From The Editor’s Floor: Gym Class Heroes

TRAVIS KISSED A GIRL

If TRAVIS McCOY needs to avoid making the chemical missteps of the past, one thing that might help is his blossoming romance with fellow Warped Tour 2K8 performer Katy Perry. McCoy credits her with convincing him to see a psychiatrist during his recent struggles. Now the man who wrote a song called “Drnk Txt Rmeo” (about “just getting blitzed and texting girls, and seeing what kinda nasty replies you can get”) has settled down. Although Perry could be spotted throughout most of the summer alongside McCoy, her presence on the Heroes’ tour bus was constant-even when she wasn’t there. It wasn’t a photo hanging in the lounge or even repeated plays of her recent hit “I Kissed A Girl.” There was a paper-måchéd replica of her torso from the Keep A Breast Foundation, sitting triumphantly near the tour bus sink. (The copy was for McCoy to decorate and would be auctioned to raise money for breast cancer research.) When AP spent time with Gym Class Heroes during Warped Tour for their cover story in AP 243, we were able to see the couple firsthand. This is what we observed:

Perry enters the Gym Class Heroes’ bus clad in a leopard-print mini-dress. She and McCoy say little, preferring instead to stare deeply into each other’s eyes. He proudly shows her his swollen, freshly tattooed hands now adorned with the faces of his heroes Hall & Oates (circa 1981’s Private Eyes). As McCoy’s 6-year-old goddaughter Eden frolics nearby, a family-style vibe mellows the scene. A new Gym Class song, the melodic hip-hop jam “Kissin’ Ears,” cues up, and the lyrics seem perfectly appropriate: “Makin’ babies/Buying you a Mercedes/Gettin’ married/Bein’ willing to share, girl/It starts with kissin’ ears.”

Asking the couple about the beginning of their relationship provokes slightly less-romantic responses. “[She] was doin’ splits and shit to get my attention,” jokes McCoy, “and I was like, ‘Who is this crazy white girl?’”

An amused Perry shoots back, “Yeah, I was like, ‘Someone, anyone–even Travis McCoy–please take me out!’ But I’d never made out with a black man before.”

Later, McCoy reveals that he goes to watch Perry’s Warped set at almost every date. “As long as our schedules don’t conflict, I watch every day, man. But the other day in Montreal was the first time I got to watch it from the crowd instead of the stage, which is a completely different world.

“I just rode my bike out into the crowd, and I found this little nook where nobody could really spot me, and I just watched. And it was fuckin’ amazing. It was one of her better shows, vocally. She was just feelin’ it, and you could tell in all her leads. It was awesome,” he says, sounding very much like a guy in love. —Dan LeRoy