The idea for most non-musicians of being on stage, fronting a very talented band and belting out your favorite songs in front of a cheering crowd is something so far from possible that it only exists in the world of self-indulgent fantasy.
Up until recently, we only had talent shows and karaoke to approach the feeling of being a lead singer. But something has come along that has mixed both in such a way that just about anyone can have that feeling of being a rock star. Like Dallas' Rock Star Karaoke before it, Cheddyoke at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios allows members of the audience to take the stage and, if only for one song, lead a very talented band in a dead-on rendition of the song of their choice (so long as the band knows it).
But The Teddy Chedderson Band and DJ Beerjar, consisting of Daniel Ziegler and Payton Green on guitar, Chris Pickering on bass and Jared Lawson on drums, boasts an ever-expanding catalog of songs, albeit mostly '90s rock tracks from the likes of Lit and the Toadies.
Here's how it works: You pick your song from the list, sign up and, when your time comes, they call your name. And, to help you while you're on stage, Clinton Butler gives you a lyrics projection to lead you along. To a point, it's exactly like karaoke. But it becomes wildly different when the energy of a live band takes hold, both for the singer and the audience.
"People always come up to me afterward and say, 'I've always wanted to be a rock star, but I never knew how!'" Ziegler says. "I'm always like, 'Yeah, this is dumb, but I'm glad you had a good time.'"
Originally starting as a sort of gag by Ziegler and Green, who were doing acoustic '90s cover songs during a rather slow open-mic night at Rubber Gloves some years ago, they eventually got the bright idea of kicking it up a notch.
"We started thinking 'Wouldn't that be just ridiculous if, instead of just doing it acoustically, we got a band to do these songs with us?'" Ziegler recalls. "Then we just asked Chris and Jared to do it with us as a full band, and it kind of fell together."
While they only started doing it as a karaoke group this summer, this "really stupid and good idea" (according to Ziegler) did very well, and, for some time, survived as a weekly event. But with each member being involved in three or four different bands and going to school or working a full-time job during the day, the weekly became harder to sustain. Currently, plans to host a monthly event are in the works.
