Interview: The Gentlemen of THE BEAN TONES LIVE! at Birdland

Picture it:  You’re in college, you’re a music student, you have dreams of playing your instrument and singing your song.  Then you meet a fellow freshman and hit it off.  Before you know it, you have a friend group of fellow freshmen, all studying music, all dreaming of singing and playing, and making a life as...  a barbershop quartet?   Is that what you want?  Actually, it turns out that it is.  And, before long, your barbershop quartet is a vocal group.   And then it’s a viral vocal group, and you’re playing out in clubs around town, around the country, around… New York City.

And, thus, goes the story of The Bean Tones, a boy group specializing in the music of the past with a new twist found in their original arrangements of classics from the jazz world and beyond.

Next Monday, The Bean Tones will make their debut at none other than the hottest jazz club in the history of Manhattan, Birdland.  And as the four men who make up the musical marvel prepare to make their way to the Big Bad Apple, a series of questions and answers were exchanged by email, in order to give our readers a glimpse into the excitement that awaits us all, starting October 20th at 7 pm.

This epistolary interview has been edited for spelling and punctuation.

SM:  Bean Tones, welcome to BroadwayWorld!

James: Hi there! This is James. I sing the 2nd part and play trumpet in the group. So happy to be here!

Grant:  Hey! Thanks for having us. Stoked to be here. 

Chris:  Hey guys, Chris here! Super pumped to be here! 

Davin:  Hi BroadwayWorld!   Davin checking in. Thanks for reaching out to us. We’re all super excited!

SM:  Gentlemen, let’s start with the most obvious question:  Why are you called The Bean Tones?

Chris:  We formed our group in college at Berklee College of Music in Boston. We were new to the city and joked that we should be called “The Bean Tones” after the city's nickname, 

“Bean Town". We all thought it was silly, but we never came up with anything better - now it's on t-shirts and posters, so we can't go back now! 

James:   We all met and formed the group while living in Boston. We started as a barbershop quartet, and quartet names are often fun and playful, usually with some sort of play on words. One of us suggested “The Bean Tones”, more as a joke than anything else, in reference to Boston’s nickname, “Beantown”. None of us could come up with anything else we really liked, so the name stuck!

Davin:  Following up on what Chris said, at first we definitely thought we would eventually change it, but over the years we’ve made countless memories and friends as “The Bean Tones”, and now it feels like it was always meant to be that. I believe your name ends up being what you make of it.

Grant:  Since we formed in Boston (AKA Bean town), the name Bean Tones began as a placeholder simply because we couldn’t believe no one had claimed it yet. We couldn’t think of anything better, and admittedly, it does roll off the tongue. And here we are 7 years later!

SM:  Chris, what is the story behind the formation of your vocal group?

Chris:  I chose Grant to be my freshman year roommate after reading a post he made on a “roommate search” Facebook page; he mentioned that he liked the music of The Four Freshmen, a vocal jazz group from the 50’s. I had just discovered them in my last year of high school, and thought it was fate that someone else my age liked this niche group from the past. We all had experience with barbershop music in quartets or choruses in high school, so starting a group together seemed like a no-brainer. Grant and I met James in the cafeteria the first week of freshman year, and they met Davin in a chamber choir shortly after. We started singing in practice rooms and dorms, that very first fall semester of college, and have been best friends, roommates, band mates, crossword kings ever since! 

SM:  Davin, are all four of you gents interested in jazz, or do you each have varying interests that meld together for the benefit of the group?

Davin:  Growing up, I always found myself pulled to music with “complicated” chords and melodies. Even though I didn’t know what I was hearing, I knew I liked it and wanted to learn how to make music that made other people feel that way when they heard it. That didn’t necessarily always mean jazz music, but there were definitely jazz songs I heard that I absolutely fell in love with (Chet Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, etc.). When I started writing and producing my own music (badly) at 12 years old, I naturally started to gravitate towards what I thought of as the “jazzier” chord progressions, though I love creating all sorts of genres. Artists like “Bruno Major” & “Eloise” furthered this love I had by creating modern music that heavily pulled from jazz. As for the other members, I think all of us have our own story with how we found it, but we all had that natural instinct to chase and hunt down this type of music. When the four of us got to Berklee, which has a rich history as a jazz school, it naturally made us learn more about the history and theory behind the genre. Upon meeting Grant (who studied jazz piano and performance, and is definitely the biggest jazz-lover out of all of us), he showed me The Four Freshmen (a vocal jazz group from the 50s), and I fell in love with the music. We all have passions in music outside of jazz as well: I produced pop music and other genres, Chris is an amazing singer-songwriter, James started off studying film scoring at Berklee, but we all also have this strong love for this style of music. I think now that we’re coming into our own more as a group, all of our different individual loves and skills end up coming together to create the records and performances you hear now. 

SM:  James, The Bean Tones is a group of vocals and instruments, but you all started out as a Barbershop Quartet.  Was there a degree of complexity that came with adding instruments to your aesthetic?

James: We are all multi-instrumentalists, so it wasn’t a huge leap to add instruments to our sound. And after having sung together for two years, we already had a good amount of experience honing in our vocals as a group, so it wasn’t too much of a challenge to add another layer to our sound. The real challenge is that none of us play our primary instruments in the group: Grant, who is a professional jazz pianist, learned to play the brushes; Chris is a guitarist who switched to the bass; Davin primarily plays piano but plays jazz guitar in the group; and I was a bass player who learned the trumpet for the group. Since adding the instruments a few years ago, we’ve all grown and improved as players, and we are always encouraging and pushing each other to get better.

SM:  Grant, how did you fellas find the unique sound that sets you apart from other vocal groups?

Grant:  We definitely wear influences on our sleeves. I think by just singing the music of our heroes, like The Four Freshmen, with our own unique voices, we ended up stumbling into our own sound. We like to utilize solos and unisons as much as harmonies to give our audience a broader sense of our individual personalities, and we tend to gravitate towards certain chords, voicings, and articulations that we really execute well. in hopes that they start to become synonymous with our brand.  

SM:  Boys, tell me what the vocal groups were that each of you listened to that led to your desire to form a vocal group.

James: I have sung in choirs since elementary school, and got into listening to barbershop music in high school, so vocal harmony has always been a general interest to me. In college, I was exposed to groups like The Four Freshmen, The Pied Pipers, and The Andrews Sisters. All of these groups and styles have inspired our sound. 

Chris:  Well, as I mentioned before, the Four Freshmen are a big influence on our group, and even informed my decision in picking a roommate! Ironically, I am now a member of the current Four Freshmen and am continuing that same legacy that influenced us. Hopefully, the Bean Tones and the Freshmen will continue to influence others to keep singing with their buds. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the huge influence that The Beatles and The Jonas Brothers have had on my life. They both have less vocal harmony than we do, but just as much fun with your friends and family! 

Grant:  The first vocal group I can remember having a significant impact on me was the Cleveland Heights Barbershoppers (my local high school’s barbershop chorus). When I turned 14, I immediately joined, and that began a lifelong love of vocal harmony. Then I discovered the world of vocal jazz groups and became obsessed with The Four Freshmen, The Hi Lo’s, Take 6, The Pied Pipers, The Modernaires, and New York Voices, to name a few. As soon as I got to college, I got to work forming and singing with as many groups as possible, and directing the vocal jazz ensemble Point of Departure.

Davin:  It’s definitely changed over time! In high school, I always wanted to form a barbershop quartet. I’d seen videos of Barbershop Quartets such as the Newfangled Four, and loved them. I even wrote a barbershop arrangement of “Ripped Pants” from SpongeBob Squarepants. I never got to be in a barbershop quartet or perform the music until I met the other Bean Tones at Berklee (I finally got to do my arrangement, too)! I also loved certain songs from different vocal groups (such as “White Christmas” by Pentatonic ft. The Manhattan Transfer), which always tended to be a bit jazzier. This all culminated when I got to sing with the Bean Tones, and since first singing with them, I’ve fallen in love with more groups, such as the Four Freshmen, that heavily inspire us.

SM:  James, how did The Bean Tones begin to find success with the music-listening public?

James: Our first single, “A Trout, No Doubt,” went viral on TikTok and Instagram when we released a live video of us performing it. That was our first experience with success on a wider scale - but I think the foundations for that have been a part of our music, since we started. A lot of people remember this music from their childhoods, or hearing their parents listen to this music, and I think people really love how positive and fun the music is. We used to perform on the streets of Boston, and we would get a lot of people stopping to listen who had never even heard this style of music - it just brought a smile to their face. When we started posting on TikTok and Instagram and releasing our own original arrangements and songs, I think a similar thing started happening online.

SM:  Grant, tell me about the collaborative nature of four men creating arrangements for a vocal group.

Grant:  The great thing about arranging for my best friends is I can literally hear in my head how each of them might sing a line, and what kind of range might feel good, and what sort of articulation they might do well. And, of course, what chords we ring the best as a group. So, in my arrangements, I try to feature everyone doing what they do best, as much as possible. The fun part comes when it’s time to learn or record the chart, because things will often change from what’s written to what feels best for us both individually and as a group. 

SM:  Davin, when you guys want to record a song, do you go into a studio and work with a producer and technicians, or have you also mastered DIY recording?

Davin:  I wouldn’t say “mastered” ahahaha, but I am a professional music producer full-time in Los Angeles. I studied Music Production & Engineering at Berklee. It works out, and I get to record and produce all the Bean Tones songs! Our process is quite different than most of the other songs I work on, so it’s a fun experience getting to discover different ways to record our group and always be striving for a better sound. 

SM:  Chris, how does a modern music group making music with a vintage vibe make their art appealing to contemporary audiences?

Chris:  Subconsciously, I think the fact that we’re all young guys making music with an older sound really catches the eyes and ears of people. We used to busk on the streets of Boston, and so many people would stop and listen to us - while they may not have had any idea of who we were, what they were hearing was something familiar yet new. Even now, the most frequent comment on our videos is, "What kind of music is this?". The idea of “boy bands” has been around for decades, but it's been 60 or 70 years since they were singing vocal jazz! In addition to that, there’s been an increase in that nostalgic yearning for the past, with vinyl record sales going up - "The Christmas Song" by Nat King Cole is as popular as it's ever been, and people are using social media to find pockets of like-minded people who like this kind of music. It’s all contributed to our success and made it easy to make something vintage for a contemporary audience.
 

SM:  Gents, give me your individual impressions on your upcoming New York City debut at Birdland.

Grant:  Birdland is nothing short of a dream venue for me, having grown up on records like The Jazz Messengers or Clifford Brown live at Birdland. I have no words other than I’m so excited to leave my mark on this special institution, and I’m so grateful to everyone who’s supported me on the path to get here. 

Chris:  I am stoked! We have tons of friends and family coming, and even some artists and musicians we really admire. We're coming off of a 3-week Japan tour that really whipped us into shape and showed us how far our music can reach, so doing a big show on our home soil will be super humbling. 

Davin:  It’s a dream come true! Birdland is an iconic jazz venue, so it’s surreal to be playing it with my best friends!

James: This show is special for me, as I’m from outside of Philadelphia, so I have a lot of close friends and family that are coming to see the show. For a lot of them, it will be their first time hearing us live, so I’m incredibly excited to get to perform for them.

SM:  Bean Tones, thank you so much for chatting with me today, and have a swell time on October 20th.  I can’t wait to see you in action.

James: Thanks so much! Can’t wait to take on the Big Apple!

Chris:  "Buh Bye! Buh Bye! Uh, Buh Bye now." - Barbie during the credits of Toy Story 2.

Grant:  Thanks so much, Stephen! As Ryan Gosling’s character says in La La Land, I guess I’ll see you in the movies. 

Davin:  Thanks for having us! It’s been so much fun. Oh, and in case I don’t see you, good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight!

The Bean Tones play Birdland on October 20th at 7 pm.  Tickets are available HERE.

Visit The Bean Tones on their website HERE.