Make It Your Own
Jul 31, 2009
by Bob Fields
Upon first glance, I thought Interplay had simply created one of the most beautiful sets of the 2009 season by converting the competition floor into a winter wonderland! A Christmas show in April seemed a little out of place, but soon I understood what made this show so unique – it wasn’t the set; it was the lyrics to the music! I imagine that I was not the only one who turned to the person sitting next to them to ask, “Did you hear the same thing that I did?”
I was so taken by the complexity of this show, that I contacted Derek Smith (one of the directors of Interplay), to find out exactly how they were able to get Andy Williams to sing lyrics about winter guard for their music. Smith began the story “I was at my family’s house over the Christmas break in 2007, and happened to be thinking about what we would do at Interplay the next weekend. The song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” was playing on the radio, and I thought to myself that this would make a really cool show. I kind of left the idea alone until after WGI Finals in 2008 when I got to thinking about it once again.”
“At first we just toyed with the idea of making this into a winter guard song,” he said, “by changing the lyrics which were holiday specific to winter guard specific. We wanted to keep as much of the original song as we could since the play on words was the coolest part of the idea. I sat down one night and started writing down versus about winter guard,” Smith continued. “Then on and on over a month’s time, there were many rewrites, which included help from our staff members. We definitely wanted to keep it from being cheesy, which we found was a difficult line not to cross.”
Smith added, “We had a lot of input from many people close to Interplay before we decided on the final lyrics. It had to be right the first time, as it would be far too costly to re-record something we didn’t end up liking. One of our favorite touches was to have a lyric that was specific to the show we were in. So we created a different sound track for the Ferndale, Indianapolis and Dayton Regionals, as well as the WGI Championships in Dayton.”
I was curious how difficult it was to find a professional sound studio that would create this sound track they would perform to. Smith replied, “When we started, we really did not know if we were going to be able to make this work. We knew that we needed help and Bernie Stewart (our other director of Interplay), contacted River City Studios in Grand Rapids, Michigan and pitched the idea to them. Since they had never done anything like it before, they were very intrigued. We spent some time explaining winter guard to them and showed them some videos so they had some idea what we were creating for.”
Next, the studio sought out talent to audition to sing the song, and also hired an arranger, Wright McCarger, to put the music together. “The biggest complication was that we could not just pull Andy Williams’ voice out of the soundtrack and stick someone else’s voice in,” he said. “They had to put in all the background ‘music beds’ as well, which had to be recreated and re-recorded by the arranger and the musicians. We wanted someone who sounded like Andy Williams, to create the illusion that it was actually him singing the song. If we could not create a good illusion, we did not want to do the show at all until we could figure out how to do it the right way.”
Three vocalists were chosen to audition for the job, and the Interplay staff got to go to the studio and choose the person that they liked the best. “We were amazed!” Smith said. “The artist that we chose, John Amos, had a tone that matched beautifully, and was really convincing when we played it back-to-back with Andy Williams.”
Finally the arranger put it all together and at last they heard the finished product. Their first meeting with the studio had been in April, and they did not really know if this was going to work out until hearing the final recording four months later in August. The scary part was that they needed to pay for the work up front, even without knowing for sure if it really was going to work out in the end. “We definitely decided that it was worth the risk,” Smith said. “And we thought that if it did end up working, the show would be something very memorable. When we first heard it we cried. It was absolutely fabulous…the studio had done a remarkable job!”
You can imagine that this show could have been a real budget buster with all the intricate things that they had to do to bring it to life including equipment, costumes, and props. Derek said, “The cost of the soundtrack alone from the music studio was estimated at about $8,000. Certainly we could not afford that by any stretch of the imagination. But because the project was so different, and fun for them to do, the studio ended up offering to do it for about a quarter of the original estimate. They understood that we were taking a big risk paying for all of this up front, since we did not know for sure it would be good enough to use. We put up our own dollars to get this done so that it would not adversely affect the financing of the guard if it did not end up working out. They really were such cool people to work with!”
The real test for Interplay was what the reaction would be from the audience and judges. “Audiences picked up on most of the lyrics on the first viewing,” Smith said, “but I had many people tell me that they couldn’t wait to see the show again so they could hear all the new lyrics. We also got great reactions throughout the season for the concept of the show from most of our judges, regardless of their caption. Of course we still had our share of improvements to make throughout the season, but the reactions from everyone were very positive. The performers got a standing ovation at many shows including WGI Finals, which is a moment they will never forget.”
Interplay is based in Grand Rapids, Michigan and was started in the 1994-1995 season as an independent unit, drawing members from two area high schools: Hudsonville HS and Wyoming Park HS. “The name came from the idea that since there were members from both high schools, there was ”interplay" between those two districts,” Smith explained. “The group was founded (while I was still marching in Forte) by the two local guard instructors from those schools, Mark Irey and Jerry Smith. The staff has been together a long time: Michelle Ehrhardt (13 years), Michelle Langley, their movement instructor (13 years); Marci Carlberg, who also founded Forte (8 years); alumni Nicki Evans and Paula Jenison (10 years); Bernie Stewart, the co-director (7 years); and Rachel Nelson, a new staff member this past season. Also involved in the production were consultants Alan Spaeth (McCormick’s), Diane Maielli (Effects By Design), Joe Huls and Peter Carlberg.
Over the past 15 years, Interplay has performed in A, Open and World Class. The team was the WGI 2005 Independent Open Gold Medalist, the WGI 2008 Independent A Silver Medalist, and has been a WGI finalist 12 times. They have also floored two teams in both 2007 and 2009. Following their promotion to World Class this past June, Interplay is very excited for the upcoming season and plans to field both World and A class units in 2010! Interplay’s show was a treat for our eyes and our ears, which they were able to pull off in grand style. Thanks for the entertainment!
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