After Romeo
After Romeo was a band based in Los Angeles, California. After Romeo was formed in late 2012 by Drew Ryan Scott, Jayk Purdy, and T.C. Carter after their previous band, Varsity Fanclub, was disbanded. The band consisted Drew Ryan Scott, Jayk Purdy, T.C. Carter, Blake English, and Devin Fox. After signing with Sony Music Japan, the group released an album titled "The Story Continues..." exclusively in Japan. After Devin Fox's departure, the group rebranded and released the "Good Things" EP on all streaming platforms. The band disbanded in 2017. History. 2012-2013: Formation and Debut. In February  of 2012, Varsity Fanclub was officially disbanded after their Germany tour due to David Lei Brandt leaving the group to tour with Lady Gaga. Shortly after the speculation of David’s departure, a video was posted on Varsity Fanclub’s YouTube page asking fans to help them pick a new name for them so they can rebrand in the United States. After months of waiting, the band revealed their new name: After Romeo. With this rebranding, ex-VFC members Drew Ryan Scott, Jayk Purdy, and T.C. Carter introduced two new members of the group: Blake English and Devin Fox. Blake  English was introduced to the other members via T.C. Carter, as the two of them were childhood friends who grew up together in Georgia. Devin Fox was recruited by Drew Ryan Scott after Scott spoke at a performing arts school in Los Angeles. Scott claimed that he was a guest speaker at the school to talk about songwriting and that’s when he saw Devin. The group met up with Devin and his mother for dinner and as Scott claims, “…the rest is history.” After several weeks of songwriting, recording, and rehearsals, the group officially signed with Jonnie Forster’s  4SOUND Label. The group planned to release “Free Fall” (music produced and mastered in Denmark by Markus Bøgelund Lindemann & Søren Juhl Holmager) as their first studio single. Since the group was recently formed, they were not in a financial position to film a high-budget production for their music video. Drew Ryan Scott funded the project out of his own pocket. Prior to the release of the music video, Jayk Purdy cold-called the Vevo headquarters under his alias “Ryan Hill” to convince them to advertise the video on the Vevo homepage. Much to everyone’s surprise, Vevo accepted the  offer and even cross-promoted the group’s video on One Direction’s Vevo page. The music video reached number one on the MTV music chart and was featured in an internationally broadcast advertisement. In February 2014, After Romeo was launched in the Italian music market. In 2012, the group performed at the SXSW – Rags 2 Riches event. Their performance was universally panned and the group subsequently had any video of the performance removed from YouTube – stating that it was “not a fair representation” of what they were capable of. Soon after, the group went on to audition for the  X-Factor, opting to perform an acoustic rendition of One Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful”. The judges were not impressed – pointing out the group’s uneven make-up and even suggested that some of the members were older than they led on (which was later proven to be correct). 2014-2015: The Bully-Proof Tour and the ‘Love on Lock EP'. In 2014, After Romeo partnered with several artists on a 300-school and 35-mall Bully Proof Tour, where they traveled across the country to give daily performances and to educate fans about the issue of bullying in  hopes to establish a bully-free community. Each member of the group stood before students and parents to share their own experiences with bullying and the negative long-term effects that may come out of it. The group released their first unofficial EP entitled the “Love on Lock EP” exclusively for those who attended their Bully Proof concerts. The track list included the songs: Love on Lock, On Our Side, One Night, Mr. Impatient, Meet Me in my Dreams, Love on Lock (Acoustic), and Love on Lock (Instrumental). The EP was not released on any streaming platforms. The group partnered  up with David Lehre to produce their music videos for ‘Love on Lock’ and ‘Juliet’. 2015: Japan Tour and ‘THE STORY CONTINUES…’. In 2015, After Romeo signed a major record deal with Sony Japan for their Asian territory tours. With Sony, the group was able to reach a new audience via Vogue Japan interviews, exclusive YouTube videos, and a new tour. The tour garnered major attention towards the group, allowing them to release their debut album “The Story Continues…” The album was released exclusively in Japan, with hopes to release a US version of the album once the tour was  done. The Japanese release of the album notably left out the songs ‘Thirsty,’ ‘Superhuman,’ and ‘Fight for Love.’ Drew explained in an interview that the songs were replaced with ‘Hard to Get,’ ‘Overnight,’ and ‘Tokyo 2 LA’ because they wanted to introduce J-Rock sounding tracks for the Japanese market. The latter tracks were scheduled to be included in the US release of the album (which was shelved). 2015-2016: Rebranding and the ‘GOOD THINGS’ EP. Following the departure of Devin Fox, the group decided to take the time to rebrand themselves. Jayk had been quite vocal about his disdain  of the direction of the band’s musical sound, so the group decided to start a writing camp to work on a more uniform sound. It was around this time where the group became part of the Pop Nation tour, which allowed them to perform across the U.S. The group then released their single, “Where the People Go,” which was a major departure from their usual pop sound. The song was written by Drew Ryan Scott and Blake English during the writing camp and was eventually presented to the other members. It was at this point where the group focused  on shifting their sound from generic "bubble-gum" pop music to indie pop with folk and R&B influences. The Pop nation tour served as a taste of their new sound going forward, as they performed remixes of their songs “Free Fall,” “Love on Lock,” as well as a new song called “Handmade.” After the Pop Nation tour completed its run, the group became part of Macy’s iHeartRadio Rising Star campaign, which featured 25 artists that had the opportunity to win the chance to open the 2016 iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas. After Romeo took this opportunity to announce  their new EP: “Good Things.” The group’s new sound was more mature and aesthetically pleasing compared to their original boyband image. Drew Ryan Scott claimed that the group had already recorded enough material to complete an entire album but opted to distribute an EP first to test the waters. Their first single, “Convenience” took a giant leap into the band’s maturity from a production, vocal, and lyrical perspective. The song itself caused a major stir within the industry as some of the biggest pop stars were competing to make “Convenience” their own. The “Good Things” EP was critically  acclaimed and had positive reviews – showing that the group had a bright future ahead of them. The group partnered up with Samsung to star in a worldwide commercial promoting the Samsung Galaxy S7 – which included a VR headset and 360 camera. The two songs featured in the commercial were "Convenience" and the title track "Good Things". Originally, the commercial was to feature "Convenience" as well as a track titled "In Your Head", however, Drew stated that one of the producers had an issue with the song being published in the commercial. The track was then pulled a day before the  group was scheduled to film in New Mexico. It was at this moment that Drew decided to replace the "In Your Head" with "Good Things". The group had to learn the lyrics of the song on the way to the video shoot and had to lip-sync to Drew's vocals during filming because Drew only had his demo of the song - the group had not yet recorded their vocals. The group's next single was "Pull Over", which featured Silento. Silento was recording some new music at 4 SOUND studios when he heard the track being played. Upon hearing  it, he called up Johnny Forster, After Romeo's manager at 4 SOUND, and told him that he wanted to collaborate with them. The group had a 3-day shoot in Malibu and Westlake Village to film the music video for "Pull Over" when they heard that Silento wanted to jump in on the song. This change occurred a week before the group was slated to start shooting, which prompted a quick re-write of the storyline. After Romeo was featured on Billboard as well as the AOL Build Series.