Timeflies Returns "Just For Fun"
By Michael Cerio
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Timeflies singer Cal Shapiro would like to stop reading YouTube comments, but they seem to be inescapable.
"Man, I would love to pretend that I still never do, but occasionally it creeps into your eye line," he explains. "I mean, you know. You're watching the video, there's a top comment. It's hard not to, and also it's interesting to see what fans say about stuff. The trick is to not get influenced by it."
Along with Rob Resnick, Cal Shapiro and Timeflies have had a while to ease that philosophy into practice. The duo met in college and started making music out of the dorm rooms of Tufts University. What started as party beatboxing quickly became YouTube videos that caught the industry's attention. They are a band born from the upload, building success one view at a time.
Their blend of pop shimmer blended with Hip Hop and matched with hooks for days racked up the clicks and built a career for Timeflies. However while many simply springboard, Cal and Rob continue to release exclusives to the site, even after the release of their third album Just For Fun this year.
For Cal, he doesn't get the "haters" in the comment section, but he doesn't mind them either. "There should be like a Netflix show or an HBO show. I see their faces blurred out, behind the screen. The people who just hate professionally," says Shapiro. "We've always said we're trying to get our haters up. You're only as good as as many haters as you have. As far as I'm concerned, we're just looking for more haters."
Consider the bear poked.
Timeflies will return to Philadelphia this weekend with a room full of non-haters, because buying a ticket to hate something is silly when you can do it at home for free. This is the third trip back for the duo to Electric Factory, a spot quickly becoming a favorite of the tour.
"It's one of my favorite shows of the tour every time," explains Cal. "It captures a really intimate energy. The vibe is always incredible in there."
This trip, Timeflies is coming "just for fun" with a tour named for their album Just For Fun. The title comes from the experimental efforts for their third album. Tricks like recording piano via iPhone and "kicking the floor" serving as a beat work their way onto an album that's more polished, yet manages to stay loose. According to Cal Shapiro, the tour is very similar.
"If you've seen the album cover there's an arcade game, so we incorporate this arcade feel and it's just a fun really energetic vibe," says Cal. "The last couple shows have been crazy. I mean, floor shaking, it's just been unbelievable."
Timeflies returns to Electric Factory in Philadelphia on Saturday, October 17th. To hear more from Cal Shapiro of Timeflies, check out the full interview below.