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You have probably seen them in Disney's latest film RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN, or maybe you heard them on the film's soundtrack, but now you can get to know BrokeDown Cadillac by visiting our featured artist section! Find out all about this new band by clicking here.
March 31, 2009
RANDY DUNHAM AND CORRI ENGLISH RACE THEIR BROKEDOWN CADILLAC ACROSS THE COUNTRY TO FIND A PLACE "SOMEWHERE IN AMERICA!"
(By: Bessie Sorge)
Fronted by two extremely talented musicians, Randy Dunham and Corri English, BrokeDown Cadillac is the latest band to hit the country music scene. The formation of the band may seem like some sort of coincidence, but we like to think of it more as destiny. Randy was playing his usual Saturday gig at the popular local hangout Burbank Bar & Grille when Corri and her sister walked in. By the end of the night Corri joined Randy on stage belting out Pink's hit single "Just Like A Pill." A few weeks later Randy's lead singer left the band and Corri quickly jumped at the opportunity to join Randy in his weekly gig.
BrokeDown Cadillac's lead vocalist Corri English - a native of Atlanta, Georgia - made the long haul across the United States into the world of hopes and dreams, better known as Hollywood, California. Having performed in front of an audience since she was five years old, Corri gained local recognition through the Atlanta Workshop Players group, which ultimately lead to an early hosting career on the kids show "Feed Your Mind." The training and experience Corri gained while residing in Atlanta helped her acclimate to the high demands of the entertainment industry. Upon moving to Los Angeles, Corri quickly landed roles on a variety of television shows, including "Joan of Arcadia," "Dawson's Creek," and "One Tree Hill" and appeared in movies such as "Runaway Jury," "3: A Dale Earnhardt Story" and "Unrest."
For Randy, his trek to the land of opportunity was all of a six hour drive from his hometown in northern California. The dreams of becoming a musician surfaced when Randy began taking guitar lessons at fourteen. Throughout his teenage years, Randy wrote his own music as a necessity to the formation of an original band. Like many artists, the Eagles were a huge influence in Randy's music. "The Eagles are like my favorite band of all time," Randy tells us. Being raised on country music, Randy grew an appreciation for some of country music's finest artists including Don Henley, Garth Brooks and Willie Nelson.
Corri's acting career was placed on hold as a result of last year's writers strike, which provided the break Corri needed to focus on her music and gave Randy the opportunity to solidify his dreams of making music. Corri and Randy brought together a full live band for BrokeDown Cadillac and recorded their first EP album, which just happened to land in the hands of Race to Witch Mountain director, Andy Fickman. Five of their songs were used in the film and two of their songs made it onto the soundtrack. The band was also asked to appear in the film and made a cameo appearance in the country line dancing scene at the bar.
BrokeDown Cadillac recently celebrated the release their debut album at Molly Malones and brought the crowd to their feet by the end of their show. Corri's powerful melodic vocals take front stage center, and together with the band creates an abundance of energy onstage throughout their entire set. "It’s very easy to write for her because she has such a beautiful voice," Randy confesses. "She doesn’t have a lot of limitations." Corri's limitless vocal range and the band's uniquely refreshing sound are showcased in songs such as "Baby's Gonna Start A Fire," "Last Picture Show," and "BrokeDown Cadillac," all featured on their debut album "Somewhere In America."
It's only a matter of time before we see BrokeDown Cadillac selling out stadium sized shows! Hollywood Teen'Zine recently caught up with Randy and Corri to discuss the formation of the band and their recent success.
RANDY DUNHAM
Tell us about your gig at the BB&G (Burbank, Bar & Grille) and meeting Corri.
I was playing with a partner. I had actually gone through a couple of partners at the BBG. It was every Saturday, a kind of residency. We'd play for four hours . . . playing mostly Eagles covers, and Tom Petty, and had the girls do like Cindy Lauper. When I met her she was with her sister, and they were from Atlanta. Her sister was like, "You know my sister is a singer." So I was like, "Well, I guess you are going to have get up and sing." She was like, "Oh no, no, no." After a couple of drinks, she finally loosened up and her sister kind of easily pushed her on stage. She sang Pink's "Just Like A Pill” and she was amazing. I was like, "Goodness, she’s better than my partner." We kept in touch and became really good friends. Then my partner at the time - who was a Broadway singer - she actually got a job in some tour, a Broadway tour or something, and I called Corri and was like, "Do you want to do this?" And she’s like, "Sure." She was pretty gung-ho. I didn’t think anything would become of it because she’s an actress too. I thought she’s going to get a gig and probably bail on me, so it’s probably a temporary thing. Ironically, she's ended up being not only the best partner, but creatively together it was just one of those magical things. Whenever I’m writing I think of her voice, or she comes and writes songs with me. It’s very easy to write for her because she has such a beautiful voice, you know? She doesn’t have a lot of limitations. The whole thing that came out of meeting her was that not only has she became an awesome partner, but we were able to kind of create this original music, which to me is so much more meaningful than just playing other people’s songs.
So what is the story behind the name BrokeDown Cadillac? Who came up with it?
I am always brainstorming ideas and I always find it’s easier to write when you have a good title. I was at Starbucks one time and just had this idea - I just wrote "BrokeDown Cadillac" with nothing behind it. It was Spring Break and I went to Vegas by myself. I’m like, "I’m going to write a song" and I pulled out this title. I wanted to write a story about what this band is about, kind of Corri’s journey because she’s from the South and she came out West to make her dreams happen. I kind of wanted to connect this idea to Corri's story. By the end of the weekend I came home with that song and it just kind of fit the band. We were playing with a couple of names. In this day and age - with the internet stuff - it’s really hard to pin down a name because everything’s taken. We were like, "Let’s look at our song titles, maybe there is something there." Then we were like, "Well, the song’s kind of autobiographical, in a way." So we just said, "What about BrokeDown Cadillac?" That’s how we came up with it, basically derivative of the song, but the song was derivative of Corri’s story. So, it’s almost like autobiographical.
You’ve wrote dozens of songs for the debut album. How hard was it to narrow down the selection to just 11 tracks on the album?
It was really hard. I look at some of my favorite albums and say, "What is the balance?" There always should be a good balance. I a big fan of upbeat music. I couldn’t be a bigger fan of Shania Twain; she has funnest music in town and she has the most beautiful ballads. It was kind of like picking models of my favorite albums and Corri’s favorite albums and saying, "Okay, well there’s like three or four upbeat songs, and there’s three or four ballads, or two ballads, and three mid tempos." We took that approach and said, "Okay, what’s our favorite upbeat songs?" It was kind of narrowed down that way. We have oodles of upbeat songs, and we have oodles of ballads, but you can’t have a whole album of just all ballads or all upbeat stuff. We picked out a couple upbeat songs and then we were like, okay let’s grab three or four of the fun songs, and then let’s look at our favorite ballads. It wasn’t terribly hard, but you’re definitely leaving songs, because you can’t put them all on there. You are definitely leaving out some of your favorite songs because you have so many of the same kind of songs.
Speaking of Shania, how does it feel to be compared to the likes of Shania Twain and the Dixie Chicks?
I take it as the highest compliment. Personally, I enjoy very, very commercial music if it’s done well - with great musicians and a great voice. Nothing can dig down deeper, to me, than a really great hook, and a really great emotion. Emotion comes from the music. Shania Twain, emotionally she can get me up dancing or she can make me cry - same with the Dixie Chicks. There's something very Americana about the Dixie Chicks that I just find it very honorable to be compared to them, because their musicianship is through the roof. They are incredible musicians and their songs are incredibly realized. Whenever we're writing the songs, you know, Corri is the singer, so they are always tailored to be a story that she can tell. The Dixie Chicks I think were masters at doing that - explaining becoming of age, whether becoming of age of relationship, or a girl moving out West. It's just the highest compliment to compared to simply my favorite artists. It’s a really big bonus.
Do you have a favorite song that you like to perform live?
We have a song called “Baby’s Going To Start a Fire.” That song and “BrokeDown Cadillac,” equally because they are both really high energy songs that all the people can dance to. I think that I would rather see people dancing than crying. They are just a lot of fun, and Corri has a lot of fun with them. She is such a wonderful and fun person; just a great entertainer. It gives her the stage to really, really show off - she sings them well, and she has a lot of fun dancing, and she gets people dancing. There is nothing like getting people up off their chairs to dance. And that’s why both of those songs, “BrokeDown Cadillac” and “Baby’s Going To Start a Fire,” in equal measure are just really fun to play.
It seemed to be really well received with the audience at the Molly Malones show at your CD release party. What was the response that you received from that?
We had really, really nice compliments from some of the media people and from a lot of our friends that haven’t seen us before. There was just the reaction of people for the first time of seeing you . . . jaws were agape. That show was really great. It was kind of stress free. Performing sometimes is aggravating, trying to make sure everything’s fine. Our parents were there so it had this extra element. There is nothing I enjoy more than seeing my mom glow, and whenever I’m on stage or Corri’s on stage, both of our moms just light up the room. It’s because of that and it's because of everyone’s energy, that we just had a wonderful time. And the reactions from people were just better than I could have wished for. It was a really good show.
How did you become involved with Race to Witch Mountain?
Corri - she’s an actor as well, an amazing actor - and she had known Andy. He came in there . . . watched us and said "Hey, can we have a demo?" We actually had just finished doing a demo in Atlanta with Jan Smith, who has worked with everybody under the sun. She’s a wonderful producer and she did a great job on our demo. We gave that to him and he flipped over it, and called us about a couple of weeks later and was like, "Do you guys have a dance song?" - because there wasn’t a dance song on the demo. We were like, "Not really, but we have some ideas." We had been intending to write a dance song, but we just hadn’t got around to it. Me and Corri ripped one out in about a week and it ended up on the soundtrack, it was “Boogie Woogie Saturday Night”. It was really cool. I don’t want to say he commissioned the song, but he asked, in a certain way, "Do you have it?" It turned out he was like, "Well, we are going put five of your songs in the movie, and you're going be in the movie." It was like, oh my gosh, like my hair was blown back. It was a pretty good and awesome day.
So, that was all planned at the beginning, that you were going to be in the film and your music be featured in it?
Yeah, he kind of presented it all together. After he said, "Do you have a dance song," it was presented. We played acoustically for him and we got like a call a week later and he's like, "Let's do dinner." And he's like, "Okay, I have good news." I was like, "Who’s going to put five of our songs in a movie?" I mean having one song is a huge deal. Five? Are you kidding me? It was too good to be true. Andy, I know he's the director and I know he has great intentions, but can (he) make this happen? And in the same breath he's like, "And your going to be in the movie, you’re going to be featured in the movie as the band in the bar that the scene happens in." It all came true. It all actually happened. So, it was really amazing.
What was it like working on the set with Dwayne Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig? How was that experience?
You know, it was amazing because all three of those people that you just mentioned are amazingly kind and generous. They made us feel like we were welcome. They were talkative. Alexander, you couldn’t walk on the set without him coming up and hugging you. And AnnaSophia is just a wonderful actor and you can see it in her presence on screen. It’s like that in real life too. She has this very connected, very wonderful presence. And then Dwayne, it's like you don’t want to bother the guy on set. He could not have been more chatty. He would come up to us and talk. We were like, "Are we supposed to be talking to him?" He was just wonderfully nice, and wonderfully kind. It was cool watching them do their scenes because we’re on stage playing and watching them do their scenes. It was really cool.
Were there any funny moments on set?
No, not that I can think of. There was a funny moment before I was on set. The day before we shot, I actually ran my head into a pole and gouged my forehead open. I was thinking I don’t know what I am going to do. I went to Andy and I was like, "Um, I kind of did this to my forehead . . . can I wear my cowboy hat?” I put it on and he was like, "Fine . . . that’ll do." So, that’s why I’m wearing a cowboy hat in the movie. It was to cover up this gouge out of my forehead. So, that was my funny moment, which wasn’t too funny at the time, but it’s funny now.
Now we know the story behind the hat.
Exactly.
So what can we look for to seeing from BrokeDown Cadillac in the near future?
You can see us rocking some shows. Hopefully, you’ll come to some more. Just putting out as much music as we can or whatever resources will let us. We are just continuously writing, continuously playing and hopefully, we will have the opportunity to play some bigger stages and get on the radio and kind of share our music with more people.
CORRI ENGLISH
So, how long did it take to put together your debut album “Somewhere in America”?
We started writing music for the project a couple of years ago. Initially, we recorded a four song EP back in Georgia with Jan Smith, who was a producer that I knew from Georgia, and loved, and I had always wanted to work with. For the past couple of years, we just continued to write more and more songs. I guess it has taken a couple of years to get to this point. We brought in our other players in the band a little over a year ago now. They’ve really helped to bring our songs to another level. Randy, you know, he loves country music, but he also has a rock background in terms of his style - guitar playing and singing and all of that. Our drummer comes from a rock background, and then our bass player and our lead guitar player both have definite county backgrounds. I think the combo is really nice. When we put the band together, I feel that we honed our sound even more. Probably about half the songs have been written in the past year, actually probably more than that. Once we felt like we had the collection that we wanted - once we had honed our sound and we really felt like we had the group of songs that we could be really proud of - we decided to do it. We began recording the album last summer.
Were there any challenges you faced with recording the album so quickly?
Definitely. It was definitely a high pressure situation. We wanted to have album out in conjunction with Race to Witch Mountain. We had been building our fan base and we wanted something else to give them. We wanted them to hear all these songs that we had been writing. We definitely all felt the pressure. It's always a balance. I feel like you probably never have enough time; you never feel like you have quite enough time. Probably even if you are recording a big studio album, you feel like you are not quite ready. But, I definitely am proud of what we created. You know, at the end of the day when we were going into mastering, did we think, "Oh, I wish I had a little more time with this, or I wish we had done this or that?" Yeah, but at the same time, when we got the finished product in our hands and stuck it in the CD player we were thrilled.
You guys wrote over a dozen songs, you and Randy, for this album. How hard was it to narrow it down to just 11 tracks that are featured on the album now?
That was pretty tough. We definitely got some songs that we've held back. What we try to think about is the fact that - not that we won’t continue to write songs - but we already have songs that we would love to put on our next album. The cool thing was that the songs that went on the soundtrack for Race to Witch Mountain are different than the songs on our album. That’s another outlook for a couple of other songs. At the end of day, we sort of asked our family, our friends and our players. We burned a disc for everyone and then said, "What do you like, what do you not like and what are your favorites?" and asked them to write their most favorites and their least. That was such a huge help because we’re so close to the songs that sometimes it’s hard to know which ones are the best songs - mine tend to be the newest songs. My favorite songs are the newest songs because they are fresh and they’re fun to sing and you haven’t performed them a bunch of times. The other thing is that when we write new songs we perform at BBG, and we also perform them in our live shows, and we gauge the audience response. That’s a great tool.
How does it feel to be compared to the likes of Shania Twain and the Dixie Chicks?
It a huge compliment if someone is comparing us to them. I love Natalie Mains, I think she is such a great singer and performer. She's so spunky and full of energy. The Dixie Chicks' music tells stories - it’s the story telling of country music, but with very poignant themes and a lot of integrity in the lyrics - and also, at the same time, really catchy hooks. I think the same goes for Shania Twain. One of the things I really love about Shania is particularly all the stuff that she did with Mutt Lange. They just have these incredible harmonies, and Mutt Lange's harmonies were always very present, almost like a second lead vocal. I think that is something that Randy and I try to do because I think that it takes the song to another level when you have some really cool harmonies happening. Again, the same thing with Shania . . . she's fun to watch, fun to listen to; it’s feel good music that also has a lot to say. If people can say the same of BrokeDown Cadillac, then we will be thrilled.
Do you have a favorite song that you like to perform live?
I would say my favorite song to perform - my two favorites - are probably our opener and our closer. Of course, we change it around, but a lot of times we open with “Chasing the Moon.” That song is just spunky, and I think it’s just a fun song, and kind of gets me excited and running around stage. “BrokeDown Cadillac” is obviously our namesake song. I think a lot of the theme in our music is sort of my story of throwing all my stuff in the back of my car - my guitar and some clothes - driving across the country without a place to live and just kind of going, "Okay, I got some money in my pocket and I’m going to figure it out" and my only goal being to work in the entertainment industry and support myself doing it. “BrokeDown Cadillac," one of the reasons that our band ended up being called that is that, not only do we think it’s a real fun name, but I think that song is kind of representative of us - fanatically, in terms of the feel of the music. We usually end with that song. I just love to sing and perform that song because I feel like I’m telling my story a little bit. It’s not one of our newest songs - I said that my newest songs are usually my favorite - but if I had to pick one song that was my favorite, that would probably be it.
Have you had any embarrassing moments on stage?
Oh gosh, yes! Our very first show as a full band was at Molly Malones, and a couple things happened at that show. You know the stage is set up when you come onto it, and the mic cord for my mic - I think it’s an old cord, and it snaps into the bottom of your microphone - well, apparently I didn’t get it to snap in good because in the middle of our second song, the cord fell out. I didn’t realize it at first, and so I was singing with a mic that wasn’t even plugged in - I grabbed it, stuck it back in and continued to sing. Then I thought, "Okay, I feel really stupid, I’m going to just make a joke about it." I said, "Yeah, you know, it’s good if my mic is plugged in while I’m singing!" Then, during the next song it happened again and I’m thinking, "You have got to be kidding me!" I think my face turned so red, I was so embarrassed. I plugged it back in and after the next song our base player came up on stage. I guess you have to twist it. You know, I should know how to plug in a microphone, for goodness sake. I guess he had to click it or something like that. I was like, "Yeah, I do know how to plug in a mic." I felt really silly.
During the same show - I think it obviously had a lot to do with nerves - but during that show and then the subsequent several shows, it became a running joke that I would have a glass of wine, or something to drink with me at the front of the stage, and I would kick it over every time and soak my set list. Now I have one of those, it’s called a SwirlyGig. It’s basically a cup holder that you put on your microphone. I finally got one of those. That first show, there were definitely several embarrassing moments.
Take us to the moment when you found out that BrokeDown Cadillac was asked to be part of Race to Witch Mountain.
That was awesome. You know, Andy Fickman had taken our demo and we obviously thought he was just being nice. Then he asked us if we had a dance song, like a two-step song and we said, "No." We wrote a song really quickly and then played it for him live. He said, "Okay, great, can you get me a copy of that?" We literally gave him a rough version. We just played into the microphone on the computer and gave it to him. Then a few weeks later we got a call saying that we will have five songs in the movie, and that they were going to shoot music videos to go along with it, and that we were going to be on camera. I think I literally cried. I was so excited. It was just such a huge opportunity, and we just got such a warm welcome from Disney. It really made us feel validated in our song writing. At that point, we were performing our original songs at BBG and we were just putting together our band and getting ready to play out. We were still testing the waters and figuring out how we felt about this band, and we didn’t know how people were going to respond to our songs yet. We knew that our moms loved it, but they’re our moms, they have to love it. We felt like they were putting a lot of trust in us to put our music in this movie because it’s their movie - they need it to great and there were trusting us to be in it and have great music in it. So, it really made us believe in ourselves as much as anyone else believing in us.
What was your favorite part about being on set?
Well, I will say it was like the best performing situation that you could possibly have - you’ve got somebody dressing you, doing your hair and makeup, making you look good. It was like a joke while we were on set because we had to pre-record all of our songs so that it matches up with the film. They have this thing, they call it a thumper or something like that, it’s a base speaker that just thumps so that you can hear the rhythm of your song. Then you have this little earpiece playing the song in your ear, and you have to basically mime playing the instruments and then lip-sync to yourself. There is no music playing live in the room, because there is dialogue happening. We were like, "Man, we’re really good, we haven't missed a note." We were like miming along to ourselves. It was so much fun. There were about 60 country line dancers that played the line dancers at the club. It was just so cool because there's people dancing along to your music. Dwayne Johnson could not have been nicer - just the nicest, nicest person you could meet. Andy Fickman is the nicest person in the world. The producers - everybody involved - really made us feel good about our music and said they really loved the music. It was just fun. I don’t know if there was a favorite part, it was just a really good time.
Were there any funny moments on set?
Oh, gosh, I’m sure there were.
I know Randy mentioned his head collision the day before.
Oh my gosh, that was horrible! He ended up wearing a hat because of it and everyone at Disney Music loved it. They said, "Oh, he looks like a young Dwight Yoakam." It ended up looking really cool, you know, he’s in a honky-tonk bar, it's appropriate for him to be wearing a cowboy hat. He just couldn’t believe that he gashed his head open the day before - or the day of - that we started shooting. That was probably the craziest moment for me too, because I felt so bad for him. I knew that he was just devastated.
For me, as much fun as it was when we did the music video part of it - at the end of one day of shooting, they did like a three camera shoot - they basically said we are going to go through each song one time, and do all the video coverage, and then edit them together. That was a lot pressure feeling that if I missed one word on my lips, it was going to mess everything up. During the first song, I felt really, really nervous. And, like I said, playing as a band was fairly new to us. I would say the hardest part for me was just getting over my nerves of wanting to do a really good job. After the first song, I loosened up and it ended up being fine.
What are the last song downloaded to your IPod?
Ashton Shepherd’s “Sounds So Good." She is a country artist that I am totally loving right now. It is such a fun, feel good song, and she’s got awesome vocals. I’ve been playing it on the way to shows because it’s one of those songs that sort of gets me inspired.
For more information on BrokeDown Cadillac please be sure to stop by their official website. You can also visit their official Myspace website to hear some great tunes off their debut album "Somehwere in America." If you like what you hear then click the album cover below to purchase the album. You can also visit iTunes and puchase their two songs "Boogie Woogie, Saturday Night" and "Southern Nights" that are featured on the Race to Witch Mountain Soundtrack. Stop by our contest corner to find out how to win one of three signed copies of "Somewhere in America."
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