The good, badd, and ugly side of fame
“Rhonda, was her name,” says Bryan Abrams, as he recalls the name of his high school friend. They grew up together in Oklahoma, knew each other since second grade, and sat next to each other in high school.
But now she’s screaming. She screams on top of a car. She screams so loud she’s shaking. Her arms in the air, her eyes wide open. She's screaming for Abrams and his band, Color Me Badd, or C.M.B..
“Hey, Rhonda, calm down. It’s Bryan man,” he says. But Rhonda continues to scream. His acknowledgement falls on deaf ears. That happened the first time the band, Bryan Abrams, Mark Calderon and Kevin Thornton, returned to perform in Oklahoma, their home city.
“It’s one thing to be overwhelmed by screaming fans, but to have people you went to school with, people you know, screaming and shaking for you, that’s the strangest thing for me,” says Abrams, folding his tattooed arms.
“When we were younger, it was like a dream come true,” says Thornton as he drums his fingers across the table like it’s a piano. He smiles, his eyebrows raised as he leans forward from his chair and speaks for the first time since the start of the interview. His stern face relaxes as he reminisces, talking about the past. "We appreciate our fans. Without them, we’re nothing," he says.
While fans and friends can surprise boybands like C.M.B. in many ways, sometimes, surprises can come from somewhere a little closer to home.
“I got upset with my own family once,” says Calderon, "I was home once, and they started sharing me with other friends, saying ‘Look! See! He IS my cousin,’ and they get mad because you don’t want to go out,” says Calderon.
Color Me Badd, Backstreet Boys or One Direction; boybands, then and now, acquaint well with fame, and the stampede of screaming Rhondas that come with it. They’re no stranger to forward, sometimes even aggressive, fans. During the band’s tour in Canada, a girl dressed only in a big furry jacket showed up at their hotel room. She knocked on the door. She waited. Calderon, after some time, opened it, at which point she dropped her jacket and “showed her stuff," says Calderon, "it's crazy!"
Along with upsides to boyband-fame, like adoring fans, are downsides that we don’t get to see. Things that happen outside of the frames of TVs screens. Things the boys hide well.
“I was watching a movie with my family one time. This girl came up behind me, leaned down next to my ear and said ‘I just want you to know, I think Color Me Badd sucks,’ and she just walked out,” says Abrams, "I would like to say I wasn’t affected by it. But I would be lying."
Over the course of their career, C.M.B. experienced equal amounts of both adulation and scorn from the public. They began their career in 1987 originally with four members; Bryan Abrams, Mark Calderon, Kevin Thornton, and Sam Watters. Their singles “I Wanna Sex You Up,” “All 4 Love,” and I Adore Mi Amor” were popular hits in America. But after publishing their last album Awakening in 1998, the band dropped off the entertainment radar for close to 15 years.
Now, C.M.B., with the exception of Watters, hopes to escape from entertainment limbo, with their most recent performance at Retrolicious: a concert in Singapore with notable names like Tommy Page and All-4-One. While the future of their music career remains unclear, one thing is for sure. Rhonda will be happy to read this. Girl-from-the-cinema would not.
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