PCM's Rebekah had the chance to talk to Hot Chelle Rae's guitarist and lead vocalist RK Follese before the release of their debut album Lovesick Electric on October 27, 2009. The band's first single "I Like to Dance" has already been featured on "So You Think You Can Dance." RK was a pleasure to talk to and this up and coming band might just be the next big thing.

Q: To give our readers a background, how did you guys from Hot Chelle Rae?

RK: It started with Nash and I. We kind of got together just to play music with no intention of writing together--really just to play music together. We started writing songs together and we realized that we had a chemistry together as songwriters. We went through bass player madness--we went through four--or I don't even know what the number was bass players before we found Nash's childhood friend Ian. He had moved back from Europe and saw us at one of our shows and was like "you guys need bass? I can play bass." He is an accomplished musician so he picked up the bass and then a year and a half later my brother joined the band as the drummer and it just feels like family.

Q: The name came from a crazy myspace fan, what is that all about?

RK: It definitely did. It's kind of weird. We really liked her name and she was posing to be this model on the internet, not just a model but a model that was going to help us. We didn't really have anything going for us and she supposedly knew a bunch of people that could help and was going to hand out our demo. We were hoping for that and then it turned out she wasn't even a real person.

Q: Yeah you never know with myspace. You have to be careful.

RK: Yeah, I know, it's scary. I don't want to end up chopped up somewhere.

Q: You guys all come from families with musicians, did that inspire you to get involved with music?

RK: Yeah, I know it inspired Nash and Ian. For us--Jamie and I, I don't think we could have done anything else. We had other choices, we could have went to school and done that whole thing, but I never had a need to do anything but play music--it was the only thing I actually desired. As cheesy as it is, it was our dream. I got lucky that my brother was good enough at the drums and talented enough of a musician to fill the shoes at an early age.

Q: Did your family give you any advice about the music industry before you got involved with it?

RK: My dad actually told me not to go into the music business. He said "this is an amazing business and a terrible business and I think you should do anything but music." I would always ask him why and he said "because you success rate is impossible and it is full of people that are scary and you can't trust." And I was like "I don't believe that" and of course now I'm in it and I totally understand what he was talking about, but that is kind of how it goes with your parents.

Q: You guys write all of your own songs. How does the song writing process work for you guys?

RK: There are really no rules for the songwriting process. Nash and I do a lot of the writing and then Ian does a lot of writing as well. His stuff is more bass oriented obviously if he come up with something that is really cool we work on his stuff. But it can start with a song title, it can start with a guitar idea, it can start with a scene from a movie, it can start really anywhere. We kind of like to challenge ourselves. We like to think of weird scenarios and interesting situations--you write a lot of songs and you can write the same song over if your not careful.

Q: I read that you wrote a ton of songs for the album, how did you begin to narrow them down and decide which ones were going to go on it?

RK: That is a good question. We write a lot of different styles of music. If we needed to write a rap song or something like that we could write a rap song if we need to. The thing is if we had to boil it down to what we really love, what do we want to play for two or three years or the rest of our lives. It was easy to throw away 25 songs when you are like "man I don't want to be playing that in 10 years--I don't want to play that song next week." You write a bunch of bad ones to get to the good ones and that is kind of how it works for us. Some people are lucky. Coldplay can sit down and write a masterpiece and not have any throw aways, but we have to practice.

Q: Which song off the album would you say best describes the musical style of your band?

RK: I think "Never Have I Ever" or we have a song on the record called "Bushes." I think both of those songs kind of sum up what we are.

Q: Your song "I Like to Dance" was featured on "So You Think You Can Dance," what was it like hearing your song on TV?

RK: It was definitely a freak-out moment for me. I didn't really know how to react to it at first. I was in a room with some girls and they were like "aren't you excited?" and I was super excited, but I just didn't really know how to react to it. It was our first national exposure, it was very very exciting and very overwhelming. I still get excited when I think about it, it was very cool.

Q: How did you guys end up getting the record deal with Jive Records?

RK: We ended up getting that through our managers really. They got us to work with a producer who did half of our record. His name is Eric Valentine and it was July of last year. We did a song with him--one of our stronger songs on the record, it is very radio friendly it's called "Bleed." We did that song with him and that song had been past around to a bunch of people and one of the people that it got passed to was Michael Tedesco. He is A&R west coast for Jive. I think literally the next day he was on a plane to see us. We had a show on a Wednesday night at Exit Inn in Nashville. The a week later Jeff Fenster who is our A&R was on a plane to see us again. We had two shows back-to-back that week and it really happened really fast. We signed our deal October 27 of last year and our record is coming out October 27 of this year.

Q: you guys have gotten to open for some really big artists like David Cook and soon Third Eye Blind, what is it like to go on the road with such big artists?

RK: I feel very fortunate to do that. These bands are very popular and we are very luck to be able to do that. It's amazing, it's the biggest rush. I've never ridden a motorcycle, but I feel like it would be like riding a motorcycle at 200mph down the interstate for 45 mins. It's pretty crazy.

Q: Speaking of crazy, do you have any crazy on the road stories?

RK: We just got asked this question and we don't have any crazy on the road stories, but the craziest thing that has happened to us so far has been our very first west coast show at the Roxy. The Roxy has a rock and roll heritage there, a lot of stuff has happened there, it's crazy. It was a big deal to play there and when we showed up there they were shooting a heavy metal video. There was probably about 20 half naked girls in there while we were supposed to be sound checking. It was pretty intense. Then when we walk up the stairs at the top of the stairs is Ron Jeremy standing there. We walk into our dressing room and some guy from another band offers our bass player cocaine. I would say that it is pretty much the most cliché rock scene known to mankind. We were kind of overwhelmed, we don't roll like that.

Q: What do you guys do when you are not working on music and playing shows?

RK: Really we are kind of always working on music, but I guess you can't do that all the time. It wears you out--if you work on music for too long you start to hate it. My brother and I we like to play videogames. We like to shoot trap, which is going to totally make me look like a redneck. We like a lot of stuff. We really like going to the movies all of us--that's a good filler. We like to have a good time and go out to bars and stuff like that. But most of the time we really just do music. I can't even take a vacation ever and I don't want to take a vacation because I feel guilty about not writing songs. If I'm gone for more than two days, I'm like I have to get back and work on something.

Q: I see that you guys are really into the social networking sites, what is your favorite way to connect with fans on there?

RK: I'm a Twitter-aholic. You probably don't even want to follow me on Twitter because I'll probably just annoy you. My favorite thing is Twitter. Facebook is cool and Nash really does a lot of our Facebooking and stuff like that. I'm random and I like to just say whatever the heck is on my mind on Twitter and sometimes it's funny and sometimes it's not. It's kind of spur of the moment and I don't really put too much thought into it.

Q: Do you guys manage all your own Twitters and Myspaces and stuff?

RK: Yeah, it's kind of important I think. I guess if you big enough it becomes impossible, but we're not by any means and it is fun to do that stuff. It means a lot when any Tweets at me and says something about our stuff, I'll respond or Tweet or message back. It's important--all those messages and all that stuff really means a lot to us. We are really thankful when we get any kind of message or anything like that because we were there for so long not getting anything like that. You have to start somewhere.

Q: What are you guys most excited for about the release of your debut album?

RK: We are really excited to shoot a music video because that is definitely a childhood dream. We're excited to just go build this thing. We are excited to put the record out and to go out there and just build it one person at a time and make it happen, kind of do it the old way.

Q: Anything else you would like to share with our readers?

RK: I'd say buy music, that's a good thing to say. Buy music so we can keep playing it.

Q: Alright well thanks for talking to me and good luck with your career, and the album, and the tour.

RK: Thank you very much. Bye Rebekah.

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