Chad Kimball – The Music Man

Q.  What are the current projects that you are working on?

A.  Well I am doing Lennon on Broadway, it’s a musical about John Lennon and we open on Sunday.

Q.  What can you tell us about the musical Lennon and your role in it?

A.  Well, I play John Lennon, we all play John Lennon at one point in his life but there are a few of us that play John more than others.  I get to play John in one of his emotional points in his life, when he loses his mother, when he meets Yoko, when he cheats on Yoko.  So, I get to play the kind of passionate, impetuous and spontaneous side of John. 

Q.  What made you want to be a part of Lennon?

A.  It’s such a fantastic concept, that nine different people would play John and kind of embody the idea that John put out there.  “I am he, you are me, and we are everybody, we are all one,” and it was a very different musical from other musicals and it was also something that I think people need to hear for today.  So, just a compilation of those things and also an original show just really spoke to me.

Q.  The musical opened up on August 14th, how have the reviews been?

A.  The reviews have been kind of mixed, I think that the critics don’t really like Yoko Ono, just flat out.  I think a lot of them wanted it to be about John in his Beatle days, and they wanted more Beatles songs.  But, it is called Lennon and we’re going after his post Beatles era, when John really came into his own in his solo career.  That’s really what the musical is about, it is about his life but John even said in his own life that his life really began after The Beatles broke up, that’s when he started to live life to the fullest and that’s when he met Yoko.  So, the reviews have decided that they are the experts on John Lennon’s life.  The audiences just love it, we get standing ovations every night and people are really moved.  So, I think it’s an important project, important work for people to see, the response we’ve gotten has just been terrific.

Q.  You have a clothing line called Ogear, where did the name come from?

A.  Well, it stands for obvious gear, basically our line is clothes that speak for themselves.  There are tons of people out there but when you go out to a mall you’ll see people walking around with clothing that says like, “spoiled brat” or “princess.”  Basically, we decided we’d like to introduce clothing that speaks for itself.  So, for instance we’ll have a blue shirt with a really cool design that says, “blue shirt.”  It kind of gives more of the anonymity to the wearer and allows the shirt to speak for itself.  There is a little more mysteriousness that’s involved in who you are instead of giving away all of your secrets.

Q.  Besides clothing, singing and acting, do you have any other ambitions?

A.  Right now, I just want to get going with making more clothes that are cool and fit well on people.  Then in the future I’d love to do more film and TV.

Q.  How did you come up with the designs for Ogear?

A.  Well, we have a number of different designers and we’ve been working on it for about four years.  We really kind of hit the road about nine months ago and really started chugging along.  We just compiled a number of designers and said here’s the concept, here are the confines of the concepts, go to work and have fun.  Everyone seems to really have a ball doing it and we’ve got some really great designs out of it and so we’re just going to continue.

Q.  You offer a journal on your site, why is this an important aspect for you to include?

A.  Well, I think that a lot of people are interested with the process of what my work is.  It is kind of unique so I like to let people in and share what goes on and what the process is like.  It’s showing people what we do and how we do it, just what the process is like.

Q.  What would you like to say to your fans and supporters?

A.  I’d like to say come and see Lennon, spread the word and in the mean time wear your Ogear!