Hot Chelle Rae On Tour: Cold Mattresses, Cam Diaz & Uncrustables
Posted In: Interview, VEVO. Posted By: Carlye Wisel on 10.14.2011
From L to R: Nash, Jamie, Ian and Ryan of Hot Chelle Rae
Somewhere between the booze, bottles and baby photos in Hot Chelle Rae’s new video for “I Like It Like That,” we got to wondering what life on the road with the Nashville foursome might actually be like. Connecting with the chart-topping band at the VEVO offices just days after they received their AMA New Artist of the Year nomination, we got all of our tour questions answered.
From what pit stops they have to pull over for (Pilot gas stations and Wal-Mart) and crappy TV they’ve been watching (Cameron Diaz’s 2009 stinker, The Box) to what Ryan suggests ordering off the Chick-fil-A breakfast menu (a chicken-egg-and-cheese biscuit), we’ve got the low down on what bunking with these four is actually like.
1. Their bus party in the video may have looked off the hook, but in real life, it’s even crazier than that. “In Nashville — that’s where we live — it’s like all of our families and everybody. We have a lot of close friends in Nashville and we probably had 30 or 40 people on the bus,” explained Ryan. “We had a bus party, like, outside the door because there were so many people up on the bus. It was crazy.” It’s not only hometown love that keeps the crowd coming, either — “LA is like our home away from home, so we had a lot of people there as well.”
2. If the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, then there’s only one way to get to theirs: toasted Uncrustables. “It will blow your mind,” promised Ian, of the children’s lunchtime delicacy. “You put the cold Uncrustable in the toaster, and you toast it for just a minute or two, and then you take it out and both sides are golden brown but the inside’s still cold.” According to them, the combination is so “fucking fantastic” that they completely stock up on them, despite having cabinets full of peanut butter, jelly and tons of bread on board.
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3. Their bus is cleaner than you might expect a moving vehicle housing four dudes to be, but they’ve learned from example. “We’ve toured with so many bands that have tour buses, and we go onto their bus and it’s this fucking shithole, and we’re just like, ‘We are never gonna do that,” joked Ian. “We’re all pretty clean in general, both with hygiene and with our shit, so we’re not gonna have a dirty, nasty bus.”
4. The boys’ travels across the country include one of the coldest places on earth at every stop. “Jamie refers to the center of the bus where we sleep as the Arctic Shelf, because it is the coldest place in the bus,” explained Ryan. “If you leave the front lounge door open or the back lounge door open, it just freezes out the two areas.”
5. Though it may seem hard to believe, the boys actually love their teeny-tiny bus bunks. They’re so dark that Ian has rolled over and broken sunglasses and Jamie’s is constantly used as a temporary shelf by another one of the guys, but “we kick it until everyone’s kind of worn out, and you go crawl in that bunk and it’s a nook, it’s a little cave and its completely pitch black and its cold and you’re comfortable,” told Ian. “It’s not that hard to fall asleep.” Same applies to Ryan, who recommended that “a few Grey Goose drinks is a sure-fire way to knock you out.” Cheers to that.
Can’t get enough of these four? Take a look at their last video, “Tonight, Tonight” — we didn’t quiz them about what’s going on in that one, but we’re pretty sure they’re having just as much fun.






