The Company Men are on their way to creating an entirely new music genre.
In the last two years, the retro-styled quartet that sparked a music business buzz while gaining legions of fans, focused their talents on their engaging and popular mash-up songs. Their music blends timeless hits from six decades with today's hits.
They interweaved the songs from well-known artists of yesteryear who excelled in multiple genres - from Motown to rock and pop - and used material from Four Tops, The Police, Katy Perry and Bruno Mars, to name a few.
The Company Men have performed on stages worldwide. They've shared the stage with Colbie Caillat, Natalie Cole, Chaka Khan, Jessie Campbell of "The Voice" and LaToya London of "American Idol."
Now, with their new album that dropped today (Oct. 22) and their new live show that kicks off a coast-to-coast tour today (Oct. 22), the mash-up sensations - Daniel Tatar, Stuart Ambrose, Shawn Perucca and Brian Purcell - have evolved by creating a new style of music: throwback pop. Their album, titled oh so appropriately "#throwbackPOP," showcases the group's newly crafted, high energy contemporary pop songs.
The October-November #throwbackPOP tour starts today (Oct. 22) at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles and hits 12 cities, wrapping up at the Cutting Room in New York City on Nov. 18.
We caught up with Stuart Ambrose recently for this exclusive HNGN interview, where he explains what throwback pop is all about, how the four guys originally got together and how the name The Company Men came about (ok, revealing the origin of the name may be a stretch, but read on).
"For us, the shift from mash-ups to throwback pop is a very organic one," Ambrose said. "Having focused our efforts on the music of the last six decades, when we sat down to consider our next album, we said that we want to do our own music and bring on sound to the table. It was a natural step to say, ok, we want to do stuff that's current, we want to do stuff that's relevant today - played on the radio today - but we also want it to still have all those mash-up influences from those past decades.
So, on the new album, you'll hear different influences from different decades on each of the tracks. We're really excited about that."
On "#throwbackPOP," there's original songs like "Bad Reputation," which Ambrose says has "an almost 70's and 80's funk vibe going on." The song "I'm Taking You Home, is "heavily influenced by a kind of Michael Buble sound," and "Standing Strong" captures "an Americana and inspirational song influence."
"Although it is an eclectic collection of songs, it still is part of the same sound we did with the mash-ups," he said. "We love the journey the album takes you on. We're keeping mash-ups, but we're using it as influences on our original material."
Ambrose said the group is already getting feedback from their fans on the new throwback pop sound.
"The funny thing about 'Bad Reputation' is that it is appealing to a wider demographic than we originally thought it would. When we produced that song, we thought that it was going to be purely centered on the 25 to 35 year olds, maybe even 20 to 35. But it's not. We're finding that people in their 40's and 50's and older are relating to that tune. They say they want to hear it again so that they can dance to it. We're very excited how that song is being received."
Listen to "Bad Reputation" here:
"#throwbackPOP" features original songs written by top songwriters, who've penned hits for Justin Bieber, Jason Derulo, David Guetta, 50 Cent, Chris Brown, Timbaland, Flo Rida, Brandy and others. And Ambrose, Tatar, Perucca and Purcell also contributed their own songs to the album, writing such cuts as "Overload," "Crawling Back" and "Love Again."
So, how did The Company Men become The Company Men?
"We had all been performers, but we had all kind of moved away from the music business. We were all starting families and we had to find ways to consistently support them," Ambrose told HNGN.
"We met in 2010 when we auditioned to be in a Frankie Valli/Four Seasons tribute group. Instantaneously, we struck up a friendship and we realized the four of us had a great sound together. We worked in that tribute group for months, filling in on different gigs. But we actually never worked together on stage until March of 2011 when we did a show at the Red Rock Casino off the Vegas strip. We got together after the show and were sitting in a big hot tub. We started talking about how we were frustrated because we wanted to be doing our own thing. We talked about how we could find a better way to support our families and how we could live out our dreams."
It was at that steamy, watery meeting that The Company Men were born.
"In the hot tub, we came up with The Company Men name, the concept for the group, even the website. You know, in show business dreams grow big, but they often die quickly, too. But our dreams didn't die. The dream stayed alive. We worked at it for about nine months, conceiving what our onstage show would be, putting the show together and putting our business practices into place. We went live - officially launching The Company Men - in January 2012."
So, which one of the four actually came up with the name The Company Men?
Ambrose (laughing) revealed the truth. Well, not really.
"It is an argument to this day. If you ask each of the guys, they will give you a different answer as to who came up with the name. They will also give you a different answer if asked who came up with how we were going to do mash-ups - putting all those songs into our show. It's an ongoing, but friendly, argument."
The Company Men played their first performance at Los Angeles' popular M Bar. Soon after, they were playing at the Key Club, an iconic venue on L.A.'s fabled Sunset Strip. Then, boom! They were performing all over the country. On the casino circuit. At performing arts centers.
And now The Company Men have actually become company men.
"When you start a band, you think you're going to spend all your time performing on stage and in the studio making records. You quickly find out that most of your time is spent doing business, such as producing a tour. It's a wonderful experience. We're learning a lot. All of our previous experience in our 9 to 5 jobs has really helped us, because we're actually able to leverage all of those skills every single day in the taking care of the business side of being in a group."
And how do they leverage those talents? Each member of the group has his own "department," Ambrose explained.
"Daniel's expertise is web design. So, he is the designer of our website and he is in charge of our graphic media. That's his department. Brian's department is business development. He works to outline our bookings and our tour. He reaches out to conferences and other potential places we can perform and also works on our radio promotion side, along with our professional radio promoter.
I was a Marine and now I am a reservist in the Coast Guard. I'm not using my maritime experience in my role in The Company Men, but I am most assuredly using the skill sets that I learned as a military officer. Those skills include how to work effectively as a team, how to accomplish a set of goals in a timely and orderly fashion. Helping to manage the various pieces of the music business on a daily basis are the values that I bring to the group.
Shawn, he has spent a lot of time in a recording studio. So he manages our producing process. He is in charge of the studio and producing functions."
The group formed 4 Times Entertainment to keep all the various "departments" on track.
So, four guys who quit their day jobs to pursue music have transformed themselves into The Company Men who work hard at their business - show business and 4 Times Entertainment. They've kind of come full circle.
"Yep, we quit 9 to 5 jobs to do entertainment and now we have a business together," Ambrose said.
Is this a great country, or what?
"For us, this journey is about two main objectives. It's about supporting our families and doing what we love to do. It's not about fame. It's not about fortune. It really is about our families and our music. We are very blessed to be doing what we do."
Check out The Company Men's new energetic video for their infectious "I'm Taking You Home" from "#throwbackPOP" here:
