Zoog Disney Chat Transcript

Zooger: Hey there, Zoogers! It's time for another exciting chat! Today we have the Wilkinsons- Tyler, Amanda, and Steve. You probably have seen their latest video, "Jimmy's Got a Girlfriend," airing on Zoog Disney; in this video Tyler sings leads vocals for the first time. Let's get down to your questions, and get this chat rolling!

Steve: Hey, everyone!

Tyler: Hi!

Amanda: We always love doing chats and are interested in seeing the questions everyone has for us.

picklejuice: Who had the idea of forming a band?

Steve: It wasn't exactly an idea, or an epiphany. It evolved around the kitchen table-- that's wherer the singing started, then evolved into doing local shows. People would see us, we'd get booked and move on to bigger things. It was 7-8 years before we moved to Nashville.

JPR995171: Steve, now that you and your kids are famous, do you look at them any differently?

Steve: I don't know that we're famous, but no, they're still kids. Somebody asked how I keep them grounded, because we've had a certain amount of success. And....I ground them! I can't do it to Amanda anymore. She's 18 now. I take her car keys away.

HermanT: Who are your musical influences?

Amanda: We have a lot. On our CD player at home now is George Jones' new album.

Steve: Amanda just bought "Louie Armstrong's Greatest Hits." If there's a song that knocks my socks off lately, it's an acapella song by *NSYNC.

Amanda: We have a 10-year-old in the house. :)

Tyler: Amanda and her little sister argue over the *NSYNC album!

JPR995171: Hey, Tyler. How does it feel to be on the road 24/7? And are you in school at all? Just love you guys! =^)

Tyler: It's really cool being on the road. You get to travel, see different places. If I was just being a normal kid, I wouldn't get to see these places. And I get to see these places and spend a lot of time with my family. I'm not actually in school right now, but I'm home-schooled. It's my third year of home-schooling. And it's Amanda's last year. It's my third year of Grade Two. :)

kittycat423: Hi, I'm Erin and I want to be a singer. Can you give me some tips?

Tyler: Is that your birth name?

Steve: Sing every opportunity that you get. Before we started this professionaly, Amanda and Tyler sang at seniors' homes on Sundays. If you'ren ot a songwriter yet, start. Anyone can write a song.

Amanda: If you sing at every chance, you take the chance that somebody will see you. And you also get a lot of practice.

cwzoog: How crazy is your schedule?

Tyler: It's pretty hectic.

Steve: In the last three days, we flew to Indianapolis, did a show there. Then flew to Phoenix yesterday and got ther a t 3:30 in the morning due to delays. We got up at 8 to do the big show in Phoenix and flew here to L.A last night. It's not like that for 24-7, but it does get like that often, then you get a few days off. It's a pretty intense schedule.

cwzoog: Tell on each other-what is the most annoying thing about each of you?

Amanda: About Tyler...his Star Wars collection! His room oozes Star Wars!

Steve: You ought to see his room! He's got more junk-- er, stuff in there!

Amanda: I'm a bathroom hog.

Steve: I'll concur with that one.

Tyler: Her makeup bag is heavier than my suitcase. What about Dad? His puns! His jokes are the worst in the world!

Steve: They're classics!

Amanda: They're not classics-- they're bad!

cwzoog: What is the funniest/most embarrassing thing that has happened to you on tour?

Steve: You know what? I could probably give you one instance that sums up both.

Amanda: We always end up on stage with our flies down.

Steve: Tyler was seven and he went out on stage with his fly down. I leaned down and said, "Son, you need to do your zipper up." He jumped around in time with the music, zipped it up, and turned around. The crowd went crazy. The promoter said, "I don't know if you planned this, but leave it in!"

cwzoog: Is there one artist you would like to meet that you haven't had the chance to?

Tyler: I'd like to meet George Strait.

Steve: I'd like to meet with the remaining Beatles!

Amanda: So would I -- that would be awesome! The ultimate! And Bonnie Raitt.

Tully: Have you always been performing as a family?

Steve: Very much. I never really performed a whole lot in public before Amanda and Tyler started singing with me.

Havert: How old were you when you began singing together?

Steve: I was in a band for about two years before they started singing with me.

Tyler: I was six when I started. Going on 10 years now. It IS 10 years!

Amanda: I was eight.

NSyncman: Where are you from?

Steve: We're from southeren Ontario. Trenton, Ontario, Canada. We live in Nashville now. Basically, so I don't have to shovel snow. :)

JPR995171: You guys are awesome! I just got your new album and I love it!

Steve: Thank you very much, JPR995.

kals_1111: What is your favorite TV show?

Tyler: TV shows...

Steve: "That 70's Show." It's a scream. Those people are crazy.

Tyler: We love that!

Amanda: It's awesome. And I love "Friends."

Tyler: How about "Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers"? :) And Drew Carey.

WlikFan: Are there any other types of songs you sing besides country? If not, do you want to explore other genres?

Tyler: I'm not kidding, I was playing video games this morning and we were watching Toon Disney and Chip and Dale were on. I heard the song and started singing it. I know the whole song.

Steve: We sing all kinds of music, but country is where we started and where our heart is. But we like all kinds of music.

Tyler: Don't you like polka, Dad?

Steve: Candlelight and polka.

Amanda: Yeah, the chicks dig that!

Tyler: How romantic!

Kookydde: Do you write your own music?

Amanda: A lot of it.

Steve: On our new album, "Here and Now," I wrote six on the album and Amanda and Tyler wrote one.

Tyler: That was the first song we wrote together and the first to be on an album.

Steve: She also wrote one on another album called "Boy Oh Boy."

Zooger: What's your process for songwriting? Where do you find inspiration?

Steve: You wan to tell them?

Tyler" I get my inspiration from a lot of movies. I got this last song from a currenet movie...that inspired me.

picklejuice: What is all threee of y'all's favorite color?

Amanda: Well...Tyler? I know yours.

Tyler: Red.

Amanda: See, we know you.

Tyler: I know yours...green.

cwzoog: Are you guys big Disney fans? If so, what is your favorite movie every made by Disney?

Amanda: Cool. We're huge Disney fans.

Tyler: Cartoon or live? "The Fox and the Hound."

Amand: He cries in that! My favorite is probably "The Little Mermaid."

Tyler: I was going to say --if said anything besides "The Little Mermaid"...I like "Tarzan"--that's my current favortie.

Steve: "Old Yeller" ...and I cried.

Tyler: For two years, Amanda sang all of the "Little Mermaid songs!

candygrl: I love Tyler

Mango4no1: I love Tyler Wilkinson!

Tyler Thank you!

cwzoog: What is the craziest thing a fan has done to meet you guys?

Amanda: That one girl wanted to get up on stage..she wanted to stage dive, but at a country show, that doesn't go over that well. She jumped once, and nobody caught her. And if that's not enough, she tried again! We're not encouraging that at all! Don't try this at home.

Tyler: People who do that are nuts!

Steve: And they'll be promptly ejected from our concerts.

cwzoog: What is the dumbest fight Amanda and Tyler have had?

Amanda: A lot of them!

Steve: The last one! "He's looking out my window!" They have fights in the morning, when neither of them are at their best.

Tyler: I jumped out and scared her this morning! It's so fun ... Amanda tends to be the cranky one in the morning.

Amanda: But you're working on it. :)

cwzoog: Have you ever been to the circus? What is your favortie part of the circus?

Steve: That's Barbara Walters, isn't it? If you were a tree...

Amanda: We love the circus.

Tyler: We like riding the elephants!

Amanda: I like the clowns.

cwzoog: Steve and Tyler, what is it like being so talented and having so many girls of all ages love you?

Amanda: Dad?

Steve: I beg to differ!

Tyler: All of you, rattle your walkers! Bang your canes!

Steve: Tyler has a lot of young fans out there.

cwzoog: What do you miss most while on the road?

Tyler: Friends in Nashville.

Amanda: We don't get to see our friends as often as we'd like to.

Steve: Camping and fishing.

Amanda: Scuba diving, too. We do a lot of that.

chance: Did you have fun creating and recording your records?

Steve: It's very much like any other creative process. and artist doing a painting starts with a sketch, then goes to his palette of colors. When we're producing a song, we start with the melody as the bare bones, add vocals...it's very much a creative process.

Amanda: We play a lot of football, believe it or not!

cwzoog: Amanda, do any of the fans ever creep you out?

Amanda: Some of them...I'ld rather think about the good fans, though. Most of them are really wonderful people.

cwzoog: What is your favorite book?

Tyler: "Green Eggs and Ham!" :) No, really -- "Lord of the Rings."

Amanda: "To Kill a Mockingbird."

Tyler: Boo Radley! The movie's good, too.

Amanda: One of Robert Duvall's first movies.

Steve: Amanda paid me the nicest compliment once. She said I reminded her of Atticus Finch from the movie. That was a great thing to say.

cwzoog: Amanda and Tyler, do you get to do all the things the other kids your ages do?

Amanda: Oh, yes. Definitely!

Tyler: I was out in-line skating right before we came here.

Amanda: And we see a lot of movies and hang out with our friends. We bringin our friends on the road sometimes.

daisy: Did you have fun making the video for "Jimmy's Got a Girlfriend?"

Amanda: It was a lot of fun. We shot it in L.A. in January, but it was early in the morning and very cold.

Steve: In between shots, assisstants would come out and wrap coats around us to keep us warm. The young actor who played Jimmy -- when he bent down to pick up Amanda, he spilt his pants!

Amanda: And we didn't have enough time to stop, so the director said, "Just tape 'em up!:

chance: What is your favorite music video of yourselves?

Steve: For me, it's "Boy Oh Boy." It was a lot of fun. There were a lot of male extras who played prospective boyfriends. They all had great senses of humor and they kept it very light.

Amanda: We also had our mom and little sister in the video, so that was fun.

Steve: She played the June Cleaver part. Hair up, plate of chicken...

Tyler: And she was just playing the part! She's an awful cook! :) She cooks prety good desserts, though.

candygrl: Tyler, is it fun going on tour with your sister?

Tyler: No. :) Just kidding. It's very cool being on the road with Amanda and Kiaya(our little sister comes on the road with us, too). When you live with your sisters in the house and you're not spending a lot of time with them, they're just your sisters. When you're out on the road you learn a lot about them and you become friends. They become your best friends.

wildcats2: During any of your performances have you ever messed up?

Tyler: All the time!

Steve: We joke about it. And in a lot of our shows we videotape them, and it's like watching a football game after the fact. We find out what works and what doesn't work.

Tyler: Dad will secretly tell the guys to play a song and he won't tell us. Amanda wil start a song, and they'll play something else!

Amanda: It's a cruel joke!

fatemeht: So do you have a big tour bus?

Steve: Yes, we do. It sleeps a dozen people.

11gogirl: How does it feel to have thousands of fans?

Amanda: It's amazing that that many people -- outside of our immediate family -- like what we do. And they'll spend money to come out and see us and say hi.

fatemeht: Amanda and Tyler, if you didn't become singers, where do you think you would be working now?

Tyler: I'd be a scuba instructor...not now, but when I get older. Right now, I'd be going to school.

Amanda: I'd be writing songs or do some acting. I've always wanted to do that. I'll probably pursue it later, if the occasion arised, but now I'm focused on my music.

Zooger: Are you guys going on tour soon?

Steve: We have a very extensive summer and fall tour ahead of us. This week we play in Kansas (Overland and Ottawa)....then Bettendorf, Iowa.

Carly: Hey, ya'll! Just wanted to say I LOVE the new album! Especially "One of Us Is in Love"! Tyler hope you had a great birthday! See y'all in June :)

luvgurl11: How do you keep up with music and school?

Amanda: It can be a challenge because we are so busy. You have to be disciplined and schedule our time. We have school and music time.

Tyler: That's why schoolwork comes everywhere with us.

Steiner: How has your singing career changed your life?

Tyler: We're really busy now!

Amanda: And it's allowed us to meet some incredible people and see some incredible places that we wouldn't have seen otherwise.

Steve: If there's a downside for me -- or all three of us -- it's that we don't have as much downtime as we used to have.

PudgeM: Amanda, how did you become interested in music?

Amanda: I've always loved music for as long as I can remember. I've always been singing. The radio really instilled music in me. Ever since I was four, my ear's been surgically attached to the radio. :)

Steve: You know how babies sing. She was singing songs that you could recognize at two years old. And she had perfect pitch. At three, we have video of her singing "Baby, Won't You Open That Door." There was a definite Munchkin-esque quality to her voice. Etta James didn't come along till she was 4 1/2. :-)

wilkfan1: Tyler, how was your birthday?

Tyler: It was great! I sang in Phoenix.

Steve: The fans came up and gave him some cool gifts.

Zooger: How much time is spent on the road touring?

Tyler: Want to give them last year's schedule?

Steve: We were on the road about 170 days last year.

wilkinsonsfrog: Is it true that Amanda has a black Volkswagen bug?

Amanda: Yes, it is. I bought my first car about eight months ago. And I love it!

Tyler: She has fake flowers and a hula mand on the the front and when she drives by my friends, I duck!

Wil1999: Amanda and Tyler, od you have any plans for college?

Amanda: Yes! I'm going to finish high school in June, take off a year and prioritize, then go to Belmont University in Nashville!

Tyler: When I graduate, I'll end up going to Vanderbilt or Belmont and take marketing or something that with further my musical career.

AngelChels: How and where did you guys get 'discovered'?

Amanda: We moved to Nashville in September of '97. Three weeks later, we started getting label interest.

Steve: We went out to see a friend doing a featured spot for a songwriters' night. We went so that he'd see a friendly face in the audience. He told the guy who ran the show that he needed to see us. We sang three songs and somebody in the audience started making phone calls to people he knew in the record industry. Two weeks later, we sang for seven labels and had a handful of offers. I never met the guy from the audience ... I talked to him once on the phone.

tylers_galz: If you had a genie in a bottle, what three things would each of you wish for?

Tyler: I'd love to go to Skywalker Rance, George Lucas' ranch in Northern California.

Amanda: Sushi! Lots of sushi!

StripedEyes: Does it make it easier when you're on tour since you are family?

Steve: Oh, yeah.

Tyler: You can't break up!

Steve: The music business can be very hard on relationships. Being on the road can take a toll on a marriage. When you have your family with you, there are inconveniences. You can get on each other's nerves. But the best part is that you get to hang out together.

QTtyler14: Tyler, do you have a girlfriend? Also, can you say hi to my sister, Joanna? She's in the hosipital.

Tyler: Hi, Joanna! Do I have a girlfriend? No, I don't. Do I? :-)

Steve: This is not a boardroom decisin, Tyler. :-)

Zooger: Are you guys sports fans?

Amanda: Yes! Big time!

Tyler: Amanda cried her eyes out this morning when the Lakers lost. I'm a Knicks fan.

Steve: I like basebal. That's my game.

q105roberti: What is going to be the next single off of the album "Here and Now"?

Steve: "Shame on Me." And a video after that. We hope to have one.

zoogstasha: Who's the best person to be on tour with?

Steve: That's a tough one.

Tyler: They're all so great.

Steve: We can't pick one; there are so many great people. We just toured Canada with Paul Brandt. If there's anyone who knows how to take a practical joke, it's him!

zoogdude: Does Kiaya want to start singing?

Amanda: I was talking to her last week, and I said to her, " Would you ever like to join us?" And she said that we already look too much like "The Partridge Family"!

Steve: She's a pistol! She sings real well, but her passion now is playing the madolin. She asked for one for a long time and I told her I'd buy her a good one, but she'd have to practice. It's not a toy. And she's realy good! She carries it with her everywhere!

Wil1999: Who are your favorite new country muisc artists?

Steve: Rascal Flats. Lyric Street.

Amanda: They're fun.

shimmy451: What do you do to get yourselves pumped up before going on stage?

Steve: Tyler soaks his feet in mayonnaise!

Tyler: Hands on hands!

Amanda: We encourage each other to be good.

maccy6: Do you guys ever get starstruck if you meet someone famous? If you ever have, who was it?

Steve: All the time.

Amanda: Loretta Lynn. Or Dolly Parton. She was amazing.

Steve: She really glows. You walk in a room and you can feel her walk in.

JPR995: What is your favorite song out now (country)?

Tyler: "Flowers on the Wall."

Steve: A song called "Unconditional" by Clay Davidson. And "Chain of Love" by Clay Walker.

Amanda: "Praying for Daylight" by Rascal Flats.

nat85nat: If there was one thing you would change about yourself, what would it by and why?

Tyler: I want to be tall ...like six feet tall.

Steve: I wouldn't mind being a few inches taller.

Acaciaboots: When you heard you first hit on the radio, what was your reaction?

Steve: We laughed and we screamed and we cried, all at the same time. It was in a van outside of Topeka, Kansas.

Amanda: It's an amazing feeling, one of the best feelings in the world.

Zooger: Any last thoughts?

Steve: Thanks so much for your continued support and for making us feel part of the family.

Amanda: Thanks, we can't wait to see you.

Tyler: Keep on Zooging!

Zooger: Thank you very much to Tyler, Amanda, and Steve Wilkinson. You can catch their video, Jimmy's Got a Girlfriend.