Pipe Dream sat down with Gym Class Heroes’ Matt McGinley before Sunday’s sold-out show to talk about touring, tattoos and going back to college. McGinley started the band with vocalist Travis McCoy after the two met in physical education class, hence the group’s name.
Release: Is touring professionally difficult? You’re young ‘ is it difficult moving around all the time?
Matt McGinley: I think it can be. It’s getting to the point where you work so hard that now we’re starting to see a lot of things pay off. I totally respect bands that just get in a van and just tour and just do that. For us, we’ve been able to have a pretty much, a snow-ball effect for our career. I feel blessed that we can just get in a bus and, like, actually get good sleep and not have to drive ourselves around anymore. But that being said, I’m also thankful that we did take those steps to becoming successful. I’m glad that we actually worked hard for it. I think success tastes a lot sweeter knowing you actually gave your all to do something.
Release: You’ve been playing a lot of college tours and you’ll be playing a lot more college tours. Is that different from playing Warped Tour or a show like that?
MM: Yeah, it’s definitely different. It’s really cool, but it’s definitely different. A lot of times, college kids ‘ it’s a different atmosphere playing for college kids than it would be playing a club, where it’s all ages. Lyrically, the way Travis writes and a lot of the content, I feel like a lot of times it’s almost geared towards college-aged people. And I feel like sometimes when you’re playing a normal show, you can almost see it go over people’s heads. But I think the college kids, they get it.
Release: You have some pretty cool tattoos, what are they of?
MM: A bunch of random shit [laughs]. Our singer does tattoos, and when he first got his apprenticeship or whatever, he needed guinea pigs, so I let him work on me.
Release: What do they mean?
MM: I don’t know really, I mean, I was just like ‘ we sat down, and he was like, ‘I just wanna draw random things.’ So yeah, we did this boom box with a boxing glove. It says ‘don’t think so hard.’ And over here it says ‘just live,’ I think ‘ I don’t know [laughter].
Release: You’re also playing a lot of upstate New York shows. Is that because you guys are from upstate New York or you just happen to be here?
MM: Just so happens. I mean, we didn’t necessarily choose the routing ourselves, but yeah ‘ [laughter] but we’re stoked to be in our neck of the woods. I have friends coming out tonight to the show. It’s very rare that a lot of people that we grew up with get to see us because we’re playing all over the world. We’re actually playing in our hometown of Geneva in two days. We haven’t played in Geneva since we’ve been big. So it’s almost dramatic to go back there.
Release: How does your family feel about you touring?
MM: I think my mom’s really stoked. I mean, at first I don’t think she was worried, but when I was just like, ‘Mom, I’m dropping out of college, I’m going to tour full time,’ she was just like, ‘Wow, do you really wanna do that?’ But she was accepting of it, and I think now it’s kind of paid off. I’m still trying to get my college degree, though.
Release: Really?
MM: Yeah, I only have one year left. I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. I’m going to try and see if they’ll just toss me a degree. They can just use me as alumni, you know?
That was my thing. I was like, I have a gold record and a platinum record and a Moon Man, like, you know what I’m saying, can we work something out? I think to round out myself as a person, I think it would be really cool to have a degree as well.
Release: What degree were you pursuing?
MM: It was in music industry.
Release: That’s fitting.
MM: It is, you know? I actually didn’t really like that major all that much [laughter]. Once I started doing this full time, I actually really got to see the inner working of how stuff goes on and I was actually like, ‘I wouldn’t really wanna work at a record label.’