree that this has not been done since the Rat Pack were popular back in the early sixties, and we have been compared with them a few times in the media, which is even bigger of an honour to be compared to guys like that.

How did you hear about the project?

(A)I went to school with Simon Bailey, and he was in Les Mis at the time, and he was visited by representatives of Sony BMG and our manager who spoke to him about the band and this concept that they had, so I spoke to him about it and told me about, because we are old school friends known him for twelve years, and it sort of happened that they had their eye on me anyway through a casting director who had told them about me so I got invited to come to the workshop, which was fantastic, because they had been all around the world, and I got in the group it’s a real privilege.

What kind of musical background do you have?

(J)I started in musical theatre was trained in musical theatre I went to a place called Hamilton Academy of Music in Los Angeles and trained in vocal performance, dancing and acting so that is where I got most of my trained and started working professionally when I was eighteen years old.

(A)Well I suppose I am the newest out of drama school of the whole group I did a lot of choral singing when I was younger so my background is in classical music, well when I was younger anyway, I did something called the Youth Choir of the Year and the finals were in the Royal Albert Hall when I was about eighteen and the choir that I was in won the competition.

I actually applied to Oxford and got a course scholarship there I decided to go to a London university because it’s the heart of theatre land is but I went to study history even though I wanted to go to drama school, a lot of teachers and parents were pushing me to do something proper really.

So I went to uni there and did some really good musical theatre and plays as well, didn’t do much history unfortunately but still came out with a 2:1. I realised that that was what I wanted to do so went to the Royal Academy of Music straight after that I did the musical theatre course there, which is probably the best in Europe.

I graduated from there and I‘ve been out just two years now and I have done about five or six shows, one being in the West End, and in the the shows I been in I have fortunately played the lead in, or the young lead, so I’m quick lucky to be in this massive project so soon out of drama school as the rest of the guys have a little more experience than I do.

(S)I was the lead in Bombay Dreams, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Bombay Dreams three years ago, and I met Jonathan Shalit, our manager, backstage and I suppose have bumped into him here and there and we had a constant dialogue.

I have more recently been a member of Emmerdale, was on Emmerdale for about eight months, and then gave me a call and said look we would really love you to come down and have a sing and talk about this idea, I know he had this concept he had been batting the idea around for quite some time, and it was something that I thought was an incredibly interesting concept.

So I came down, met all the other guys, I think there was twelve, fifteen guys in the mix at the beginning, I had met Simon before, Simon Bailey he was in Les Mis , we bumped into each other on the West End circuit, it's such a small world, I remember meeting Andrew again when he came to see Bombay Dreams I bumped into him after the show and we had a little chat.

Once we started workshopping the ideas of which songs would work and how they would work and how you would do them and together, with ourselves and Jonathon and the people from Sony, we came up with this sound and the blend that is the four of us and here we are.

Why did you persue musical theatre as a career?

(J)Well it’s funny I always played sports, I was a sports guy, I played American football, baseball and hockey, a lot of American sports. My sister was always in the arts she was a dancer and a performer in musical theatre and she tricked me into doing my first show funnily enough.

But once I got there it was a high like no other it was an amazing feeling, it was a blast and there was no turning back from that.

Your debut album contains very well known songs such as Love Changes Everything and Don't Cry For Me Argentina how big a say did you have in what records would feature on the album?

(J)That was the toughest part of the whole process there are so many musical out there it’s almost endless and we originally put down I think it was sixty songs or something like that and then we demo 'd about thirty.

So it was a cut and paste process what we thought would be good for a debut album in the respects of what people would recognise and what was popular.

But it was also important to bring in a historical aspect musical from the past, present and future. It was extremely difficult but we were really really pleased with what we came up with in the end.

It's produced by Nick Patrick who has worked with Tina Turner and Russell Watson what was it like working with him?

(J) He was the most fantastic guy I have to say he was an absolute gentleman who took extremely good care of us. We recorded the album in Shine studios which is his compound out in the country just such and gentleman, his wife was a lovely lady who kept us very well fed, it was incredible we loved working with him and we hope we get a chance to work with him again.

You also worked with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra what was the like?

(A)Well it was incredible they are a massive orchestra, we had about seventy players on our album so epic size.

I remember when we all went into Angel studios to hear them perform the first track they put down was I Am what I Am and you can hear about forty strings playing on that song and a beautiful piano solo at the start and we all went in we were just mouths open and no one spoke we were in awe really it was an incredible experience and it’s great to have them on our album.

You are launching your album at the same time as new band Blake, who you will be compared to, does that bother you and how do you differ?

(A)I don’t think it bothers us, in fact we bumped into Blake the other week at a rehearsal studio and they are lovely guys, I have got mutual friends with them.

But they sing classical stuff, in different languages and they have all be choristers in the past so they a have a very choral sound and that’s not what we do.

We don’t sing any classical stuff, musical theatre isn’t classical, it’s much closer to the pop mainstream all the songs we have done we have tried to arrange it and produce it much closer to a contemporary, radio listenability.

I think we will have a very strong appeal from youngsters to older people. They are a classical cross over group we don’t see ourselves as that.

How are you coping with your rising profile and fame?

(A)Well I’m not sure it’s fame yet but we are just having a ball I have dreamt of this since I was a kid. We are on the Royal Variety show on the 3rd December we have been watching the Royal Variety performance since we were kids and to be doing it know is such an honour an privilege, we get to meet the Queen.

There has been a resurgence in what is labelled as classic singer with artists like Il Divo and G4 and programmes like How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria and Joseph why do you think that is?

(S) I don't it's kind of a phenomenon really. First of all the shows Andrew Lloyd Webber has had these ideas and I think that they have definitely heightened awareness of musical theatre to people who may not have been to the theatre before and now hearing all those songs from the Grease show and Joseph show so I think people are much more aware of these big hits.

Research shows that people have been going to the theatre in the last decade, the numbers have really risen, and I think that year alone seven and a half million tickets were sold in the West End which is incredible.

I couldn't really pin pint where that started but people are going to the theatre and they are made much more aware of these shows so it's all great for us, it's perfect timing for us, to bring out an album like this.

What is next for you?

(S) Well firstly it's launching the album on the 26th November is our biggest immediate focus. Then when we have done that we have got a few small things around Christmas Marylebone High Street the lights there and we are going up to do something for the mayor of Birmingham.

The obviously, as you probably well know, we have got the Royal Variety performance. Once those things are over it's just a case of getting the tour dates together and just doing what we love to do and getting out in front of the audiences and performing.

We have a whole album now to build a show, we could probably add to those songs now, obviously there a musical theatre library of songs we could just put together a show and get ton the road and do what we love best.

Their debut album Teatro is released 26th November

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw