Take Your Clothes Off and Join the Party Time with Gym Class Heroes

Gym Class Heroes are set to release their new single, 'Clothes Off' on August 20th through the Decaydance/Fueled By Ramen label. They have just finished a series of live headline dates in the UK and are also heading to Reading and Leeds festival next month.

The forthcoming single, 'Clothes Off' is on the Upfront List at Radio 1 and has also been added to the Capital Radio Play List. Taken from the current album As Cruel As School Children, it uses a sample from the 1985 pop classic 'We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off' by Jermaine Stewart. The accompanying video is on rotation at The Box, The Hits and Kiss TV.

'Clothes Off' follows the phenomenal success of the UK Top 3 Smash Hit (and US # 1) 'Cupid's Chokehold (Breakfast In America)'. The track, which was A-listed at Radio 1 and Capital, peaked at no.1 in the UK airplay charts, whilst residing comfortably within the UK Top 10 for more than 2 months.

Rightly recognized as true pioneers of live hip-hop, Gym Class Heroes has won popular and critical acclaim for kicking out genre-busting jams that seamlessly meld rap, rock, pop funk, R&B, and anything else that happens to strike the musically voracious outfit's fancy. They have taken America by storm with 'Cupid's Chokehold (Breakfast In America)', written by Roger Hodgson, formerly of Supertramp and Rich Davies of Supertramp. The track uses the hook from the 1979 hit song, 'Breakfast In America' and features guest vocals by Patrick Stump (who also has a cameo role in the video).

The album, As Cruel As School Children is marked by its diverse grooves and warm organic textures. "Our music is rooted in hip-hop," explains lead vocalist Travis McCoy, "but not restricted to it." In fact, crucial to the album's buoyant sound, was their mutual love for the funk-flavoured mainstream R&B of the 80's a la Prince and Ready for the World. "Some of the arrangements in that stuff just blow me away," says Travis, "Those are the songs that last forever. We're definitely interested in making that type of music."

Always challenging perceptions of what hip-hop and indie rock could or should be, Gym Class Heroes are doing things on their own terms. "In a sense," says McCoy, "we're a lot like the chubby kid smiling away on the album artwork. Everyone has an opinion of who he is and what he should be. He keeps smiling and doesn't change. Instead he waits and watches the world around him change to fit his standards. This album is the chubby kid's middle finger held high."

By ILikeMusic.com

MCCOY- The tattoo is one of my biggest regrets

Travis Mccoy, a singer form the band Gym Class Heroes truly regrets his teenage times - he regrets for the tatoos he has had done when being young. This is so because the image of a graffiti can on his arm reminds him of his criminal past. The frontman of the band used to love the illegally spraying artwork in areas of his hometown of Geneva,NY as a child. He even had a spray can tattooed onto his arm. Man, this guy really got carried away with this stuff. Travis stated that the tattoo is one of his biggest regrets.

"I liked to graffiti when I was younger and when I was 15 I got a spray can tattooed on my arm. I come from a small town and was one of two kids that wrote graffiti, so it was like the scarlet letter, the dumbest idea ever! If anything ever went down, they'd come to my house like, 'Yeah sure, it wasn't you a**hole, with that tattooed on your arm'."

By ContactMusic.com

100 Greatest Cover Songs

The cover songs below are in alphabetical order. There are also shortlists of the 10 greatest and worst 10 covers ever.

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Gym Class Heroes - behind the scenes

That Gym Class Heroes owe their sudden success to a Supertramp sample should tickle parents of their predominately teenage fans. At the hip-hop band’s biggest British gig to date, well-behaved boys with their baseball caps worn sideways and groups of middle-class girls in purposely tacky attire were trying hard to assert their independence, but had been snagged by a song from their dads’ dancing days.

Formed six years ago in New York State, Gym Class Heroes exploded this spring with Cupid’s Chokehold, a catchy but corny, transatlantic chart smash based on Breakfast in America, Supertramp’s 1970s super hit.

Serious hip-hop fans were left cold, yet to dismiss the group as a novelty act is selling them short. The quintet’s current album, As Cruel as School Children, blends buoyant raps from the towering frontman Travis McCoy with funk grooves, guitar and beats played by a real drummer. The results are refreshingly fun, if hardly ground-breaking, while lyrics that avoid both gangsta clichés and social politics at least make them unusual.

On a UK tour last year to support their friends Fall Out Boy, whose singer makes a guest appearance on Cupid’s Chokehold, Gym Class Heroes were frequently booed or bottled. In front of an audience aware that their primary mission is to get a party started, they couldn’t put a foot wrong. In a cute start, the band throw their baseball caps in to the crowd – handily, McCoy, who opted to keep his on, had a spare on his mike stand. Fans were encouraged to wiggle their fingers in the air during the swampy Shoot Down the Stars and fast-clap to Taxi Driver, a prefame favourite that mixed Jurassic 5-like bouncy beats with R&B.

McCoy rambled too long on his love of London and beautiful girls, but delivered an impressive punch with The Queen and I, not a high-five to the monarchy, but a rant against girls who drink too much. Needless to say, the drunken females down the front joined in its chorus with a gusto that proved they had missed the point. They then headed back to the bar during a retooled Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations, a step too far into dads’ territory. Yet the forthcoming single Clothes Off!, based on Jermaine Stewart’s naff 1980s hit, went down a storm. At that age, there’s no telling them.

By The Times

Ja Rule And Lil Wayne arrested in New York after concert

Hip hop artists Lil Wayne and Ja Rule were arrested Sunday evening after a concert in Manhattan on charges of criminal possession of weapons, each in separate incidents, a New York Police Department spokesman told CNN.

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"Cupid's Chokehold" by Gym Class Heroes has been on the Billboard chart for 6 months

The band's popular song, "Cupid's Chokehold/Breakfast in America," has been on the Billboard chart for six months now.

Frontman Travis McCoy told MTV News why he thinks the song has been so popular. "It was time for a song like that to come around, you know? A lot of people are banking on their sorrow and just bad experiences with females. I feel like there are some girls that are out there that are kind of cool and they deserve a song written about them, you know? So, it's a universal anthem for any girl out there who likes to play video games with their boyfriend and cook them breakfast and pancakes and all that."

Travis also clarified what influenced the song. "Just like any other adolescent male, I've been through a lot of weird relationships with girls and this song is basically... it's a little sarcastic, about the perfect girl who kind of doesn't exist, you know what I'm saying? But, I don't know, maybe she does, I just haven't been to Africa yet."

By MTV News