{"id":5004,"date":"2012-02-29T00:47:52","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T07:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=5004"},"modified":"2012-02-29T00:47:52","modified_gmt":"2012-02-29T07:47:52","slug":"gym-class-heroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2012\/02\/gym-class-heroes\/","title":{"rendered":"GYM CLASS HEROES"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"GYM CLASS HEROES<\/strong><\/h1>\n

After a much-needed break, a hip-hop heavyweight rocks with a hot sequel<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Gym Class Heroes fans who\u00a0feared your favorite hip-hop group was gone forever during the long wait for a new album since 2008\u2019s The Quilt<\/em>: Co-founder and drummer Matt McGinley feels your pain. \u201cI know the passion I feel for other bands that I get ridiculously excited about when they put out new albums,\u201d says McGinley, enjoying a rare day off the road at his New Jersey home. \u201cI know how it is when a band says they\u2019re going to take a break, and you wonder if that means they\u2019re breaking up. I\u2019m a big fan of the Killers, and I don\u2019t even know if they\u2019re a band anymore. Are they?\u201d (They are.)<\/p>\n

McGinley says Gym Class Heroes never stopped being a band, despite the breakup rumors that preceded their fifth and latest album, The Papercut Chronicles II<\/em>. The members simply needed to get a few things out of their systems\u2014in McGinley\u2019s case, his desire to complete his college education. \u201cI\u2019d be writing an essay on the tour bus or finishing a quiz in a hotel room in Germany,\u201d he says. \u201cWe all put everything else on hold when we formed the band, and that\u2019s what we wanted to do. But we knew if we didn\u2019t go back and do these \u00a0things we\u2019d always regret it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new effort\u2019s title harkens back to 2005\u2019s The Papercut Chronicles<\/em>, which first earned them a major-label record deal. \u201cWhen we started out we were like schoolchildren with a brand-new big-budget record,\u201d McGinley says. \u201cWe were green and na\u00efve and didn\u2019t spend a lot of time on pre-production, but we made a good record.\u201d Endless touring, appearances at major festivals and recording dates with Lil Wayne, Busta Rhymes and others followed.<\/p>\n

While recording the new album with longtime producer Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy, the group melded their refreshed enthusiasm with the hard-earned instincts of veterans. Chronicles II<\/em> has already spun out a Top 5 pop single, the Adam Levine-assisted \u201cStereo Hearts.\u201d \u201cWith professional musicians, especially in new bands, there are a lot of people pulling the strings,\u201d McGinley says. \u201cWe never fell into a trap, and that has been a blessing for us. When bands say they\u2019ve matured it sounds like a clich\u00e9, but it\u2019s a lot more abstract than that. For us, we\u2019re still making music that is accessible and fun to listen to but has a lot more depth than our previous efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Nancy Dunham<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GYM CLASS HEROES After a much-needed break, a hip-hop heavyweight rocks with a hot sequel Gym Class Heroes fans who\u00a0feared your favorite hip-hop group was gone forever during the long wait for a new album since 2008\u2019s The Quilt: Co-founder and drummer Matt McGinley feels your pain. \u201cI know the passion I feel for other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[3140,2864,10156],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5004"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5004"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5006,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5004\/revisions\/5006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}