Ross and Rocky Lynch Share Their First Pet, Performance & More

Oh it's upside down. Oh.

[bleep]

What's up everybody!

Yo.

It's The Driver Era.

We are walking into our home studio right now.

To do a video with Teen Vogue.

About our firsts.

Let's do it.

[upbeat music]

Wow.

That's great, I like that question.

My first thought today, literally was chess.

Really? Yeah.

'Cause we've been playing a crap ton of chess

while we've been in quarantine.

So I literally think I woke up and like

started playing chess.

My first thought was, I woke up singing that song

from last night.

Oh really? I actually woke up at 6 a.m.

this morning.

Just naturally.

Yeah.

We were up late last night,

just like cooking up the jams.

And we got something pretty special last night.

Yeah. It was pretty cool.

The morning's are nice because coffee's involved.

So like anything that you're trying to get done or

grind through, it's always nice if you have coffee.

A standard morning is, wake up, brush the teeth,

throw on clothes.

[Ross laughs]

French press coffee.

Sometimes not the clothes part though, that's optional.

Yeah and then go ride on the sun.

Usually get some vitamin D.

Mhm. We like to meditate too.

Yeah.

Most of my role honestly are from [mumbles].

Yeah?

Like I would say Dad, you.

Mom's a big reason that we do this.

Actually, probably one of the biggest reasons that

we were able to be here today.

Yeah. Is our mom.

Our first time in quarantine.

Isn't actually so bad, because there's downtime involved,

and we're kind of doing the same things we would do

if we weren't quarantined.

Which is like, make music.

It strangely works out for us really well because

we have a studio in our house.

The only thing we're not doing now is playing hockey,

which is...

That's a bummer.

Yeah we like hockey a lot.

Going to dinner for the first time after quarantine

with some friends would be dope.

Yeah. That'd be sweet.

Yeah yeah yeah, and just catch up.

Yeah just be like Yo, did you get it?

[laughter]

I think it'll be kind of nice to go out after quarantine,

it'll reignite your excitement for social outings,

and stuff like that.

Our first family pet was...

We were in a relationship with two girls

that were sisters.

Yeah we were!

And they got us hermit crabs for our birthday

or something.

Yeah dude.

But after that, I got baby turtles.

Those little turtles.

Oh [beep] what happened to those?

Didn't you give them away?

No, they lived for a while, but they were super small,

like that big. I remember those.

There was the famous stories, you know the story of

where dad forgets to feed the fish.

Oh yeah we did have a fish!

We had a goldfish, and dad forgot to feed him,

and we came home to a whole new fish,

and dad was like He evolved!

That was amazing. And I think we were into

Pokemon at the time, so we were like Oh [beep]!

We believed him?

Yeah we totally, everybody believed him!

Man this thing's got a horn now!

He was like I don't he just changed!

I think my first red carpet event...

It was Kung Fu Panda.

As a kid I was a professional dancer.

You know the song that CeeLo Green sings where

it's like Everybody was Kung Fu fighting.

[song plays]

Oh yeah you're in it.

I'm in the music video.

I remember that.

And there was also an instructional video,

but they had us come to the movie premiere

to perform that song over and over and over again

on the red carpet.

The most realistic situation of me being in like a

Wow this is kind of crazy that this person's

in my presence was Obama.

I don't there was ever been like a Hm.

'Cause we played a show at the Whitehouse

with Ariana Grande.

Yeah we did, and Big Sean!

And Big Sean! Maybe five, six years ago.

No bro, longer. Wow.

Longer, longer, longer, like eight years ago.

That's crazy.

But we met Obama and it was just like,

you shake his hand like Wow. Dude had the softest hands.

We were saying too, imagine how many hands

that dude shakes, he had probably 10 000 handshakes,

so his handshake was just perfect, it was dialed in.

He's got hours in shaking hands.

Yeah, dude.

My first job, I taught gymnastics.

I don't know how...

[Ross laughs]

I arrived there.

I don't know how I did it for six months.

And I don't know how I didn't get fired immediately.

It's 'cause the moms love you my dude.

It's a gift. I think there was something

where they were like Oh!, they kind of felt safe

that I was teaching their kids.

There was something there.

For sure, dude.

We went to a dance school in Colorado,

'cause that's kind of where our mom came in

and was like Oh these guys have a knack for entertainment,

I'm gonna put them in school

so they can kind of learn about it.

And the first version of that was glee clubs

and dance academy.

There was a job opportunity that was happening

for dance kids.

Where we went out to L.A. and auditioned for this...

It was called Macy's passport,

it was like a fashion show.

We all auditioned and it literally came down to

Me, Rocky, and this one other kid.

And the other kid got it I think.

For whatever reason.

I'm still holding a grudge.

Yeah, I still hold a grudge.

[Rocky laughs]

That was the first job I've ever booked,

but that led us to moving out to L.A. and then

starting the band and all that stuff.

It literally kind of like started all that.

That was R5. Mmmmm.

Nah that was White Chocolate Brothers.

Oh [bleep]! C'mon bro.

Damn, I didn't know you were gonna take it that far back.

First group! A lot of people ask us why

The Driver Era is so eclectic when it comes to genre,

and I think that is a big reason, is because

we were so exposed to various types of music through dance.

Like hip-hop, and even musical theater, and classical.

Yeah ballet, classical for sure.

Like, Do-op.

There was an acoustic guitar that I actually

couldn't afford by myself, because I wasn't working, he was.

Maybe $2000, it was a Martin.

And I think I had a thousand bucks, and I paid for

a thousand, you paid for 500 and I think Riker paid

for 500 of it. Something like that.

And we still have the guitar today, it's a great guitar

we play it on tour all the time, but that was the first

Alright I'll spend my hard earned gymnastics money,

on this acoustic.

For whatever reason I've just never been a money spender.

I think it's in my zodiac.

So my car is probably the biggest purchase I've ever made.

And I've had my car for like seven, eight years.

It's a 2011 Infinity. It's working great.

I think it was Seattle. Seattle.

We were going to play this festival, at a place

that we had previously sold out as R5.

So we're going back to this place that we had once sold out,

As an opening act for a festival.

That was kind of trippy.

Hockey!

Hockey's pretty tight.

In hockey there's like, they split up the divisions

by two years, so no other brothers got to play on a team

but Rocky and I got to play on a team.

'Cause we're only 13 months apart.

And Rocky was defense and I was the goalie.

Holding down the D.

The year that we played together where I was the goalie

and he was defense we won the championship.

When I first started playing guitar, and shortly after

Ross started playing guitar, there was a moment where

if I was playing a song I had learned and I was like

Sick I know how to play this song, there was a slight

like I don't want someone else to know how to play

this song, like I'm young, I can play a couple songs.

So if Ross was trying to learn it I'd be like, Nah man

I'd turn my back.

In the act of that there also was like Yo dude try and

learn it with your ear, learn your own song or whatever.

But, it forces you to go out on your own and kind of

allow yourself to learn the guitar how you would and or,

kind of choose your own songs in a way.

Inadvertently, gave me a good lesson for my ear,

and for my own taste.

The first time that we lived together outside of

the parents, was uh...

Sherman Oaks.

Yep, that was the first band house.

That was a rowdy time actually.

That was a rowdy time.

You get a bunch of people moving out for the first time,

doing a band together, and they live in L.A.

That was fun. That was super fun.

That was super fun, we had a garage in the studio

just like this.

Yeah we always have a studio, garage studios.

We should open that track, but I remember waking

up one day and just hearing this faint, is it Queen Mary?

Which one? I think it's Queen Mary.

I remember waking up and just hearing the muffle of it,

and I was like What is that?

Going to the studio and being like Whoa!

Out on a full blast. Yeah.

But one memory that we have from that rowdy time,

was we had a house party and the cops sent a helicopter.

[helicopter sounds]

That's how rowdy it was.

I think I had just gone to sleep at that point too,

which I was like Damn.

Once hit searchlight.

Dude I remember just a searchlight going through

the window and me being like Uh oh.

I don't know if this was my first time,

but this is a good mishap.

We were playing Good Morning America, there was like this

guitar part in the beginning of the song, and it's supposed

to have crunch and kind of be like, nice and heavy.

And for whatever reason I didn't have the crunch on.

And everybody cuts out on this part

in this song called Smile.

They have like a couple million viewers, it cuts out,

and it'a just like ming ming ming ming ming...

And it's just like clean, quiet, guitar.

And it was great.

And it still on YouTube, and it really isn't that bad but,

at the time and if you are in the band and you know

the song you are definitely like Yo!

First music video.

We recreated Fall Out Boy's music video Dance, Dance.

A long, long, long time ago.

It was really Riker's doing. Yeah.

Riker put it all together and we were just like Okay.

I was going for that Love Me.

Or the Love Me, Justin Bieber cover.

Yeah when we first started as a band, we did have

more of this like, punk, super pop punk thing.

So we did like a remake of Justin Bieber Love Me.

And I think that was the first thing I was trying to

produce as well.

You know what's crazy? And it's like super pop punk

its kind of sick.

That was like way before YouTube covers

were a thing too.

Yeah we should have stuck to it, we could be huge by now.

We should have stuck to it, oh my gosh.

We've gone back to Colorado, and played six flags

Elitch's, which is where like growing up going

on roller coasters and whatnot.

That was kind of a cool moment. Because,

went to Elitch's when we were like five or six,

riding roller coasters and some roller coasters

you're not tall enough for yet and then like kind of

coming back and like...

Playing a show, it's kind of sick.

[Interviewer] Are there any other firsts that you

feel like you thought maybe I would ask today but didn't,

that you wanna, toss in?

It's okay if you don't have any, just wanna dig.

Virginity?

[laughter]

[bleep]

Well guys that was some of our firsts with Teen Vogue,

we hope you guys enjoyed the video.

Like, subscribe, comment, do all the things.

All the goods.

Check us out on the internet, and we'll see you around.

Have a good day.

[upbeat music]