Not
just another "One"
"Plus One talks about God, Sex, Living Together, Sleeping
Together (well sort of), the Boy Band Image and Sticky
Hearts"
When 2bu!'s in-demand music writer Maui Reyes texted us to
interview Plus One, we almost dropped our cellphones in shock. We
just had to accept since we're just starting out as journalists
and we can't just choose what we want to do. Besides we are
notoriously known in our school for being rockers.
We had the opportunity to catch them at the MTV Launch at The
Fort last February 17 but we wondered why there was a fifth
member oh we get it, it's Plus One not A1 (hmm whatever Plus One,
A1, Five, Take Five, Take That ugh! They're all the same). We
almost fell off our chairs laughing when we realized our mistake
and whenever our friend Quark did an impersonation of them.
So the day finally came. We thought we were going to have a bad
interview since we didn't know much about them. Surprisingly the
interview was great after an hour of chitchats and laughs not to
mention competing with a time-hogging journalist. In fact after
the interview, we shook their hands, took a picture with them,
swallowed our pride, immediately listened to their debut CD
"The Promise" and actually hummed their carrier single
"Last Flight Out the next day". (Darn, why did they
have to be so nice!)
4:20 pm: Bell rings. We had only forty minutes to change out of
our Catholic schoolgirl uniforms, freshen up and rush to Galleria
Suites. ("Hurry up Cher! We only have forty minutes and you
still can?top saying A1!")
4:38 pm: We left school with our friends waving good bye as if we
were going to jail. We were scribbling down last-minute
questions, putting muck on our faces in the cramped car and
trying to assure Leda from Warner that we were going to be there
by five.
5:01pm: Room 801. We were saved.
5:15pm: We meet their manager, Mitchell, first. He was explaining
to us that they had a very hectic schedule and that they liked it
here in the Philippines. "They even missed the Grammy's just
to be here"(Right, and we're both from Destiny's Child)
5:38pm: The interview finally starts. So what do you get when you
put two rockers/interviewers, two other journalists and the
hottest Christian boy band in one hotel room? The deflowering of
Plus One, sort of.
The guys from Plus One all come in the room together to sit on
the couch for the interview. But how'd they really come together?
One sunny day in the West Coast, auditions were being held for a
boy band. Twenty-year old North Carolina native Jeremy Mhire
(yes, he's pinoy you've been hearing about--mom's Filipino;
grandpa used to be a guerilla in the Philippines) and
twenty-one-year old Oregon-born Gabe Combs heard about it through
word of mouth. Nineteen-year-old Texas born Nate Cole who later
moved to California, was discovered by their manager at a singing
competition. They all auditioned, and youngest member 18-year-old
Jason Perry, a native of Kentucky and oldest member 22-year old
Georgia-born Nathan Walters came a little later thus the birth of
Plus One. "Plus One basically means us plus God. It's a
reminder that God is always with us." Gabe explains.
"The same producer who told Gabe about the group was always
joking around about names and stuff, and we were trying to figure
out our name as a group," offers Jeremy, "And one day,
he said 'Why not make it Five Plus One?' He said it in a joking
way but we wanted our name to have a meaning, something that
meant something to us and not just a name, and we said, 'What
about just Plus One?', And to think that they were initially
going to be called Blue. "Blue is for boys and pink is for
girls," Nate pipes up. "And we said we're guys and
that's our name 'Blue'." Gabe tells us. But there was no
relevance, so they scrapped that.
Isn't it kinda contradicting--- a Christian group with the boy
band image? 'Cause boy bands are often connoted with sex and
whatever
Nate: Right, right, right! It's cool - I mean I'm not saying
we're out to change the boy band image, but just to create our
own. We found our own identity as a group and before coming
together as a band, we were trying to find out where we fit
somewhere in the music but our faith has always been part of our
lives. Before the group started out, three of us actually grew up
in pastors' homes where our fathers administered so we all grew
up singing in church. We all knew that we all wanted to be in
music and sing the rest of our lives but also, we knew we wanted
to be in ministry, which is something a bit higher and a little
bit deeper than just music. We want to affect other people's
lives and have a positive message to stay in people's lives. And
at the same time, we wanna be cool and on the edge, just like
what you're saying. I mean, we're a boy band in the sense that we
do dancing and we do all that stuff at the same time, it's good
clean fun and we hope to be on the edge of fashion and
everything.
You guys have lived together and still live together. So who
shares rooms?
Gabe: In San Francisco, we started living in a one-bedroom
apartment. It was crazy, I slept in the closet, Jeremy slept in
the living room part, Jason and Nate slept in the other room.
Then we moved to LA, we had a two-bedroom apartment, and Nate and
I slept together.
Nate: HEY!!!
(Everyone laughs)
Gabe: I mean, in the same room! (throws his hands up) Wait a
seccconddd!
Nate: We had two separate beds! Two separate beds!
Gabe: I mean, in the same room! and then Nathan and Jason slept
in the other room and Jeremy slept in the living room. And now,
we live in Nashville, Tennessee, where Nathan and I sleep
together
(Everyone cracks up and Gabe throws his head backward on the
sofa, howling with laughter)
Nathan: We have a three-bedroom apartment now. Gabe and I share a
room and Nate and Jason share a room, and Jeremy gets his own
room.
Jeremy: Yeah, I got to sleep on the couch downstairs when we
lived in LA
We think you guys are going to be successful worldwide in a
couple of months. Are you guys planning on buying a mansion or a
ranch?
Plus One: No! (Laughs)
Jeremy: Actually right now, we're looking into buying a house
Nate: I think the next step for us would be somewhere to get
individual rooms, all five of us.
Gabe: Right now, we all live in a little apartment where we live
upstairs and we play our music really loud and our neighbors
understairs - er downstairs would get really mad at us!
Jeremy: Understairs?! (Snickers at Gabe)
Who's the neat freak?
Plus One: Jeremy!
Nate: His shoes are in line and everything is like separated
How about the messiest?
(Gabe and Nate both point at each other at the same time)
Gabe: Nate!
Nate: Gabe!
If you were to sing a song from the album to a girl, what song
would that be?
Nate: Last Flight Out.
Gabe: We would sing that 'cause we're in that transition a lot.
We'll see a girl for a little bit then we'd have to take the last
flight out 'cause we're busy, we have to go somewhere.
(Jason puts his hand on his heart, and Jeremy makes a funny
expression)
On your website, you have your individual email addresses posted.
Do you guys get all your e-mail/fan mails?
(A chorus of "yes" and "uh-huhs")
Do you guys reply?
Nate: We try to.
Gabe: We try to but sometime it gets really hard.
Nate: They gave us all the ones that they think we'd respond to.
Would you ever date a fan?
Jeremy: Well, I wouldn't say no...
Nate: I would say someone who's a fan of our music who really got
to know me.
Gabe: OK, check this out. I'm dating a girl right now whom I met
and who went to our concert. So I guess she might be considered a
fan.
Jason: I don't know, I mean I would never date a fan like someone
I met out of a show, as far as someone that was there. I think
for me, I would need a girl in my life who would tell me straight
up if I'm wrong.
Nate: A fan could turn into that for you
Jason: We'll she could,but I don't want a girl to look a me
because I'm a singer or because I'm in music; because I'm in a
band.
Nathan: You want her to be critical and say, "Look you can
do better than this".
Nate: I'd want a girl who'll miss me when I'm on the road but
won't be so lonely that she can't handle herself because all of
us are gonna have to have a girl who's gonna be at home without
us. She's gonna have to focus on something and put her time into
something besides just us because if we're her only world, her
only life, and when we're gone, she has no life, that's terrible.
So we have to have a girl who can kinda live without us in a way.
What are your thoughts on sex and pre-marital sex, being a
Christian band?
Nate: Well, we're waiting til we're married to have sex.
(A chorus of "yeah"'s)
Gabe: Choose abstinence.
Nathan: Sex totally out of the bond of marriage is not cool for
us to do. We have a relationship with God and first of all, we
think this doesn't keep us pure (puts his hand to his chest) it's
a sin.
Nate: OK, I've heard it described like this: You have a heart,
right? And it's totally like a sticker. Your heart's a sticker,
this other person's heart is a sticker and you put the 2 hearts
together and you have sex together and when you leave that
person, you tear it apart. The more you do that, the less sticky
your heart gets, (Jeremy and Nathan snicker) and it's hard to
attach to someone else. But I feel if a person's had sex maybe a
hundred times and then he comes to know God and then he becomes
really passionate about doing what?ight, I think God can heal
that.
You can write a song about that and call it "Sticky
Hearts".
(Everyone totally cracks up)
(The Warner people tell us reporters to wrap up, we beg for a
5-minute extension, and Jason notices, comes to our aid and tells
them to give us more time. Awww.)
How'd you guys get involved with Habitat for Humanity?
Jeremy: As a group, even before we were in Plus One, we used to
do service projects and mission trips. We used to go overseas and
stuff like that.
Nate: There's a group from my church and we go work in schools,
work with kids.
Jason: I went to South Africa once. My dad's a pastor and he got
invited to preach in South Africa with the pastors there so I
went with him and sang.
Nathan: I went to Portugal. We brought a band and we played for
prisoners. We'd talk to them about God and stuff. I was the only
young guy and they'd introduce me to all these big guys who've
been in prison all these years, and they?ll be like, 'Yeah!!!'
[makes hooting sound]
Nate: We go to inner cities jut to clean up trash. Just things
that are really simple, and it's not like we had to put a lot of
thought into it. We're just lending a helping hand. Now that we
made an album, we're not some stars who can't go down the streets
and help somebody. And we found an organization that we wanna be
a part of Habitat for Humanity. They build homes for people who
don't have homes. We went for a week, woke up really early in the
morning and worked on a house in the middle of summer, 105
degrees, hammering nails on the roof. It was very fun though and
very rewarding. When you make someone else happy, you feel really
good about it.
Nathan: We're singing all the time onstage but were five guys who
just wanna be cool. One time when we were outside fixing to leave
on our tour bus, this lady who came from a grocery store was
trying to put groceries in her car, and Nate comes out and starts
helping her. We try to do things like that.
Jason: It comes down to another basic of Christianity. Jesus
Christ came to the world to serve others and to save the world.
So we're not here to be served, not to sit back and be like,
"Give me this, give me whatever", like we're big
popstars. We wanna be involved on a personal level and help other
people out to serve, do what we're called to do.
Some quick poppys. N'Sync or Backstreet Boys?
Plus One: N'Sync.
Pro or Anti Napster?
Gabe: Pro.
Jeremy: Anti.
Nate: I don't know what I am.
Nathan: Anti. but as long as they're charging.
Jason: Anti. I'm probably gonna go pro as long as they buy the
album.
Britney or Christina?
Jeremy: Christina, voice. Britney, looks.
Nate: Christina has a better voice but Britney's the better
performer.
Grammy award or MTV award?
Plus One: Grammy.
If you were to be on the front cover of any magazine, what would
you want it to be?
Nate: People or Time. Not just a music magazine, something a lot
of people would see. Like 50 most beautiful people!
Or Time's MEN OF THE YEAR!
Nate: Right. (smiles)
Any TV or movie projects in the future?
Nate: TV, yes. Probably Touched By an Angel.
Nathan: It depends on the script. There have been TV shows we've
turned down in the past.
How about shows like Dawson's Creek or Felicity where sex is
abundant like I mean Joey and Pacey are planning to "you
know"
Jeremy: (his face totally lights up) They did?!?
Gabe: (stands up and shrieks) Joey, noooo!!!
Who are your celebrity crushes?
Jeremy: Charlize Theron.
Nate: Britney- um, no. Julia Roberts.
Gabe: Angelina Jolie.
Nathan: Cameron Diaz.
6:47pm: 1 message received.
Sender Maui: "Are the rumors true? You guys actually enjoyed
the interview? Are you guys OK?"