Many people are familiar with Gym Class Heroes’ biggest hit Cupid’s Chokehold.
But while it is their most well-known song, the band had other successes, including a collaboration with Adam Levine, and continues to tour more than 25 years after they first formed.
As their name suggests, bandmates rapper and singer Travie McCoy met drummer Matt McGinley in gym class when they were both in Year 9 in the US state of New York in 1997.
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Matt McGinley was performing at a party with bassist Ryan Geise when McCoy, a party guest, jumped up and started rapping.
A week later, they became the founding band members of Gym Class Heroes.
By the following year, they were performing their unique sounding fusion of hip-hop, rock, R&B and funk at parties and clubs, before moving on to festivals and larger venues.
In 1999, they released their first album, Hed Candy, and went on tour.
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In 2003, after winning a place on The Warped Tour, which travelled across North America, they brought in a new guitarist Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo, and bassist Eric Roberts.
The group caught the attention of Fall Out Boy’s bassist Pete Wentz, who signed them to his label.
In a 2011 interview with the Chicago Tribune, they talked about their first meeting in 2004.
Wentz, then a big star, and McCoy met after a mutual friend passed along Gym Class Heroes’ album to Wentz, who was just starting his Decaydance record label.
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“Pete came in a dressing room and gave me the up and down,” McCoy recalled of the meeting that occurred backstage before one of their shows.
Meanwhile, Wentz said McCoy “eyeballed me and tried to gauge me.”
After signing the band to his label he asked them to open for Fall Out Boy on tour.
Soon after the signing, Gym Class Heroes were rehearsing as a new line-up for the first time when they began jamming to a Supertramp song, which became the inspiration for a song they wrote that same day.
Cupid’s Chokehold was released in 2005. It was the first single from their album, The Papercut Chronicles, which was released the same year.
Cupid’s Chokehold, which contains a sample of the Supertramp hit Breakfast in America, became Gym Class Heroes most well-known song and biggest hit, peaking at number four on the Billboard Hot 100.
It also marked McCoy’s foray into the public eye after he embarked on a love affair with singer Katy Perry, who played his love interest in the song’s music video.
In 2006, they released their album As Cruel as School Children, which marked a departure in the band’s sound, with the band replacing live instruments with drum machines and synthesisers.
McCoy gained more attention when he was featured on the Cobra Starship song “Snakes on a Plane (Bring It)”, from the movie soundtrack.
For their next album, 2008’s The Quilt, they collaborated with artists, including Daryl Hall (from Hall & Oates), The-Dream, Estelle, and Busta Rhymes.
They were co-headlining the 2008 Warped Tour when McCoy was arrested for hitting a man on the head with his microphone after he shouted racial slurs at McCoy.
McCoy took some time to pursue a solo career, and in 2010, he worked with Bruno Mars on the hit single Billionaire. He also released his first solo album, Lazarus, that year.
The band, meanwhile, began work on a new album, The Papercut Chronicles II, which included a number of hits.
In 2011, they released a single, Stereo Hearts, featuring Adam Levine from Maroon 5. It reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100.
They released more singles but after performing Stereo Hearts with Adam Levine at the 2011 American Music Awards, they took a break in 2012 that would last six years.
In 2018, they returned to playing live as an opening act and were set to perform at the Warped Tour 25th Anniversary Show when they abruptly split.
They reunited in 2022 as part of the When We Were Young Festival, and continue to tour today, with the band performing in Australia in March 2024.
While some people wonder if Gym Class Heroes’ style of music is emo, the band’s sound has been described as “alternative-funk-rap”.
McCoy has said their musical background was more hardcore and death metal, but if he had to pick his biggest musical he would say 1970s duo Hall & Oates.