Taylor Hicks brings his role as the Teen Angel in Grease on Broadway to the touring company, beginning December 2 in Providence, RI. He’s also got a record set to be released on 2/10, and his DVD Whomp at the Warfield on 2/17.
In this interview with Blogcritics.org, Taylor talks about acting, his new record, and his unusual plan to promote the new record during the Grease tour.
On that unusual album cross-promotion:
Yes. Once the album is finished, I will be doing a single off of the record. And then I will be doing a very intimate national club tour alongside the Grease tour, hopefully in each market we perform in. I’m pretty excited that the new music will start to grow legs from a live perspective. I’m actually going into really cool, intimate clubs across the country, performing new material before I go out on tour myself.
I skipped the giant paragraph of Taylor-blather on what the album is supposedly going to sound like. Modern Whomp anyone? Guess we’ll have to wait until the album is released to know for sure.
Who is he collaborating with on the record?
There were some writers in Nashville that I wrote with. And there were a lot of different styles of writers – one of the writers is Gary Nicholson in Nashville. Also a couple writers that are friends of mine, Wynne Christian and Alan Little. There are a lot of different people that have come together. I’ve been able to have the time to be able to really focus on what I feel a great song is.
There will be a few surprises on it. What’s been great about this record is I’ve had total creative artistic freedom. That’s really a great thing for me, because I allow myself to focus on what’s best for creativity’s sake and what’s best for the audience’s sake. It allowed me the opportunity to pick songs, like I was allowed the opportunity to pick songs on Idol. For me, you get around the music easier. It’s been a great creative experience for me.
Taylor has hired studio musicians to play on the record, including Doyle Bramhall on guitar, Nathan East on bass, and Abe Laborial Jr. (he’s played for Paul McCartney) on drums.
I’m still really skeptical of this whole cross-promotion deal, and how he’s going to pull it off. Is he going to perform his single dressed in that crazy Teen Angel outfit after his stage bow? Or will there be a little after-concert staged after the show is over? The after-show club-concerts are what I’m looking forward to. There’s nothing going on in Providence this week, unfortunately, but he’s got something lined up in Rams Head, MD in February…
