Also in today’s Biz Break: Tim Heidecker’s polarizing Comedy finds a buyer, Matthew Lillard’s Fat Kid heads to Cannes, an Italian festival war turns even uglier, and more… The Tomb opens for Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Co. Shooting is underway on the prison-break action thriller pairing two of the ’80s most iconic stars with Jim Caviezel, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Amy Ryan, Vincent D’Onofrio and more. Mikael Hafstrom directs for Summit Entertainment. Focus’ Admission , with Tina Fey and Paul Rudd, Gets Shooting Paul Weitz will direct the film based on Jean Hanff Korelitz’s 2009 novel of the same name, featuring Fey as a Princeton University admission officer who is caught off-guard while visiting an experimental high school whose co-founder (Rudd) attended college with her. Life-changing revelations ensue; Michael Sheen, Gloria Robin, Wallace Shawn and Lily Tomlin co-star. The Comedy Goes to Tribeca Film Tribeca Film has announced its acquisition of director Rick Alverson’s controversial character study , which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. The film centers on a Williamsburg hipster (Tim Heidecker) who is indifferent to the fact he’s an heir and whiles away his on “games of mock sincerity and irreverence.” Eric Wareheim, Gregg Turkington (a.k.a. Neil Hamburger), and LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy co-star. Tribeca Film plans a select theatrical release day and date with on-demand platforms where it will be available in 40+ million homes through a variety of video-on-demand offerings, as well as iTunes, Amazon Watch Instantly, VUDU, Xbox and Samsung Media Hub. Fat Kid Heads to Cannes Matthew Lillard’s SXSW Audience Award-winning directorial debut Fat Kid Rules the World will go to Cannes with Outsider Pictures, which has acquired the international sales rights. Adapted from K. L. Going’s young adult novel, the film centers around Troy Billings — age 17, overweight and suicidal. Just as he’s about to jump in front of a bus, he’s saved by Marcus, a charming high school dropout / street musician. Around the ‘net… IFC Films to Save the Date Michael Mohan’s ensemble romantic comedy, featuring Lizzy Kaplan, Martin Starr, Mark Webber, Alison Brie and Geoffrey Arend, has scored distribution through IFC Films. “Michael Mohan has made an emotionally moving and often very funny film about commitment, skillfully transplanting Jeffrey Brown’s graphic novels,” said IFC president Jonathan Sehring. Deadline reports . Italian culture minister blasts Rome Film Festival The festival’s controversial decision to shift dates to November — thus directly competing with the 30 year old Turin Film Festival and the 53-year-old Festival dei Popoli in Florence. The move is “against the overall interests of Italian cinema,” according to culture czar Lorenzo Ornaghi. THR reports.
“Alan Rickman has signed on to play the legendary owner and founder of CBGB in Randall Miller and Jody Savin’s project revolving the seminal New York rock club. Rickman will play Hilly Kristal, who in the late 1970s sought to create a venue for county, bluegrass and blues music (the ‘CBGB’ of the name) in New York City. But after acts playing that music were tough to find, Kristal allowed local performers to play. That decision was precipitous, as the club soon became ground zero for rock & roll as well as punk, launching the careers of performers such as The Ramones, Blondie and Patti Smith.” On the other hand, this was supposed to shoot last fall ; let’s hope the Rickman coup pays off for the new June production date. Developing… [ THR ]
Jessica Szohr has the unfortunate name that I pronounce as SORE even if it isn’t the way she wants it pronounced…..shit always reminds me of herpes, but then again so do most celeb wannabe bitches…cuz I know what it takes to get where they want to be in their careers…you know they don’t just hand out TV roles, they make a bitch work for it…but we don’t have to worry about any of that, you know since we never met the bitch and will never meet the bitch…which may be representative of how pathetic our lives are that this one girl is not attainable…but we didn’t need hollywood for that….we get enough rejection in everyday life to realize that….and I guess what it all comes down to is that the one thing that was probably SZOHR after these pics were taken and she warmed up was her nipples…them shits are hard. TO SEE THE REST OF THE PICS FOLLOW THIS LINK
‘We’re all looking forward to this next chapter,’ Nick Jonas says of the shakeup. By Jocelyn Vena Jonas Brothers Photo: El Universal The Jonas Brothers have been tweeting with the hashtag #JB2012 lately. And it seems that it now has a whole new meaning as the brothers enter the next chapter of their careers. Nick, Joe and Kevin have confirmed they are leaving Hollywood Records, the Disney-owned label they’ve been with since 2007. In addition to parting ways with Hollywood, the band of brothers has confirmed that they also bought the rights to their master recordings, merchandising and publishing. In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter , Nick opened up about the decision to push forward with their music career without the assistance of the label backing them. “This was a decision that we made as a group,” he said. “Naturally, as with any partnership, when you do part ways, there is emotion tied to it. We’ve been blessed to have a lot of success with Hollywood and with Disney, but speaking on behalf of my brothers and our team, we’re all looking forward to this next chapter. We’re ready for that next step as a group, and being able to take our work with us was so important.” As of now, the band is label-less, their manager Johnny Wright confirmed. He added that the guys, who are currently working on their next album, will seek a different type of deal if or when they sign with another company. Their next deal, he added, will give them more control. “This will allow them to chart their own destiny,” he said, adding that given their relationship with Disney had pretty much come to the end of the road, this decision came at the perfect time. “The industry and distribution channels are changing so rapidly, we don’t even know what it means anymore to put out a record,” he explained. “If we wanted to take another deal with a major, it would be different than what we entered into when we signed with Hollywood. We don’t have to become just an artist to the label, we could be a partner or do it ourselves and then come back later on. There’s no plan here — the plan is whatever we decide to make it.” The guys are now focused on the future, which as a group includes their next album . Individually, Nick will wrap up his run in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” on Broadway this July , and Kevin, with his wife Danielle, will premiere their E! reality show this August . Joe is coming off of a solo album he dropped last year. “In these past three years, my brothers and I have not released a record, but we’ve really come into our own as men,” Nick explained. “And we’ve also lived life, which is an important part to making a record. … I’ve got a studio set-up in my apartment in New York where we can all put down our ideas. It’s a really liberating feeling to just be able to create and write whatever is on our hearts.” The newly free agents’ next album, the follow-up to 2009’s Lines, Vines and Trying Times, should drop by the end of 2012 or early 2013 . Related Videos MTV News Extended Play: Nick Jonas Related Artists Jonas Brothers
Taylor Swift is under consideration for another major movie role. After losing out on the character of Eponine in a big screen version of Les Miserables , Variety now reports that Swift may portray music legend Joni Mitchell in an upcoming biopic . The film is being developed by Sony Pictures and Di Bonaventura Pictures’ and would be an adaptation of Sheila Weller’s book “Girls Like Us.” The role would also mark Swift’s first dramatic turn, as she recently voiced a character in The Lorax and appeared in Valentine’s Day . The movie will follow around the careers of Mitchell, Carly Simon and Carole King, with Alison Pill rumored for the latter artist. [Photo: WENN.com]
To ‘make it’ in Hollywood, young actors used to kick-start their careers in television, sharpening their skills and earning notoriety (and maybe an Emmy or two) before frolicking in the greener grass of feature films. Today, with the growing budgets, themes, and imaginations of series TV, episodes have almost become mini movies, inspiring a newer generation of stars to not only gravitate toward television, but maybe even stay there — even as their careers take off. Alison Brie and Gillian Jacobs epitomize this trend, two actresses who earned their comedy stripes on NBC’s Community , a place where dreamatoriums come to life and paintball wars are aplenty. Meanwhile, the pair is also on the Tribeca Film Festival circuit this year — Jacobs with the dark indie comedy Revenge for Jolly! and Brie with tonight’s Tribeca opener, the buzzy hit-in-waiting The Five-Year Engagement . While both actresses studied theater in college — Jacobs at Juilliard and Brie at CalArts — they began their respective careers on opposite ends of the spectrum. Jacobs spent years working on small indie films and TV roles, while Brie supported herself doing regional theater in Ventura County, never thinking twice about TV. “In my sort of young, idealistic mind, I was just like, ‘Well, it’s either theater or film for me, and that will be that!'” Brie explained. That changed after booking a surprising first TV role on Disney’s Hannah Montana , sparking an epiphany for Brie. “I realized that I love acting, no matter what I’m doing,” she said. “And it was a great time for good news, because I got Mad Men right after that, and that led to Community . I couldn’t be happier.” Like her Community co-star Joel McHale, who also hosts E!’s weekly celeb-culture rundown The Soup , Brie still juggles two roles today: uppity, picture-perfect housewife Trudy Campbell on AMC’s Mad Men , and doe-eyed schoolgirl Annie Edison on Community . “I got lucky, and it’s amazing to be able to work on both shows and have them be so different in tone,” she said. “Working on one of the best dramas and one of the best comedies on TV has certainly opened a lot of doors for me in terms of being able to show some range and not get totally boxed into one thing [for films],” she added. “I went to college and got my degree in acting, but because it was all theater, I really consider my first couple years on Mad Men as amazing training for working in television and for acting on-camera.” For Jacobs, Community allowed her to showcase a side of her that no one had seen before. “I had never done comedy before,” she told Movieline, “and I was desperate to break into it because it gets really tiring when you’re always playing prostitutes and strippers and rape victims.” And like Brie, Jacobs doesn’t take the opportunity or the experience for granted. “I joined a new club in the world of comedy,” she said. “And the fact that [ Community ] has turned into this sort of thing totally unto itself and unlike any other show on TV has just been an added bonus of the whole experience.” Yet where contemporaries (and fellow TFF ’12 stars) like Adam Brody and Olivia Wilde only a few years ago aggressively sprung from a cult darling like The O.C. into movie careers of mixed results, neither Brie nor Jacobs feels comfortable choosing between television and film. “I feel like the kind of role that I’m getting to play on TV, I don’t know how often those come along in films,” Jacobs said. “I feel like I’ve been very fortunate in that I feel constantly creatively challenged and pushed on my show, and I don’t know if that would be the case if I were asked to play the same variation of one character in movies. No actor wants to choose — they just want all of the options available to them all the time; we tend to be pretty greedy.” Meanwhile, Brie sounded even more resolute about the small(er) screen. “While I love film and want to continue to pursue it 100 percent, my home is TV,” she said. “My mom and dad are Mad Men and Community , and it honestly feels like working on mini-movies every day. “The original transition was quite easy, because the caliber of writing, directing, and acting and the nuance of the performances on Mad Men are like shooting a dramatic film. I can say the same thing about Community , with our amazing writers and the caliber of acting that we’re working with in a comedic respect.” Moreover, the unique qualities and style of the single-camera comedy have given both a leg up in the film world. “I felt like I’ve been doing three years of comedy boot camp, and when the opportunity came to do The Five-Year Engagement , I felt very prepared and confident in my comedic skills because of the training that I got on Community ,” Brie told Movieline. “I also just worked on a film called Get a Job , and my character is odd — sort of inappropriately sexual and just weird — so Dylan Kidd, the director, gave me a lot of freedom to have fun and play around and try to say the weirdest things that I could come up with. I know that he is a fan of Community as well, so I think that it’s the work that I’ve done prior on the show that gave him the confidence to trust me with that kind of improvisation and input.” Although there is some improvisation on Community , Brie noted that “you don’t have all the time in the world to improv and come up with ideas [on TV]; you’re on a much tighter schedule in terms of shooting episodes in five days or seven days.” When it comes to film, especially in Five-Year , there was a bit more leeway. “Because we have a lot of scenes where it’s like engagement party speeches or shower speeches — a lot of speeches going on! — you have the luxury of extra time to collaborate,” she said. “At one point [director Nicholas] Stoller even e-mailed us prior to the scene and was like, ‘Hey, everyone just think of funny, inappropriate speeches; just think of weird stuff to do!’ because we had all day to play with it.” As Britta Perry on Community , the closest that Jacobs has been to putting on the red light was belting “Roxanne” in a recent episode. However, her role in Revenge for Jolly! ( premiering Saturday at Tribeca ) has her playing — drum roll, please — yet another prostitute. “Filming that movie was a total return to form for me — shooting in a crappy hotel in Nyack, N.Y., dressed as a prostitute; it was down and dirty filmmaking at its finest,” she said with a laugh. “And basically, the two leads are going on a killing spree, so I think there’s a high likelihood that I’m going to get shot in that film, or die in some way!” Also on the way this summer is Seeking a Friend for the End of the World , led by Steve Carell and Keira Knightley. Jacobs described her role as “small and silly, playing a waitress high on ecstasy alongside T.J. Miller,” while also noting that “the nice thing so far is that I’ve been sort of able to balance between a bunch of different worlds: bigger movies, TV, and still smaller indie films as well.” As for the future of TV and movies, and which is inevitably the dominant medium? “It’s kind of like what I think Joel [McHale] has said before: ‘It’s the best of times and it’s the worst of times of TV,'” Brie said. “There’s the lowest of the low in terms of reality TV, and then there’s also kind of some of the best of the best on television shows like Mad Men, Community, Breaking Bad and Girls — it feels like you’re watching movies!” Read all of Movieline’s Tribeca 2012 coverage here . Alyse Whitney a New York-based writer, currently with TVLine.com . Her work has been featured in Bon Appétit and a handful of other publications, and you can also find her on Twitter .
‘I was interested in doing a film that was smaller scope than the films I had done previously,’ actor tells MTV News. By Kevin P. Sullivan Olivia Wilde and Chris Pine in “People Like Us” Photo: DreamWorks Pictures Chris Pine and first-time director Alex Kurtzman have a few things in common. Both made names for themselves with large action movies like J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” and “Transformers” (Kurtzman as a writer and producer), and the upcoming film ” People Like Us ” marks a distinct change for both men. “People Like Us” is the story of a young man who falls on hard financial times just as he learns that his recently deceased father has left a small fortune to a sister he doesn’t know. MTV News spoke with Pine about the change of pace for him and what it was like working with co-star Elizabeth Banks. MTV News : What was it that attracted you to the script originally? Chris Pine : What attracted me to the film was just the quality of the writing. I was really interested in doing a film that was smaller scope than the films that I had done previously in the past couple years. This one was an intimate family drama, and I thought even the anomalous experience of someone finding out that their father had a completely separate family, everybody’s got family dramas of their own. Certainly, though I can’t relate to that specific experience, I can relate to having stuff in the family. This one takes place in the moment where all the stuff that’s been brewing for years and years and years finally comes to a head and has to be dealt with. MTV : How does making the film’s central relationship a brother-sister one affect the overall movie? Pine : Clearly it’s going to progress in a way that can’t be a love story between a sister and brother. It is in a sense that these two people get to know one another and find that they love one another because they’re the only two people that can relate and understand the experience of living in that family with that father and that mother. And because they’ve been so traumatized by the lies that their family has told for so many years, they find solace in one another’s mutual understanding. I think it’s refreshing because I don’t think people have seen something like this specific story in cinema before, at least in the States. There’s a quality of the film that kind of reminded me of one of my favorite films, “Kramer vs. Kramer,” and it kind of has the depth of something like “Ordinary People” and the humor of a comedy. It’s just — for the lack of a better term — very human. MTV : Did it strike you as interesting that the film lacks the central romance that drives most dramas? Pine : Not really because there are many stories in your own life that you lead that have nothing to do with a romantic other, whether it be work or dealing with your family. Oftentimes, many of the most pivotal stories that we play out in our own life don’t have anything to do with a girlfriend or a lover or a husband or a wife. That didn’t pose a problem for me because I thought that this was a story more about a man really becoming an authentic adult and learning how to deal honestly with those people in his life, his father and his mother and his girlfriend and his newfound sister. MTV : With the relationship with Elizabeth Banks’ character being so central, what was your relationship with her like on set? Pine : It was a pretty intense filmmaking experience. We had a lot of fun on set, and I love Elizabeth to death. She’s incredibly smart and doesn’t suffer fools. I appreciated her work ethic and just shooting the sh– on set. It was a film that demanded a lot of our attention and a lot of protecting our respective characters. I felt very protective of Sam. The piece, as it progresses forward, clearly because of the lies Sam tells along the way, there’s a lot of resentment from Elizabeth’s character. There were times when we would have these blowout discussions on set among Alex, myself and Elizabeth about what we felt the scene needed to be in the context of the arc of our characters. MTV : Alex Kurtzman has said in the past how important this movie was to him. Was there a sense of that on the set? Pine : From what Alex told me, this is a very important story that was very important for him to tell, and we both bonded over the fact that our careers had taken a particular path toward making larger films, while in our beginnings, we both thought we’d be making different kinds of films. It was nice to finally make one that we both really, really had a lot of investment in. Not that I don’t have investment in the films I do now — I’m saying it was nice to do something that we always wanted to make. I think it is exciting that Alex gets to show his fans that he is capable of doing a different kind of film entirely. It’s Summer Movie Preview Week, and MTV News will be bringing you exclusive interviews, clips and photos for the most anticipated summer movies . Get ready to gorge on inside looks at “The Avengers,” Robert Pattinson’s “Bel Ami,” Kristen Stewart’s “Snow White,” “The Amazing Spider-Man” and more! Related Videos Summer Movie Preview 2012 Related Photos Get Psyched For Summer Movie Flicks 2012!
Above The Buzz examines Lena Dunham’s dramedy about four women living in NYC. By Jocelyn Vena Lena Dunham in “Girls” Photo: HBO Blah, blah, blah. Yes, “Girls” is a lot like “Sex and the City” in the fact that both shows are about women — four, to be exact — living, loving and working in New York City. And that’s about it. Maybe “Girls” is the best “SATC” prequel that creator Michael Patrick King never pitched: It’s dark with little spots of comic relief, as these women try to figure out how to get it right. And they rarely do. They are stuck in jobs that seem to have no future and relationships that make them awful about themselves. Where “Sex” was all about how fabulous NYC is, “Girls” is all about how hard (and expensive) it can be to try and make a dream happen in a town where everyone has a dream. Perhaps the big difference is “Girls” is created by a young woman in the throes of her own post-adolescence angst. Lena Dunham, 25, the show’s creator , writer, director and star, truly understands what it feels like to be stuck in your mid-twenties struggling with the pains of having to grow up. In fact, her vision of this stage of life seems to be so spot-on that it got her an assist from the show’s producer, Judd Apatow. (She previously examined those similar themes in her feature film, “Tiny Furniture.”) Not to discredit “Sex.” It did an amazing job capturing life in NYC as an aspiration. You too can move to NYC, date rich, powerful dudes, afford fancy cocktails at all the hottest hot spots and glide along Fifth Avenue in Manolo Blahniks. But first you must be one of the “Girls,” who also include Allison Williams (news anchor Brian Williams’ daughter) playing Type-A gallery assistant Marnie, Jemima Kirke, a flighty, free spirited Brit Jessa and Zosia Mamet, the “SATC”-loving college student Shoshanna. Dunham plays Hannah, a writer who talks a lot about her memoir without having actually done very much to get it off the ground, relying on her parents for money. The show, which premieres Sunday on the former home of “Sex,” HBO, is about trying to have it all, but not knowing how to get it. These “Girls” are from a generation of women who have been told they can do an-y-thing. But, the problem is, as most jumped straight into their careers right out of college, they never really had the time to nail down what it is they want. This confusion leaks into their personal lives, where they battle depression and self-esteem issues. They date men they don’t care much about or who don’t care much about them. It’s an interesting breakdown of the current state of girl power: Can these girls really do an-y-thing? Well, Dunham and her pals are certainly trying to figure that out, one episode at a time. Are you planning on watching “Girls”? Leave your comment below!
‘She seems to lose confidence by the week,’ said ‘Idol’ blogger MJ Santilli about Hollie Cavanagh. By Gil Kaufman DeAndre Brackensick and judges Randy Jackson, Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez on “American Idol” on Thursday Photo: Fox In years past, booted contestants offered bland platitudes about the helpful judges and their “amazing journey” on “American Idol” and how they’ve grown and learned so much from the show. But this season the gloves appear to have come off, with some singers flat out accusing Randy, Steven and Jennifer of messing with their heads by offering head-spinning advice that sends them sprinting in one direction one week only to turn around and jet the other way the next. “They are hurting the contestants with confusing advice,” said MJ Santilli, founder of the popular “Idol’ blog MJsbigblog . “What makes it worse are the ‘battles’ between the panel and mentor Jimmy Iovine. The finalists are often hearing one thing in the studio with Jimmy and his guest mentors, and something entirely different from the judges.” Aside from the seemingly horrible sartorial advice they’re also getting from fashion mentor Tommy Hilfiger, MJ said the mixed career messages are impacting the singers in widely different ways. They don’t appear to be messing with the head of self-assured growly rocker Phil Phillips, who she said may actually be hurting his own chances by arrogantly ignoring every note he gets from the show’s experts. But they’ve definitely made for some up-and-down weeks for the likes of potential R&B star rocker Elise Testone, country belter Skylar Laine and they are clearly hurting the teenage girl contestants. “Hollie Cavanagh is obviously not growing from her ‘Idol’ experience,” Santilli said of the 18-year-old who has a powerful voice, but a shaky stage presence that appears to be on increasingly rockier ground after weeks of confusing notes. “She seems to lose confidence by the week. And [just eliminated contestant] DeAndre Brackensick had potential, but the advice he was getting wasn’t focused enough to really help him.” The contestants themselves have even said it. “I felt confused every week, I’ll be honest,” Erika Van Pelt told MTV News after she was booted two weeks ago. “I felt there was a lot of contradiction, and as an artist and someone who takes their singing very seriously, it’s hard for me to take critique of my work, period , and then when you feel like you sorta have people telling you one thing and then telling you something completely different the week after, it’s hard.” EVP had plenty of experience singing in front of audiences, but her frustration with the mixed messages from the trio behind the judge’s table, not to mention often contradictory words of wisdom from mentor Jimmy Iovine, was unabashed. “Because constructive criticism to me is something I can go home, work on, fix and come back and say, ‘Here, I fixed it,'” she said. “I feel what happened to me in this competition was I would take all the advice, I’d work on things, I’d bring something different to the table, and they’d tell me the complete opposite. It’s been really hard for me, I can admit that.” Brackensick appeared to have solved that problem by taking Phillips’ path and ignoring all the competing voices. “I’m just following what I want to do, not listening to what someone’s telling me to do,” he told MTV News after his elimination about his up-and-down ride on the show. Hollywood Reporter music editor Shirley Halperin said she’s definitely noticed some mixed signals from the judges, but she doesn’t necessarily put the blame on them. “In a way, the judges are not as connected with developing an artist as Jimmy Iovine is,” she said of the legendary Interscope label head who has helped guide the careers of Eminem, Lady Gaga and 50 Cent and whose opinion she often finds herself agreeing with. “Maybe they [the judges] can’t be that critical because they’ve never been in that position of developing an artist. That’s what Jimmy does for a living.” The judges, she said, have to face the camera (and the in-studio audience), while Iovine doesn’t, which is why his rougher criticism rings more true. She pointed to Iovine’s harsh predictions about Brackensick’s fate on Thursday’s elimination show as an example of how Jimmy can smell the career potential and talent of an artist in a way Steven, Jennifer and Randy can’t, and then pull no punches in evaluating their chances. The advisory disconnect is clearest for those who might also be tuning in to NBC’s rival show, “The Voice.” Instead of bland platitudes, Christina Aguilera, Adam Levine, Cee Lo Green and Blake Shelton are busy giving their charges good, constructive, specific advice on how to be better, more effective singers. And you see it in their performances from week-to-week, as the singers take the building blocks and incorporate them into their routines. “Idol” has gotten plenty of flack this season for the everyone-gets-a-trophy comments from the judges and the B-list talent in the finals. But considering that so many of its contestants are less seasoned that those on shows such as “The Voice” and “X Factor,” if “Idol” wants to keep pace with the competition nipping at its heels it needs to up the mentoring and spend more time shaping its charges instead of spinning them around like a prime-time game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Get your “Idol” fix on MTV News’ “American Idol” page , where you’ll find all the latest news, interviews and opinions.
New single, ‘Chasing the Sun,’ is in ‘same vein as ‘Glad You Came,’ ‘ Tom Parker tells MTV News. By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by Sway Calloway The Wanted Photo: MTV News The Wanted will officially drop their U.S. debut album next month. They’ve been busy in the studio working on tracks to follow up their smash single, “Glad You Came.” And with so much enthusiasm coursing through America for boy bands , the guys are looking forward to launching this next phase in their careers. “You know, I think from the start when we were in the U.K. we got our first single, which was ‘All Time Low,’ and it set itself up,” Tom Parker told MTV News about the band’s control over their music. “And we all agree on a certain sound and ‘Glad You Came’ was probably as [far as] we went in terms of difference in sound, but we all kind of come to an agreement to keep it upbeat, usually.” Parker adds that when they do stray from that sound it doesn’t always work out. “We did a ballad and it wasn’t that great, if I’m honest with you,” he said. “We’ve got a new one called ‘Chasing the Sun,’ which is gonna go out to radio soon, so look out for it. It’s in the same vein as ‘Glad You Came’; it’s upbeat.” Now that they are knee-deep in getting their U.S. debut together, Jay McGuiness explains that despite the size of the group, the guys make decisions pretty easily. “We’re all pretty laid-back in coming to a decision that we all agree with,” he said. “We’re not gonna lie: Two years ago we were bitches to the record label, but now we’ve grown enough. We know what we’re doing now. We’re enjoying ourselves.” And that means that they are aiming to make something that will get American audiences pumped. Siva Kaneswaran added, “To be in the U.S. is amazing, but just as long as we go out there and be ourselves and the U.S. takes us as we are, we’re just coming over here to have a laugh.”
