The men circled up in the room, slowly harmonizing and smiling with sheets of music on the stands in front of them. It’s a Sunday evening in the Beall Concert Hall, and the a cappella group On the Rocks is
getting down to business.
The group saw its videos “NYC Subway gets Rick Roll’d” and “Bad Romance” go viral within hours on YouTube, with more than 690,000 and 880,000 hits, respectively. Even celebrities Ashton Kutcher and Joe Jonas tweeted to their combined millions of followers, “So awesome! Bad Romance a-Pella Why couldn’t Glee have been popular when I was in highschool?”
News outlets around the country and online, such as Fox News and the Huffington Post, have also featured the group’s videos. Now, with all of the viral video fame bestowed upon them, On the Rocks remains down-to-earth and true to its fans at the University.
Josh Heying, tenor and music director of On the Rocks, chose Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” for the group because of his personal inclination toward the artist — and because he felt it is her best song.
“It’s not made for the Internet,” Heying said. “It’s for our fans. Our biggest thing is our fans. (The video) just blew up.”
On the Rocks tenor Jeff Rogers said they watched the Lady Gaga music video “1,000 times” and that it took several practices to get the harmonies and choreography right. As for the “Rick Roll’d” video, which showed members in a subway car singing to commuting New Yorkers during the group’s East Coast tour, the stunt started out as a joke.
“As I remember it, we were walking toward the subway station when we started discussing how funny it would be for us to Rick Roll the subway car,” Alex Horwitch, baritone and vocal percussion, said. “I handed Nick (Firth) my camera so he could record it. We got back to the hotel later and watched it over and had a good laugh. I asked someone if I should put it on YouTube, and they thought it was a good idea. Next thing I know, there are 200-something subscribers to my YouTube account asking me when more videos are coming.”
Members of the group say that being Internet sensations is still something they are getting used to.
“It’s been pretty surreal,” tenor and vocal percussionist Neil Ghosh said. “We’ve all gotten messages from people around the globe with compliments of our videos, (which lets) us know each new place (where) we pop up on the Internet. Most of the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.”
Horwitch said the popularity of “Bad Romance,” “NYC Subway gets Rick Roll’d” and a cappella in general stems from successful pop culture shows such as Fox’s “Glee” and NBC’s “The Sing-Off.”
“I feel like I’m taking (the Internet success) for granted,” tenor Luke Snyder said. “It’s kind of mind-blowing to think that someone like Ashton Kutcher has watched us sing and actually tweeted it to show other people. And the fact that Lady Gaga has probably seen it herself is pretty awesome.”
One thing is certain: The On the Rocks boys are having fun.
“We’re just a bunch of clowns who like to sing,” Ghosh said.
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