A Boy Band Christmas
A Boy Band Christmas
This holiday season is going to be “music magical” when the tour, “A Boy Band Christmas” makes its way to WNY for two shows. Playing Friday, December 9 at Seneca Niagara Resort & Casino and moving on to Seneca Allegany Resort & Casino for a show Saturday, December 10, fans will be treated to multiple boy band members from All-4-ONE, 98 Degrees, O-Town and more playing the hits you remember, along with holiday music to get you into the spirit of the season.
I was lucky enough to catch up with three of the headliners and will be featuring each of them in upcoming issues of ellicottvilleNOW.
Jamie Jones of All-4-One and I spoke recently about his career, what he’s been doing, and had some fun with Christmas questions. All-4-One’s biggest hit, “I Swear” won the group a Grammy Award in 1995 and the hit, “So Much In Love” garnered them an American Music Award the same year. With worldwide success, the band is still going strong, according to Jones, and will be celebrating their 30th Anniversary next year.
The singer/songwriter has kept himself very busy with his solo career, and continues to make music with All-4-One, as well as projects for major companies like Disney Channel, Netflix, ESPN, Viacom, and BET through his own production company, The Heavyweights.
Talking about the pandemic, Jones told me he made use of the time in quarantine by making a Christmas EP, “Christmas at Home with Jamie Jones”. The EP features two original songs, “All I Want” and “Christmas Kiss”, along with some of Jones’ favorite holiday classics: “Someday at Christmas,” “This Christmas,” and “Give Love on Christmas Day”. “I think I might do a couple more Christmas songs to update my Christmas EP,” he added.
The quarantine produced one of his greatest emotional projects when the singer did a remake of the song, “Sunny”. “So many people were talking about how depressed and lonely they were, which created a lot of negativity. The thing about this song is you can’t not smile when you hear it,” he stated. “We went to Venice Beach and filmed the video of the song in such a way that it would bring a little sunshine to people’s lives and a smile to their faces. That was the whole goal of doing that, and I hope it helped to get people through that scary and uncertain time that the whole world went through together. The power of music can turn anything around, and I’m glad to be able to give that to the world.”
For more information on Jamie and All-4-One, visit jamiejonesmusic.com. For ticket information to “A Boy Band Christmas” at either location, visit senecacasinos.com.
A CONVERSATION WITH JAMIE JONES
HULICK: Next year will be All-4-One’s 30th Anniversary! Any special plans to celebrate, like a tour?
JONES: Yes it is! We’re still going strong! I’ve been working on some new music for us for a little while and we’re hoping to release it next year… and who knows what else we may do.
HULICK: Do you have a Buffalo connection?
JONES: I actually do. My father has family there and I’ve only met them over the phone.
HULICK: You’ll be doing a show at Seneca Niagara Casino Dec. 9th and another show at Seneca Allegany Casino Dec. 10th. Have you been to the Falls before?
JONES: Yes. We were there in the winter and it was snowing and we wanted to go see the Falls, but being an LA boy I thought I brought warm enough clothes and as soon as I stepped outside there I was like… yeah, alright we got to go back in!
HULICK: (laughs) We’ll look at it through the window.
JONES: (laughs) Yeah, exactly!
HULICK: Your production company, The Heavyweights, has so much going on. I don’t know how you find the time to do it all.
JONES: I’m always grinding and always hustling because there’s a lot of stuff I want to accomplish, and that goes with my goals onstage and offstage. It’s been a huge blessing for me to be able to work with a lot of different artists and help them accomplish their goals as well.
HULICK: Your hit song, “I Swear”, spent 11 weeks at #1 on the charts. Did you know it was going to be as big as it was?
JONES: It was actually a country song before we received it. I was really skeptical… I was the only one in the group that was skeptical. The President of the record company called us into his office in LA and said he wanted us to hear something. So he plays us the country version and we listened and he asks us what do we think and I told him… it’s a country song… it’s alright but it’s a country song. He tells us he wants us to record it and I’m like… um, what? He says if we record this it’s gonna be #1 for you. He told us it’s #1 right now on the country charts and it did something that songs rarely do (at the time)… it crossed over and it’s on the pop charts right now as we speak. So the rest of the group was cool with it and I said we’re an R&B group and our album is completely finished. He said to let him worry about the album. He told us to just show up at the recording studio and record the song. So I said alright… I trust you… and the rest was history.
HULICK: Wow! I guess that would be the answer to my next question which was going to be what is the best advice you took from someone.
JONES: Oh definitely! It was a game changer.
HULICK: (laughs) Yeah it was. You are big on K-Pop and J-Pop, which has blown up the past few years.
JONES: I’ve been very fortunate working with Korean artists since the early 2000’s. One of the things I love about working with K-Pop artists is I get to be very musical because a lot of the artists from today, and some of the more current stuff aren’t trying to be as musical… meaning the songs don’t have a lot of chord changes, they don’t usually have bridges… it’s one kind of loop for three minutes and they just sing over that one loop, where as over there we can actually build quality songs like old school, like we used to do in the 1990’s. That’s one of the reasons I started doing a lot of work over there, and to see how far the artists from over there have come, and how they’re now known worldwide and having the success they’re having is amazing. I went to a BTS concert here in LA with 100,000 fans, and my middle son was so excited because he’s a real big BTS fan... and as the concert was going on I’m looking at my son who knows every single word, I was like OK, you are right now singing in Korean… what?
HULICK: (laughs) Oh my gosh!
JONES: (laughs) It’s the same thing that would trip me out when All-4-One would do shows in like Southeast Asia, which was one of our bigger markets, and the audience would sing along with us, word for word, and then we’d have a meet & greet after the show and they couldn’t hold a conversation because the only English they knew was our songs.
HULICK: (laughs) Oh my gosh! That would be just… well, really weird.
JONES: (laughs) It is. It’s so surprising and now to see BTS it’s a lot of the same thing with American audiences who don’t speak Korean.
HULICK: With your show being “A Boy Band Christmas”, would you mind if I asked you some Christmas questions?
JONES: Please do!
HULICK: Do you have a family tradition?
JONES: The only tradition I have now is that I’m a very spiritual person and it’s important to me to make sure my kids, no matter what age they are, understand the reason we celebrate Christmas. In the morning before we open any gifts we crack open the Bible and just read a little about how the season came to be and why we celebrate it.
HULICK: What’s your favorite holiday food you have to have?
JONES: Honey baked ham and yams. It’s no holiday for me unless I have those two things.
HULICK: What was your favorite gift as a child?
JONES: I will never forget when I was 13 I had been asking my parents for so long for my own color TV. I wanted a TV in my bedroom because I had an Atari and a Nintendo and we had to have them hooked up in the living room and I was begging them for one. TV’s were expensive back then. I remember coming out on Christmas day and seeing all the gifts under the tree and there was a big ol’ box. When I saw that box I just knew in my heart that it was for me. It was my TV and oh my gosh it was the best thing ever! I was able to put my Nintendo in my own room and play with my friends… we had to leave the door open, but it was still in my room. That was amazing!
HULICK: What is your favorite traditional Christmas carol and your favorite Christmas song?
JONES: I would say for a carol it’s “Jingle Bells”… that’s one you would sing immediately when it was the season. And my favorite Christmas song is “The Christmas Song”… (singing) Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. That’s one of my favorites; I love the chord changes and the melody… it’s just a beautiful song.
HULICK: Do you have a message for your fans coming out to see you?
JONES: As always, first off thank you for coming out and supporting live music, it’s everything to the artist. We couldn’t do what we do without the generosity of fans supporting us. So thank you. We’ve put together a fun show... so if you’re looking for a great time and you want to smile, hear some songs you know and get into the holiday spirit, this is going to be the perfect opportunity for you to come out and do that!