What began as a TV series about a boy band of small town Minnesota boys has turned into the most watched live-action series on Nickelodeon! BIG TIME RUSH is now a hit both on and off the screen with their debut album releasing today and their tour kicking off this evening in Londan, England. BTR consists of Kendall Schmidt as Kendall Knight, James Maslow as James Diamond, Carlos Pena Jr. as Carlos Garcia, and Logan Henderson as Logan Mitchell. We got a chance to chat on the phone with Logan, and here’s what he had to say about their tour, album, fans, and collaborating with Snoop Dogg!
How was your travel to London?
At first we had quite a bit of jet-lag, and I’ve been sort of in a daze, but I’ve literally got more sleep than I’ve ever gotten in my life. I got like, 10, 11 hours of sleep, so I’m good to go.
What are your feelings towards the tour? Are you nervous, excited…?
Oh no, not nervous at all. I’m more excited. The tours been so great, we’ve been to Europe a time before this so to come back and have a little bit of an idea of what’s here, there’s a lot going on, and were very excited. Europe’s awesome.
What’s your favourite: filming the show, recording the soundtrack or performing live?
Oh, I can’t pick! That’s exactly the reason why I love the job. Just when you start to get sick of filming, then we go straight to the studio to go record what we’re working on, and we’re working on a second album already. So we do studio, and then when we get tired of that they’re like “Oh, lets go to Europe and you guys can do some live shows” so we’ve been incredibly blessed with being able to switch it up.
So you’re already working on a second album?
Yeah, it’s been a little crazy. We always go to the studio and record, that’s kind of our lives as artists, we love recording any kind of music we do. But the album has already gone gold in the States, so we’re excited for everyone to get it now.
What was it like recording with Snoop Dogg?
It was the coolest thing ever. It was definitely one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had…[his daughter] was a huge fan and we got to see her, she came to a couple award shows over in the states so we got to see her a few times, she’s a sweetheart.
Do you have any other unexpected fans like that?
Not so crazy, I mean just the fact that we have fans over in the States, and then we come to Europe and there’s fans waiting for us here, and we go to Germany and the fans don’t really speak any English, but they know all the words to our songs, that is the coolest thing that a lot of people don’t really get to experience. It’s such a cool thing to see, fans everywhere, all over the world. For us to get our message out and share it with all these people, and not too long ago, in New York, I had a fan who got me a snowboard. She knows that I snowboard a lot so she bought me a snowboard and I was like “Oh my god, this is one of the craziest gifts I’ve ever gotten”… She like designed the artwork on the outside and got it to me and gave me a full out snowboard.
So your favourite song on the album is “Nothing Even Matters”, why is that your favourite?
Off the album, that was definitely a special song for me. The people who produced [it] did a lot of Jay Sean’s records, and I’m a huge fan of Jay Sean. And the song just has a really cool meaning behind it, and everyone involved with it was just really cool and just that idea of “Nothing Even Matters”, it was such a cool thing because every now and then a lot of different things just get in the way of what we really feel and what we really want to do, to kind of have that be the message that nothing even matters sometimes was kind of cool for me.
How involved are you guys in the actual writing process? Do you guys get to provide a lot of input?
Yeah, I think that’s what every artist puts on, especially pop artists. The best part about working with other guys is that we all come from different backgrounds musically, so to have that along with everyone else’s writing and kind of the collaboration of our favourite producers has been such a cool experience. We’re working on a second album and we’ve worked with Kevin Rudolf who did “Let it Rock” with Lil’ Wayne, and he was more than willing to let us write, so we co-wrote “Oh Yeah” with him. We’ve just had a lot of really cool experiences over the past years that have completely blown us away.
So now that you’ve finished this album, is there anything you want to try or focus on for the next?
I think the biggest thing is finding our own sound, really settling in and finding out what kind of records we want to put out by listening to the fans and listening to ourselves as far as what we want out of the music. And you know, pop roots are great, but it’s making something really special that everybody across the world can connect on, and I think that that was a huge thing for us.
Who are some of your favourite artists?
Oh wow, that is a loaded question. There are so many people! I grew up listening to like old rock n’ roll like The Clash, and Aerosmith is a huge favourite of mine, Radiohead, I love Jet, there’s so many people. Chris Brown’s new album is great, Broken Bells, the list goes on, I love old jazz like Billy Holiday, Donny Hathaway are huge favourites of mine. I think between the four of us we listen to everything made on the earth. So I listen to everything!
Were there any specific artists you guys drew from as inspiration for this album? I know you guys have previously raved about your admiration of ‘N Sync and Justin Timberlake…
‘N Sync was such a huge band back in the day, and I don’t think its so much the influence that we love, its more of the fact that they were such a successful band at what they did because they work hard. With one of them, I think it was Justin but I’m not sure, but it was kind of like “Why did ‘N Sync get so big when there was so many boy bands at the time” and they said, “Well, it’s because we work harder than anyone else.” And that stuck with us, so we are working very hard, I barely get to see my family so that was more of what inspired us. I think just more of going through all of these different experiences together sort of made us realize what we wanted to put out, so there wasn’t really any other band that influenced us, just more of “this is what we’re going through” at the moment, so lets just go ahead and vocalize it and put it out on our records and stuff and we have different family members and different girls and people in our lives who the songs are about them so you can hear it directly from us and directly from our hearts. I think our next album will be a lot more fan influenced because they’ve played such a huge role in our lives so far.
Your character on the show, you’ve described him as the “brains of the operation”, is that like you in real life?
I think people tend to forget sometimes that, maybe the younger audience doesn’t quite catch on as much as the older ones, but it is a character that we’re playing. We’re actors as well as artists, so I think every now and again, I have to be the voice of reason, but I think we all play that part at some point. But the braniac thing, that’s not really the role I play in real life.
Do you guys have your little roles you play in real life in terms of the band?
I think we do in different terms or different times, I don’t know, I’m crazy, I like to have fun. We all have our little characteristics, but there’s nothing specific role that each one of us plays.
Is there anything else you want to say about the album?
I love the album, I hope you guys love it; we spent a lot of time and a lot of work on the songs. It’s a record to dance to and to have fun to and that’s exactly why we made it! And I can’t wait to come and see you guys in Canada!
Thanks, Logan Henderson!
BTR’s album is in stores now, and you can catch BIG TIME RUSH on Mondays at 6:30pm on YTV!
Win a copy of BIG TIME RUSH: SEASON 1, VOLUME 2 here!