Outside the Jukebox

by Scott Bradlee

  “Hey, you’re amazing!” I told him after the show. “Would you be down to record that tune with us?”

  “Dude,” he said, nodding his head, “that would be dope.”

  We filmed our New Orleans–style arrangement of “I’m Not the Only One” a couple weeks later. It became a staple of PMJ’s repertoire and proved to be a real crowd-pleaser on tour.

  I first met Haley Reinhart in the most random of places: at Casey’s Halloween party later that month. (You’d have to ask her what her costume was that year, but I’m pretty sure I was dressed as a zombie.) We weren’t familiar with each other’s work at the time, but I did recall several PMJ fans having already told me that she would be a great fit for the project. Apparently, she had done Idol a few years back and had released an album on Interscope, but she wasn’t one to bring up her accomplishments; she simply told me she was “trying to be a singer/songwriter.” She said she was curious about the work I was doing with PMJ, and so I invited her to sit in with us in our next show at Hyde.

  It was a full house at Hyde the night that we first performed with Haley. The weekly Wednesday night crowd, which had begun as only about seventy or so fans at the start of our residency, had by now grown much larger as word spread of the old Hollywood–style shows we were doing. Haley showed up just in time for the last set, glamorously dressed in a red dress and matching hat. I asked her if she wanted to sing something, and she agreed; she already knew the lyrics to “All About That Bass.”

  From the moment she began singing, the crowd fell silent and collectively reached for their cell phones to record this impromptu performance. She had the glamorous look of a celebrity, true, but it was her voice that stopped everyone in their tracks. Her voice was pitch perfect, yet so colorful; she brought husky low tones and high belted notes to the song that I never would have thought to incorporate on my own. Her jazz-tinged embellishments on the melody and relaxed phrasing subtly showed that she knew the history behind what she sang, as well. Her performance ended to thunderous applause.

  The Tove Lo song “Habits” was getting a lot of airplay at the time, and its wistful chorus melody reminded me of the sound of old French jazz records. I figured Haley’s melodic sensibilities would be able to add a whole new dimension to the song, and we began jamming on it. I changed the chord progression to evoke the sound of tunes played by Django Reinhardt and the Hot Club of France, imagining acoustic guitar and the lonely timbre of a clarinet filling the space. Haley was on the same wavelength as me; she altered the melody to the style of Ella Fitzgerald and even added a bit of tasteful scat singing. I knew we had something great.

  After a week of rehearsals, our next tour left from New York City and began with the most comfortable red-eye flight (yes, it can and does exist, but it usually requires the plane to be less than half-full), which landed us in Northern Ireland. The show there was electric, and the crowd of a few hundred people was livelier than we’d expected. Afterward, we went to a bar down the road and celebrated with drinks, dancing, and—in Casey’s case—a Queen singalong on an old piano. He played and sang “Bohemian Rhapsody” at the top of his lungs, against the advice of Broadway vets Morgan and Mykal. Sure enough, Casey lost his voice and didn’t get it back for the rest of the first week of shows—and learned an important lesson about vocal health.

  Empowered as a team of collaborators bringing everything we had, we hit our stride over the course of the tour in a way we never had before. During “Such Great Heights,” Kiah consistently got the entire audience on their feet, dancing and cheering for her. Morgan’s soprano was flexible, strong, and dazzling. Night after night, she belted out the high G# in “Maps” to thunderous applause. She even worked in a brief bit of Mozart’s famous “Queen of the Night” aria for a curtain call when the tour passed through Vienna.

  Mykal, meanwhile, was becoming something of a superstar as emcee. Known for his roles in several Broadway musicals, he possessed a pitch-perfect high tenor honed by years of singing Gospel. He had a big personality to match his big voice and commanded attention from the instant he stepped onstage. A quick thinker, he was never at a loss for words and often came up with lots of bits and introductions for the cast. During “Roar,” he finished by falling backward and continuing to sing while rolling around on the stage à la Patti LaBelle. It was electrifying.

  The first half of the European run included stops at some venues decidedly larger than what we were used to playing. We wound up selling out two London venues—O2 Shepherd’s Bush and O2 Indigo—which both held over two thousand people. London had emerged as the biggest city for Postmodern Jukebox worldwide, and we were recognized around town and mobbed after shows.

  Even as we were maturing as a group and becoming more professional, we did still know how to keep it light and silly. In what had become something of a ritual, we would gather ’round during sound check each night for a pre-show show-and-tell segment called “Talent Corner,” in which different cast members would be called upon to show off a non-musical prowess. The idea came from the discovery that one of our horn players had been writing sexually charged haikus during his off time. The inaugural Talent Corner featured a reading of a collection of these haikus by said horn player, in what can only be described as a kind of HR department nightmare. Other notable Talent Corner performances included a hilarious tour roast by Adam Kubota and a performance of “Take Me to Merch,” Morgan James’ tribute to Rook’s duties as merch seller. Talent Corner reached its peak when Rook himself performed a magic-show-gone-wrong that ended abruptly with Casey on the ground, writhing in pain, after being struck in the groin during Rook’s attempt to make him “disappear.”

  We received a warm welcome all over Europe. In Warsaw, Poland, where the audience shrieked with every subsequent cast member reveal, we witnessed a twelve-year-old girl cry tears of joy at a post-show signing session and a man pledge to tattoo all of our signatures on his arm. (I told him that this was a bad idea, for the record.)

  The 2015 European tour was an enormous success. The only thing close to a calamity was a few cast members losing their luggage en route to Germany, though it didn’t affect Casey, who pretty much wore the same clothes every day. Although the tour didn’t net any money after accounting for all the expenses, it proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that we’d hit on something incredibly special in our revised approach to touring not as a band but as a movement. None of us fit the mold of conventional pop performers, yet there we were, getting stopped to pose for pictures and sign autographs in the streets of cities we’d never been to before. Parents told us that our group helped them bridge the generation gap and find some common ground with their kids, who in turn told us that we inspired them to take music lessons. Lovers of retro culture thanked us for making their interests “cool.”

  The cast’s touring experience had also improved greatly, thanks to our new tour manager, Will Pepple. Although we still had long travel days and less-than-stellar dressing room conditions—some of these things are inevitable when you go from venue to venue—his attention to detail ensured that things ran as smoothly as possible, and his easygoing nature made for a calming and fun environment. Before each show, he gave the cast a mock pep talk to loosen everyone up: “So guys, listen… I think tonight’s the night that we’re going to get signed. I spoke to a few members of the press, and they agreed to cover the show. They write for a high school paper here in Germany, and one of them actually has a cousin that took a picture with David Hasselhoff. So, no pressure… but tonight could be big.”

  The entire road crew—Will, Rook, our photographer, Brave, and our stage manager, Dylan—got a kick out of the camaraderie that came from touring abroad, and they formed their own little clique, just as the singers and instrumentalists had done. Once their work was completed, they’d often disappear to celebrate “Roadie Friday” (aka the night before a day off) by scouring whatever city we were in ahead of time to identify the very worst dive bars. Sometimes—as in the case of Rook and
Brave in Christiania, the notorious self-governed district of Denmark—this resulted in a day of violent illness from ingesting drinks that had apparently been spiked.

  I was especially thrilled by the tour’s success since its cast was almost wholly different from that of the first European tour, and yet the show had only been met with more praise and excitement. It was gratifying to see our recently implemented, rotating collective model—where everyone brought unique talents to the table—paying off. No performers were interchangeable, we’d shown, but neither were any completely indispensable. Somewhere between a band, a theatrical performance, and a Blue Man Group–like revue, Postmodern Jukebox was an entirely new format for live entertainment.

  Perhaps most importantly, I was getting better at trusting the talented performers I had brought onboard. Mykal and Morgan helped tighten up the script and the transitions between performances. Adam helped run rehearsals and handle press when I was especially swamped with work. Ariana added an element of audience engagement that made each show particularly memorable for men in the front row over the age of sixty. I was realizing that I had some blind spots when it came to putting together a show and that that was okay. I wasn’t supposed to do everything myself or tell people what to say or how to act. I was supposed to build a team and bring out the best in them.

  Meanwhile, back home, America was excitedly tuning in to American Idol to watch a young street performer from Virginia stand before the judges and give her all on a New Orleans zydeco–style version of “Fancy,” performed with an accordion strapped to her chest.

  The arrangement was fun and colorful, and the audience went crazy, as if her performance were the freshest, most unique take on a popular song they had heard all season. Idol host Ryan Seacrest eventually made his way over to the singer to ask where she’d gotten the idea for the arrangement. With millions tuned in, she raised the mic and gave her answer: “It’s actually a band called Postmodern Jukebox, that takes modern-day songs and puts them in a different era.… I love them, they’re great.”

  And just like that, the name of the project I’d launched out of a basement in Astoria had made it to prime time.

  TAPPING THE AUTHENTIC SELF

  I was standing in an auditorium in a foreign country, surrounded by a crowd of fans, when someone tapped me on the shoulder to request an autograph. I’d finished a show just twenty minutes prior, and I was sweaty and slightly disheveled in my suit. Rook jumped in to intercept the Sharpie being held out to me.

  “Hey, guys, he’s done signing for now,” he said. “Scotty, we gotta get you to dinner.”

  That’s Rook’s code to allow me to exit gracefully, his rationale being that everyone understands the importance of not missing dinner—even at eleven o’clock at night.

  “It’s okay, Rook. I can sign a couple more.” It’s nice having a team that helps you look like the good guy in front of your fans. I smiled at the fan in front of me now, a tall fellow wearing a waistcoat and a bowtie. Then I took the poster and Sharpie and wrote SCOTT BRADLEE in all capital letters; it’s the same signature I’ve had since fourth grade.

  Also nice: to be so wholeheartedly embraced for being the person I am. I’d spent most of my life prior to the PMJ years searching for an identity—something that I could present to the world that would neatly sum up just who I, Scott Bradlee, really was. Was I a jazz pianist? A music producer? A faux British New Wave front man? When I was an adolescent, I never felt comfortable in my own skin. So, I tried on different identities the way most people try on clothing. One year, I devoured classic literature and tried to present myself as a cultured intellectual. Another year, I lifted weights, wore silver chains around my neck, and tried to pass as a street-smart Jersey tough guy. Obviously, neither attempt was too successful, since my search didn’t stop there.

  I had always assumed that when I finally stepped into the right identity, I would just know it; I would magically become myself, and success and happiness would follow. I didn’t want to be my actual self, you see, because I believed the thing that I had always been truly passionate about—so-called “vintage” music—was far too niche and weird to ever allow me to experience such success.

  What I discovered in the course of launching PMJ is that we’re not intrigued by people who are simply trying to play a role but rather by people who are unapologetically authentic. It was not until I finally learned to embrace myself and the things that made me me that I experienced any level of success.

  In high school, you’ll recall from earlier in my story, I—like every other outcast searching for his identity—had felt a special connection to Radiohead’s “Creep.” Years later, when I started composing arrangements for Sleep No More and met Karen Marie for the first time, she suggested we add “Creep” to the set list. I was taken aback. How did she know how much I loved that song? I wondered.

  We reimagined the song in 6/8 time, lending it the feel of Etta James’ “At Last.” I even included the intro to “At Last” on piano, and Karen—ever the comedian—ended the demo by quoting a line from TLC’s very different hit song also named “Creep.” We recorded the Postmodern Jukebox version in August 2014, in Astoria’s Samurai Hotel Studio. It was an honest, touching version of the song, performed by a singer who—like me—had truly connected to the lyrics.

  While on tour in Europe with Postmodern Jukebox, Haley Reinhart fell in love with the arrangement and asked if she could perform it live with us. We had never played this arrangement on tour before, and I was curious how it would go over, so we added it to the set list in Lyon, France. The reaction was immediate; it was the most talked-about performance of the night. In addition to Haley’s raw, powerful vocals, there was something else that caused people to connect intensely with the performance: It felt authentic to us as a group. The audience could infer from the candor of our performance that the song’s somber lyrics must have reflected each of our own personal experiences, and likely their own experiences, as well. We were former music kids with an unusual soft spot for the kind of music our grandparents listened to; in your typical American high school environment, none of us could have even pretended to fit in, and I think our audiences could recognize that.

  Haley’s take on the vocal line of “Creep” was all her own, borrowing from elements of jazz, soul, and classic rock. In many ways, it was a perfect vehicle for her artistry as a vocalist, blending all her influences together into one powerful ballad. The European audiences loved it; the one-two punch of Morgan’s stark “Take Me to Church” followed by Haley’s “Creep” made for an eight-minute master class on how to sing a ballad. Haley’s worldwide fan base—dubbed “Haliens”—showered her and PMJ with lots of love at both the shows and the pre-show meet-and-greets. Haley’s appearance on tour was generating buzz, and we wanted to film another video featuring her as a special bonus surprise for the fans. We had a day off coming up in Switzerland, and we decided to film it then.

  On March 15, 2015, we visited 571 Recording Studio in Zurich, Switzerland, to record three videos, one of which was “Creep.” Like a comet, that video took off in a way that none of ours had done before. It didn’t receive hundreds of thousands of views right off the bat, as we’d seen happen with “Thrift Shop” and “Royals”; instead, its momentum built slowly, as people around the world shared it with their friends. The view count increased day after day, and our version of “Creep” eventually soared right into the hearts of several major news outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, which hailed it “Cover of the Year.” Haley had people all over the world talking: Fans who remembered her from her American Idol years loved seeing mainstream media taking notice of her stunning voice, and others who were hearing that voice for the first time became instant fans. My popularity rose, too—further confirmation of how beneficial the collaborative process and giving each other the space to grow and glow can be—and record labels, TV producers, and great singers the world over were reaching out. I was no longer just the outsider or the weirdo I ha
d always felt myself to be. And yet, in a way, I still was and would always be; that Haley and I had the courage to embrace our inner outcasts played, I believe, no small part in the success we achieved.

  SUCCESS (AND ITS DISCONTENTS)

  I was at South Beverly Grill, sitting through yet another lunch meeting with yet another group of major record label executives. They were wearing crisp, bespoke suits and expensive watches; I was wearing a nice watch myself, just to let them know I meant business, and I made sure to flash it in such a way that it caught the light. To my left was Jaron, who did most of the talking. To my right was Rook, who was working as my assistant. He was taking notes on a legal pad but also drawing funny pictures. All three of us had just ordered more sushi because we knew the label execs would be picking up the tab. Some things never change.

  After years of breaking down doors to try to get people to listen to me, it’s nice to be on the other side, I thought to myself.

  Successful is a relative term. You can be considered successful by your peers and not feel accomplished at all if you’re constantly comparing yourself to the world’s most influential people. If you’ve ever thought that your happiness levels would radically change with success, I can assure you with complete certainty that you’re wrong. Sure, you may experience some temporary spikes in happiness, but after a while, it will return back to its baseline level, just like always. Once upon a time, I found it baffling that people who seemingly had it all could ever be anything less than happy with their lives, but getting to the other side gave me a new perspective. If anything, more extreme highs make the lows that much harder to handle. And since past success doesn’t guarantee future success, chances are high that there will be lows.