Grammy Flashback Interview: Pentatonix
With the 59th Annual Grammy Awards set to air on CBS on Sunday, Feb. 12, we’re looking back at some of the nominated artists who’ve performed for Yahoo Music. Today, we go back to the day that a cappella sensations Pentatonix sat down to chat with us. The group has already won two Grammys, in 2015 and 2016, for Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella, and they’re up again this year for Best Country Duo/Group Performance for their “Jolene” duet with Dolly Parton.
A cappella sensations Pentatonix have already conquered reality television (as champions of The Sing-Off Season 3); the stadium concert circuit (as the openers on Kelly Clarkson’s recent megatour); the film world (with a role in Pitch Perfect 2); the Grammys; the Internet (with more than 11 million subscribers, they have the 44th most popular overall channel on YouTube); and now, the charts. Their holiday album That’s Christmas to Me was the fourth-best seller of 2014; a second holiday album, A Pentatonix Christmas, was the eighth-best seller in 2016; and their 2015 self-titled album of original material became the first album by an a cappella act to debut at No. 1.
“We have so much to say as an artist,” Scott Hoying — who formed Pentatonix with Avi Kaplan, Kirstin Maldonado, Mitch Grassi, and Kevin Olusola in 2011, shortly before their fateful Sing-Off audition — tells Yahoo Music. “We’ve been doing covers for so long and have had a lot of success with it and it’s been amazing, but now we want to show that we can write music and we have something to say. It’s been so much fun. In a month, two months, we wrote 40 or 50 songs. We were so inspired. It kind of breathed a new life into the group.”
“It’s a very vulnerable thing, because it’s something we’ve started from scratch,” says Grassi. “It’s hard!”
“It is scary,” Hoying admits. “When you do something for so long that people love and then you switch it up, you never know if people are going to be like, ‘Oh, they’re not themselves anymore. I’m out.’ But the thing is, our fanbase is so, so loyal, and they love everything we’ve done. … So I think [the new album] will go over well.”
Things haven’t always come so easily for Pentatonix. Incredibly, Hoying and Maldonado were passed over by American Idol (Hoying also unsuccessfully tried out for The Voice and The X Factor), and Kaplan, auditioning with a different a cappella group, didn’t make the cut on America’s Got Talent. Once they joined forces for The Sing-Off, Hoying says, “It all came together and just felt so right. … We thought, ‘Whoa, this is really special. We can really compete in the music industry.” But then, not everyone in the music industry agreed. Epic Records, the label that signed Pentatonix after their Sing-Off victory, practically dumped the group before the ink on their contract had even dried.
“Our entire career, still to this day [people tell us to give up a cappella],” Hoying says. “We were dropped from a label within a week after the show. And that was the reasoning: ‘A cappella can’t do this.’”
But Pentatonix refused to deviate from their instrument-less artistic vision. “This is what makes us special. No one else does this in the mainstream. So there’s no point for us to lose that,” says Kaplan.
It was actually YouTube, not The Sing-Off or any record label assistance, that really put Pentatonix on the musical map (and eventually led to a new deal with RCA Records). So Pentatonix have some advice for any aspiring YouTubers out there. “I would say have a particular vision, know your style, and know yourself well. And make sure whatever you do, it’s high quality,” says Grassi.
“Yeah, put a lot of thought into it, because I think those are the videos that really shine and stand out,” adds Maldonado. “If it’s pristine and perfect, people are going to be like, ‘Wow, that’s amazing, look at all the work they put into it.’ You’re showing your brand in that way as well.”
“You can’t be lazy,” Hoying says, point-blank.
Pentatonix are obviously anything but lazy, and their hard work is paying off. Surely their ultimate goal of “having a top 40 single, or a top 10 single, or a No. 1 single — just having something that plays on the radio a lot!” is well within their reach.
Check out Pentatonix’s chat for more on their Grammy night memories, Daft Punk’s reaction to their Grammy-winning “Daft Punk Medley” video, lessons learned from Kelly Clarkson, their collaboration with Jason Derulo, and what they really thought of fellow YouTuber Todrick Hall’s “Pentatodrix” parody video. And catch their adorable bonus clip of what just might be the best Yahoo yodel ever, plus a flashback impromptu performance in a Yahoo office conference room back in 2013.
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