If you haven’t heard of the vocal group T.3, you probably didn’t spend a lot of time sharing TikTok videos of Disney songs during the pandemic.
Tenors Jim Hogan, Brendan Jacob Smith and Liam Fennecken started posting a cappella versions of favorite tunes online just a few weeks before the pandemic hit. Once it did, the viral videos became a full-time occupation and a runaway hit, earning them hundreds of thousands of TikTok subscribers. They even got some thumbs-up from artists they covered, including CSN’s Stephen Stills and R&B star Ginuwine.
“People told us it was their lifeline, but I can honestly say it was ours,” Fennecken said in a group interview this week. “The truth is that all three of us have been performers our entire lives, we are all musical theater professionals — so there we were with no work whatsoever,” Adds Hogan, “We basically asked Brendan to shoot us one video on his parents stairwell. That was the only plan.” And Smith adds, “We definitely got creative about material once we wound up doing it every week, and we started upping our arrangements. We stuck with Disney, Broadway and pop, but there’s a lot of material in those categories.”
Fans came to know them as the TikTok Tenors, a name they couldn’t keep for legal reasons (and of course, the name Three Tenors wasn’t up for grabs). Now rechristened as T.3 they’re on their first national tour, which hits the City Winery on Monday. But it’s not the first time they’ve played in the area: All three were part of the Hyannis Sound, an a cappella group that still plays every summer on the Cape. “That became the background for what this group could become,” Hogan said. “The live thing has been a real adventure. We’ve done shows that were a 20-minute version of TikTok videos, but now we’re doing half a cappella and half with a band.”
They’ve also released their first major-label EP, “Option Up,” which covers their preferred bases: A few original songs plus a Disney medley and their epic cover of Kansas’ “Carry On Wayward Son.” Says Hogan, “One of the fun facts about us is that we were on ‘America’s Got Talent’ and we were set to sing that during our second round, but we didn’t get that far. And now it’s one of the most viral videos we’ve ever done. Of course we love the song — Who doesn’t love listening to all those crazy guitar solos and harmonies?”
Their love for Disney songs is also something they’re not ashamed of. Says Fennecken, “I see all the new (musicals) as soon as they come out. And a lot of those songs cross over with the Broadway ones we do. In terms of performance, you can get a pretty crazy response when it’s three grown men singing songs from ‘The Little Mermaid’.” Adds Smith, “I’d say its all connected in some ways. We all come from musical theater, but we do love pop music and all three of us write songs, we we want to take it into that realm.”
Meanwhile they’re still posting cover tunes to TikTok every week. Asked how long that can continue Smith shoots back, “How long have you got?”