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(Left to Right: Tom Gossin, Rachel Reinert, Cheyenne Kimball and Mike Gossin.
Photo Copyright: Hollywood Teen'Zine)
February 9, 2009
COUNTRY MUSIC NEWCOMERS GLORIANA TAKES FANS FOR A RIDE.
(By: Bessie Sorge)
Gloriana, made up of members Tom Gossin, Mike Gossin, Rachel Reinert and Cheyenne Kimball, is making their mark in country music and leaving a lasting impression on their audience.
Fans who gathered to see LeAnn Rimes’ show at the California Theatre in San Bernardino, CA on Tuesday were in for quite a treat when opening act Gloriana graced the stage. The perfectly harmonized quartet radiated with energy on stage and filled the theatre with laughter between songs as Tom explained his dream about having dinner at the Outback Steakhouse and his guitar turning into an onion. “I like to incorporate a comedy routine into our show,” Tom admits. “Between the songs I kind of have a little stand up act.”
When Gloriana takes the stage the talent just exudes from within. Rachel and Cheyenne both shined when showcasing their powerful lead vocals. Rachel performed an unforgettable opening solo in “If Your Leaving” and Cheyenne carried “You Said” away with her soulful vocals while Mike flawlessly strummed every note during his guitar solo. The blend of their powerful vocals together with two guitars, played by Mike and Tom, the Mandolin, played by Cheyenne, and occasionally accompanied by the tambourine, played by Rachel, makes this band stand out far above the rest of their peers.
Capturing the audience from their opening number, a remake of Pure Prairie League’s popular song “Aime,” to their closing number and current hit single “Wild At Heart,” Gloriana received a standing ovation before heading off stage to meet their fans in the lobby of the theatre. The band signed autographs for hundreds of fans, both old and new, and did not stop until everyone had met the band, which just happened to overlap with LeAnn’s opening number.
Gloriana proves that they are ready to conquer the world of country music as they quickly approach becoming the opening act for multi-platinum selling country music artist, Taylor Swift on her upcoming Fearless tour. In fact, Taylor recently proclaimed her admiration of the band on her MySpace blog: “They're AMAZING and I love their new single "Wild at Heart". I heard it and immediately knew I wanted them on this tour.”
Hollywood Teen’Zine got up close and personal with Gloriana backstage before their California Theatre show to bring you the latest on this remarkable band!
Tell us about the story of how all of you met.
Mike: Tom and I are actually brothers. We've been playing music for about ten years together and we had been living in North Carolina,Wilmington actually. We had been doing as many shows as we possibly could - like 250 a year, birthday parties, restaurants, bars. You name it, we were doing it. And we decided to move to Nashville, Tennessee to start a group. We moved there and we started looking for other people to play music with. We had heard about Rachel through good friends and looked her up on her music MySpace page and fell in love with her voice. We were blown away.
Tom: We had this idea. We're big fans of groups like The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac and we wanted to start a group where there is maybe guys and girls and everybody in the group was like a lead singer, you know, and we can kind of trade off throughout the stuff. And, it was just kind of an idea at that point. We thought of Rachel almost right away and got in touch with her on MySpace and it actually worked.
Rachel: So, whenever we tell the story I always say sometimes that it just kind of makes me look bad because you get these, you know, two random guys messaging you on MySpace saying "hey, you wanna join a band?" But, I knew some people who knew them and so they said they were legitimate and that they were cool and that they weren't going to murder me.
Mike: And that we had no criminal record.
Rachel: They had no priors.
Tom: Speak for yourself.
Rachel: We got together shortly after that and started playing music together. And we were playing one night at a place called 3rd and Lindsley and Cheyenne happened to be there.
Cheyenne: I was there. I just love to go see live music and I had been living in Nashville for about two years at the time and my manager got me into this bar to go see live music. I was seventeen, so technically I wasn't supposed to be in there. But, I saw them playing on stage and just fell in love with them and asked them if I can, you know, we talked a little bit it wasn't just like "hey can I join your band." But, we talked for a bit and I told them that I play Mandolin and sing and stuff and we ended up jamming a couple days later and it just kind of clicked. Then we were four.
Who came up with the name Gloriana and what does it mean?
Tom: We actually came up with it as a group. We were in the studio late one night when we were making the album and we had been messing around with the word Glory for a while because we wanted something that represented the harmony and a kind of group sound. So, we came up with a couple different renditions with the word Glory and couldn't really find anything we liked. And we were in the studio one night eating Golden Spoon ice cream together.
Cheyenne: Vanilla with cookie dough chunks.
Tom: I remember there being an ice cream store right next door so we were all sitting in there hanging out eating ice cream and we came up with Gloriana and it just kind of stuck. We liked the tone of it actually.
Cheyenne: Really not an eventful story at all.
Rachel: Very anti-climatic.
Tom: But it was great. Ice cream is great
What influenced your decision to become country music artists?
Cheyenne: Well, we all love country.
Rachel: I mean I was raised on it. Both of my parents lived in the South and they raised me on it, on country music. I was born inSarasota, Florida. I lived in Marietta, Georgia for about the first five years of my life and then moved to California after that. I just had a love for it ever since I was little. And, I've been singing since I was five. So, it was just kind of a natural thing for me.
Cheyenne: My grandfather, actually his biggest dream was to become a country singer. So, he introduced me to Allison Krauss. When I was really young, I was probably seven, he gave me my first guitar actually. I think that it was always kind of in my blood. I ventured out trying to do different types of music but I've been led back to country and it's definitely where I belong for sure.
Tom: Mike and I played literally like every kind of music at one time or another. We both kind of did some schooling music and played classical jazz and rock. My dad is a big music aficionado. He raised us on a lot of like old timing country and southern rock. I think we just kind of now are getting back to our roots. I mean we've always done it in some junction but it's kind of feeling really good to be back.
Individually, who influences your style of music?
Cheyenne: I'm like a sponge. I listen to like anything and everything. If you look at my iPod it's really random. I don't know. I just love all kinds of music and it all influences me.
Tom: I have the most generic answer ever, which is The Beatles. We actually played in a Beatles tribute band for a couple of years and got pretty big in the Southeast. That was one of the most fun bands that I have ever played in.
Mike: For me too, I guess the Beatles. And, you know, not necessarily just music stuff, there's a lot of stuff like movies (and) physical stuff like day-to-day traveling that affects I guess what kind of music you like and influences you.
Rachel: I think the biggest one when I was younger was definitely Shania Twain. I love Shania. I just remember being really little and watching her and looking up to her and loving what she was doing. So, I think that she was probably my biggest influence, especially growing up.
Explain the process of getting signed with Emblem.
Mike: Once the four of us started playing together we just started hitting it hard playing gigs in Nashville. We started to write music and just played music together. We had written a song together actually with our friend Kyle Cook from Matchbox 20 and had this idea to pitch it to the labels.
Tom: We met Matt Serletic who is the head of Emblem Records. At the time, Emblem Records didn't exist actually when we met them, but Matt and his brother were thinking about starting a label on their own. Matt had been the CEO for Virgin Records for a while. He's a producer as well, a genius producer. It was funny, we had an old manager back in the day and (he) kind of sat with us one day in a meeting and said "what do you guys want to do, what's your next step?" And we both looked him and we were just like "get us a meeting with Matt Serletic. We’d love to have him as a producer.” We went and met him a couple years ago and he had said . . . “(I’m) starting my own label” and then “keep me updated on what you guys do.” We actually wrote this song "Time To Let Me Go" and demoed it. I looked at Mike and was like "we've got to send this to Matt Serletic, he would love this." I hoped he'd love it. We sent it out to him and he checked it out. I guess he fell in love with the groups sound, the whole idea, the whole thing and the rest was history.
Mike: That song will actually be on the album. It's gonna make the cut.
Rachel: Shortly after that we started working on our record with him and then he signed us in July.
So your first single "Wild at Heart" has already broke the Billboard charts. How do you feel about that? It's not even released yet.
Rachel: We were really shocked. We kind of freaked out a little bit. We were like "Oh my God, how is this possible?" I actually found out from a friend who text messaged me and said "you guys are number 55," and I was like "what's 55?" and they said "on country billboard charts." Sure enough we went and looked at it and we were like "What? Like, how is that possible?" you know because the single hasn't even been released yet. And my friend was telling me like "you guys got enough spins already for it to be charted." We were just so excited and thankful and couldn't believe it.
Cheyenne: We've been working really hard on this radio tour since the middle of December. A radio tour, if no one knows what it is, we basically go around the country and meet all the country radio stations and let them know who we are and introduce ourselves dressed in the mascot costumes. He (Mike) does. We play live on the air or we play in a conference room for just a few people, you know, just to give them an idea of who we are and play them the single. And doing that puts you in front of these people so they know who you are and just know how much we love doing this. So, I guess that it influenced them to play the record. That's why you do it. But, we've been working really hard doing that. We're glad it paid off.
Tom: We've been so busy with that that we haven't even heard the song on the radio yet.
Cheyenne: I think that was the most shock.
Rachel: I started to get phone calls from friends and people, you know, just all around saying that they heard it on the radio and I keep telling them I'm jealous 'cause you know that moment where we're in the car.
Cheyenne: All together.
Rachel: And we're listening to the radio and then we hear it, you know. But we haven't had that moment yet.
Tom: I'm going to call that our “That Thing You Do” moment.
Explain the video making process shooting your first video and the large scene you attracted in Nashville.
Tom: Well, we wanted to really be a part of the whole thing so collectively the band wrote the treatment for that video, which is kind of cool. They had a lot of director’s kind of send in treatments and we just wanted to do something that we thought we really believed in. We're like "well we can come up with something cool." So, we wrote up this idea and then pitched it to a director and he loved it and so we ended up making this video in Nashville.
Mike: It was cold. It was very cold. It's funny (because) we shot it and it's what like thirty degrees that night we shot it but we had to make it look like it was summer time in the video. So, here we are in like short sleeve shirts and tank tops. We go outside freezing and we have to try and you know stay like happy and smiling and stuff.
Rachel: I think the part you're referring to where it kind of attracted people or whatever is the part where we were in the car and we were on a trailer and the car was, you know, being dragged by another trailer so they could get the close-up shots of us. But, we went down Broadway in Nashville on a Friday night with cameras and this 1977 International scout on a trailer and a police escort driving around us. And, getting the shot on Broadway on a Friday night, you know all these people (were) coming out. It kind of created a little bit of a scene, but it was really cool nonetheless.
So you're going on tour with Taylor Swift in April, are you excited?
Cheyenne: We just found out a couple of days ago. We screamed and she (Rachel) starts crying. And I was looking at her like, wait she was crying, what?
Rachel: I never do that.
Cheyenne: When we found out we kept asking if it was for real. Because we kind of thought it was a dream honestly. It's so exciting.
Rachel: You know, for us as a new group (to go) from performing last year to where we are today is unheard of. I just don't think that we were expecting to be asked to be a part of this tour for maybe another year from now.
Tom: I've been waiting for the call for a long time (everyone laughs).
Cheyenne: We found out a couple weeks prior (that) someone had said "oh hey Taylor Swift actually really likes you guys, and she listened to your music and really liked you." We were like "oh that's cool Taylor likes us, sweet." And then touring?
Rachel: We are so blessed and so thankful.
Tom: It's like a fairytale.
Cheyenne: It kind of is. Are you a princess (Tom)?
I don't know if you guys have heard this, but Taylor is quite the prankster.
Rachel: I haven't heard that.
Mike: I'm the ultimate prankster. So, I am excited.
Do you guys have any pranks up your sleeves?
Cheyenne: When we meet her we'll know.
Mike: I think it's just kind of like out of respect we would have to be pranked first to prank someone back because, you know, it is her thing.
Rachel: So, we say bring it on.
Tom: I'm not amused by pranks so I will be closing a lot of doors.
In your spare time when you're not on stage what do you like to do for fun?
Cheyenne: Well, Rachel and I walked forty-five minutes to a mall today.
Rachel: That's dedication.
Cheyenne: Honestly, I woke up this morning and we finally had a day to sleep in because we've been so busy. So, we woke up at like ten, which is sleeping in to us now, it used to be like two o'clock for me. And I get up and I'm like “Rachel we really need to have a girls day” because we're always together and our tour manager is a guy (and) our label are all guys. So, we really like to just go off and kind of do our own thing and go shopping and just have fun and then we will all meet up for dinner and then just hang out in a van all day and make goofy faces while we're doing interviews, what?
Tom: I'm kind of like boring. I'm so into music that . . . like we've got all these shows and music stuff to do and then I get free time and I end up sitting there with the guitar.
Cheyenne: And your Blackberry.
Tom: Yeah. I got a new Blackberry.
Cheyenne: He can't put that thing down.
Mike: I guess I like to lock myself in a closet, eat some pound-cake and listen to the (Beatles’) White album.
Cheyenne: No, don't lie it's a cheesecake.
Tom: I used to really like cooking and I don't get to do it anymore.
Cheyenne: Yeah. He used to cook for us when we lived in L.A. together when we first joined. We all lived in this little tiny apartment and he would cook. It was awesome.
Rachel: I like to do make-up. I like to go shopping, hang out with my brothers, watch football, eat, sleep, go on the internet.
What has been your most embarrassing moment on stage?
Mike: You (Rachel) might have saw this because this was when I used to stand next to you on stage. I had been playing without a wireless mic. So, I was doing this spin thing where I was like twirling around and the cord was slowly wrapping itself around me and I was trying not to fall over.
Rachel: I remember that! I remember that!
Mike: It was pretty embarrassing. And I think I played once with my fly down too.
Tom: The first gig I had ever played, I think I was like eleven years old. I was on a cruise ship and there was a musician playing on the cruise ship every night. We sat and had dinner with him one night and my parents were like, "oh our son Tommy plays the guitar" and he was like "oh you should get up and do a song with me" and I was like (gasp), you know. He actually called me up to play with him that night and I think I played "Johnny Be Good." It was my first performance ever and my parents were sitting there with the video camera. And we go home from the vacation and watch the tape and my fly was down.
Cheyenne: It wasn't in this band, but I was playing on stage and I had these little platforms on and I like tripped and like my pinky toe like fell out of the shoe. And, then I was like playing the whole show with my pinky toe out and it was so embarrassing. I'm never wearing those shoes again.
Mike: Just your pinky toe?
Cheyenne: It was just my pinky toe, like that's the uncomfortable thing. I slipped and I almost fell off the stage and I look back and my backup band is laughing at me because they saw me almost bite it in front of everybody . . . and I couldn't fix it.
Tom: People were like "yeah, she's good but did you see that pinky toe."
Cheyenne: No, but what happened (is) you know how microphones they have like three prongs at the bottom to balance them out. Well, you're supposed to kind of turn it so that you're in between two of them, but one of them was like sticking out so I like tripped over that.
So what goes through your mind before you go on stage?
Cheyenne: I have to pee.
Mike: That was awesome!
Cheyenne: We'll just leave it at that.
When you go on stage and you see this sea of people looking at you waiting for you to perform, what are you thinking?
Tom: These guys will know, I mean they all think I'm incredibly cheesy, but I like to incorporate a comedy routine into our show, you know. So like between the songs I kind of have a little stand up act. And, it's horrible but, I mean, I 'm trying hard. So, I'm trying to think of good jokes.
Rachel: Honestly, I think that what I think when we see all those people - I just go, "you know what, you never know what they are going to think, but lets just try and connect and just have a good show and reach out to some people."
Mike: I'm just thinking I hope the pyrotechnics don't burn the eyebrows (everyone laughs).
Rachel: What would we do without you?
Cheyenne: Michael is the comic relief in this band.
Mike: If you're not having fun it's not worth it.
Cheyenne: We all have fun laughing with him. And then we've got Pun Man (Tom) over here. We're going to make a series "Pun Man" of him just giving puns. He's always got puns.
What is the last three songs downloaded to your iPod?
Cheyenne:
Fleet Foxes "Mykonos" and "Drops in the River"
Nickel Creek "When in Rome"
Rachel:
Ambulance LDT "Anecdote"
The Feeling "Never Be Lonely"
Keith Urban "Sweet Thing"
Tom:
Kings of Leon
Lyle Lovett
Steve Earl
What is your favorite place to shop?
Rachel: MAC make-up.
Cheyenne: I love Forever 21 because you get amazing deals on everything and also she (Rachel) has gotten me into MAC this past year.
Tom: I love vintage stores.
Mike: I don't really shop that much to tell you the truth. I'm not sure.
Cheyenne: You love Guess and you love Express Men and H&M. We know, he doesn't.
Gloriana’s first single from their upcoming debut album (in stores later this summer) is “Wild At Heart,” which is officially released today for download. Visit the iTunes store to download this song onto your iPod. Be sure to log onto their official MySpace page to find out more information on the band and each of the members.
Gloriana’s upcoming tour dates can be found in our Tour section.
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