On the 17th Floor

Four times now in the last three months, you could drive by the Bluebird, see a line down the street and hear fabulous hip-hop and R&B beats blaring out the front door. It isn't 15-cent draft night, and it isn't the radio playing. The 17th Floor has made a quick impact on IU students and packs the house every time it plays.\n"We saw the line down the block last time we were here and wondered if they were giving out free beer or something," jokes Greg Thompson, the band's bass player, keyboardist and background vocalist.\nThe 17th Floor is made up of Greg, Aaron Thompson (bassist), Daren Jordan (singer), Daryl Watt (rapper), Angel Colon (guitar) and Shawn Bass (keyboards). Brothers Aaron and Greg started the group, and the rest joined in subsequent years. They all hail from suburbs of Chicago.\nThe 17th Floor has been bringing out a huge crowd to the Bluebird every time it plays. It's something different for the Bloomington music scene, covering artists like Ja Rule, Nelly, Outkast and Dr. Dre. The choreography brings students back, but few know much about the band and how it all began.\n"It all started about 17 years ago," Greg says. "Basically, it was just for the love of playing and not about money or anything else."\nThe 17th Floor's influences ranged from hip hop to pop to rock. Prince has had the biggest influence on the band. That is, Prince before Purple Rain, the musicians say, laughing.\nThe band's first major project came in 1991 when it toured with TLC. Bobby Brown's bodyguard discovered the 17th Floor and tried to set up the band on a tour with Another Bad Creation. The tour fell through, but TLC heard the group and wanted to sign the band immediately. The 17th Floor was TLC's first live band.\n"We were real cool with the girls," Greg says. "They were like sisters to us."\nUsher Raymond also had a lot of influence on the band's success. In 1996, Usher asked the assistance of the 17th Floor in rehearsing and preparing for his "My Way" tour. The band agreed and even appeared on television with Usher on Fox Network's "Keenan Ivory Wayans Show."\nTouring and television appearances left little room for the band to travel and little time in the recording studio. It wasn't until this year that the band began recording its first album. \n"We're running across a different kind of thing because we've got so many influences and different people working on the album," Greg says, sounding tired just thinking about the process of recording the album. "It's been a unique experience."\nGreg says a radio station in Columbus, Ohio, has heard the group's original music for the album and says the sound is refreshing. The band likes to think of its music as new-school funk.\nThe 17th Floor says it knows it's facing a battle with today's music industry since so many artists singing now are so young. The band hopes that talent and love of the music will prevail in the end. Greg says he hopes the 17th Floor will break the mold.\nThough the band's shows feature only a few original songs in its college town concerts, the college kids tell them they like the hip-hop and R&B covers.\n"College kids are crazy," Colon says laughing. "They're always fun."\nTalking about college concerts sparks fun memories for the band. Greg says it's never boring playing a college town.\n"It's just as fun for us to watch them as it is for them to watch us," Greg says, remembering all the times he has seen drunk college students flash and moon the band.\nWhile the 17th Floor loves the support from fans across the country, sometimes things get a little out of hand. Women will randomly show up on the bus while the band is sleeping or eating. They don't allow women on the bus, but they always seem to wander on.\nColon says it's always good to play in Bloomington, which the band does regularly now. The band members heard IU recently was named the No. 1 party school by a national publication and wanted to check it out for themselves. They've seen that IU does know how to party and say the women here are among the best.\n"We will say that on the college women meter, you guys are definitely in the top five," Aaron says with a huge smile across his face. "We compare colleges, and every town gets a rating. You guys leaped up there real quick, and we want the ladies to know that. They're beautiful here."\nBefore playing at a place like the Bluebird, the 17th Floor isn't sitting in back, taking shots and drinking beer.\n"We don't get on stage all drunk," Greg says. "We don't drink at all before the show or even during the show."\nIt's all Gatorade and water for the band on stage. That's not to say there isn't sometimes some fun after the show. Before the fun, though, the band sits down after each show, discusses constructive criticism and goes over the good points and bad points of its performance that night.\nDepending on what city they are in, the members of the 17th Floor might go out to the clubs. Most of the time, though, they just chill on their bus, watching DVDs and playing Playstation 2.\nThe good times are great, and the smiles and laughter from the band make it obvious that this group of musicians is also a group of friends. Still, spending so much time together isn't always a good thing.\n"Sometimes we're together too long," Aaron chuckles.\nBass says it's funny that they talk like that. They often end up hanging out together anyway, even when they don't have to for work.\n"The best thing about the group is everybody has a good work ethic," Greg says. "You rarely see somebody half-ass working. We know we've got a job to do."\nThe 17th Floor attributes most of its success to God. After 17 years on the road, the band has never had an accident, and the group missed its first show only last year.\nGreg and Aaron also like to attribute success to their mother.\n"She started it up," Aaron says. "She told us what we had to do and not do. And she told us to get up there and do what you got to do."\nDoing what they've got to do is exactly what the 17th Floor is doing. \n"We all love what we do," Bass says. "We love the fact that it's music-involved, and everyone can express their talents and live their dreams."\nColon agreed and said it's a beautiful thing to make a living doing what you want to do.\n"We get a lot of love from a lot of different people," he says. "If nothing else, that makes being out here worth it."\nThe 17th Floor's Web site,