The Boys Club Malls Its Way Up the Charts

Record industry insiders laughed when MCA Records tried to launch a young singer by putting her on a tour of shopping malls.

But when Tiffany went on to become one of the biggest stars of 1987 and 1988, the laughter stopped.

Now MCA is employing the same strategy with a young duo known as the Boys Club. The plan seems to make perfect sense: Gene Hunt and Joe Pasquale have a Top 20 single, “I Remember Holding You,” with their first single from their debut album, “Boys Club.” But they have no visibility. Fans know the single but not the act.

Since malls are big teen hangouts, they’re full of the kinds of fans these young pop artists are aiming to reach. And mall officials are eager for such attractions, regarding them as good “traffic builders.” All in all, it’s a cheap, easy way to get exposure for a new, teen-oriented act.

“The Boys Club is perfect for the malls,” said MCA executive Larry Solters, originator of the mall-tour idea. “We look at malls as alternative venues.

“Tiffany started off playing malls,” Solters said. “She was the first to do malls. She was an unknown artist at the time. She couldn’t draw people to clubs and doing a club tour is so expensive. So I thought of the mall thing as an alternative.

“She could sing live to backing (instrumental) tracks at a mall. It’s a great place to reach that target teen audience.”

At first the experiment seemed like a failure. “The first shopping mall she played, there were only 12 people watching,” Solters said. “But at the end--after about 100 shows in different malls--she was playing to about 1,100 people.”

The Boys Club appeals to that same teen audience. And despite its Top 20 single, Solters said, the duo still isn’t ready for clubs:

“Just because they have a hit single the first time out, that doesn’t mean they can draw in clubs. But in a mall they don’t have to be able to sell tickets. The show is free. You can do promotional tie-ins with record stores in the malls, too.

“The artists can get the exposure while they’re getting performing experience. The point is to build visibility. From there, they can step up to clubs later on.”

Since Tiffany, MCA has had success with mall tours of its New Age acts on the Narada label and is planning to expose another new young act, the Boys--on its subsidiary Motown label--the same way.

The Boys Club itself is divided about playing malls. Hunt doesn’t mind mall tours, but Pasquale isn’t quite so eager.

“I know it’s smart business-wise but I still don’t like it,” he said. “I want to sing with a band--not with backing tracks over a PA system in some mall. Some guy will announce us and then say this shoe store in the mall is having a sale on shoes. That’s not what you would call high class.

“It’s sort of embarrassing but I’ll do the mall thing. You gotta start somewhere, but in a mall? I sound cynical about it only because I am.”

Boys Club follows more than Tiffany, it seems, in appealing to young teens.

The duo has copied Wham!’s sound to perfection. Boys Club’s hit single, “I Remember Holding You,” might be mistaken for a Wham! outtake.

Normally, calling a band a clone might be considered a slap in the face. But Hunt and Pasquale are proud of the Wham! connection.

“A lot of people say we sound like Wham!,” said Hunt, 19. “Well, we do. “They say Joe sounds like George Michael. He does. We don’t have our own identity yet.”

No just anybody couldn’t have duplicated Wham!’s sound--or look--so well.

Young, trim and handsome, Hunt and Pasquale would seem to be the kind of hunks that set hearts aflutter.

Originally both wanted to be solo performers. Hunt had just left the Jets and Pasquale was a fledgling writer who aspired to be a performer. Though you can’t tell from his pop-soul vocals on the album, Pasquale, 23, studied opera at the University of Minnesota, where he earned a degree in music composition and orchestration.

Hunt, has been a singer for most of his 19 years--starting in the Jets’ family revue when he was 8. The group signed with MCA Records in 1984 and has been a teen favorite ever since. Hunt, a vocalist-percussionist, decided to leave the group about a year ago. When he settled on being part of a duo, MCA, which still had Hunt under contract, kept them under wing.

“I knew Joe for about a year before we got together,” Hunt said. “Our manager helped put us together. There was a void in the market for male duos. Tears For Fears weren’t around and Hall and Oates weren’t happening. And Wham! was over too. It was a good time for a duo--and for that Wham! sound.”

That may sounds calculating or smack of commercialism, but it worked.

“Who cares who we sound like?,” said Pasquale. “What matters is that we have a hit. That’s the first step. A hit single is an accomplishment--no matter who you sound like.”