Greyson Chance only comes home every two months or so, but one of the first places he goes is a nationally known Mexican restaurant chain for their tortilla chips and queso.
The 14-year-old musician and Edmond native has gone from YouTube sensation in 2010 to a teen pop superstar known worldwide for his self-penned music and lyrics.
Chance talked about what his life is like now, his upcoming Asian tour, his new association with Everloop.com and his busy life recently in a phone interview done while being taken to his tutor in Los Angeles.
Everloop is a website designed specifically for the tween crowd.
“I am so excited to be working with Everloop. It's a safe site for kids my age and younger,” he explained. “You can go online there and be safe. There are no creeps, no scary people there.”
Everloop's main page promises “No grown-ups, no swearing, no bullying,” and allows members to play gentle pranks on friends with their own Everloop pages, play games, read books, and allow parents the ability monitor everything their child does or can be exposed to on the site.
“On my loop I can respond to my fans, and right now they're running a contest to give away some signed T-shirts and the winner gets a Skype call from me,” Chance said. “I'm excited about it.”
Chance has plenty to be excited about. He wrapped up filming on the ABC series, “Raising Hope,” has been touring, writing and performing his own music to crowds of screaming girls and during all this, he's been squeezing in eighth grade.
“I'm enrolled in an Internet school now, and I have a tutor,” he said. “I love high end math like algebra, and history. Science and English, well, not as much.”
He always travels with one of his parents, and scheduling his time makes his school hours quite different from most other eighth-graders.
“On weekends, I have school five hours a day, and I have school during the day on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. I probably put in about 28 hours of school a week,” he said.
His regular job, besides writing music and lyrics, includes listening to all genres of music, but he admits a fondness for current pop icons Coldplay and classic rockers Journey.
“I'd love to meet Chris Martin,” he said, referring to the keyboard player and frontman for Coldplay.
He didn't realize Martin lived in London (Chance was recently there), that Martin was married to actress Gwyneth Paltrow and the pair are sometimes in Los Angeles, where Chance is now. He was happy to think he might run into them while he was rehearsing in Los Angeles.
“Meeting them would be really nice,” he said.
He also might consider dropping a hint to his good friend and mentor Ellen DeGeneres. The talk-show host is credited with discovering him after someone sent her a YouTube video of his sixth-grade talent show and his performance of Lady Gaga's “Paparazzi.”
She invited him to play on her show twice, then created her own record label and signed him to it.
He did a lot of the creative work on his debut album and took the opportunity to learn the production side of recording too.
The young man keeps busy. He is looking forward to the “Hunger Games” movie and has read the first book, but he says most of his time is spent pursing his dreams.
“Writing, writing, writing. Music, music, music” he said.
Chance knows the guys in England's newest boy band, One Direction. They have as many screaming fans as he does.
“I met them about a year ago,” he said. “They are really nice guys. I love their first single.”
Asked if he has a girlfriend, he laughed.
“No, I don't,” he said. “I get asked that a lot. I guess everyone expects someone my age to have a girlfriend.”
Chance's career is definitely on the upswing. Visit YouTube Channel Greyson97. You'll see his Everloop contest rules, his take of Frank Sinatra's “My Way,” plus his video for the title song from his “Hold On 'Til the Night” video.
Right now, designs are being fine tuned for his touring stage, and he's announced he'll tour with pop singer Camryn.
Asian dates are currently being unveiled, and Chance will open his tour on April 17 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, then Singapore on April 18, Jakarta Indonesia on April 20 and Manila, Philippines on April 22.
Does this hard working guy ever get time off, and if so, what does he do?
“I totally relax when I'm off,” he said. “I like hanging out at the beach, and I sleep a lot. I'm lazy.”
When he comes home to Edmond, he claims to do nothing.
“Man, when I'm home it's my only real time off,” he said. “I don't have any kind of schedule. No one calls me, no one emails me. I'm really a relaxed guy.”
Well, maybe as long as he can get his quota of Mexican food.
“I really love their chips and queso. I don't know what I'd do if that place went out of business,” he said, laughing.
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