Locked Away by R. City and Adam Levine. Song.
R. City (press photo). City (press photo)
By Brian Ives
One of summer’s biggest jams was “Locked Away,” by brotherly duo R. City from the Virgin Islands. And, while is a super-catchy tune powered by an Adam Levine-sung hook, it’s a bit heavier than the frothier summer fare.
“It was inspired by true events,” Theron Thomas tells Radio.com. “Our dad was locked up for five years. And during the time he was gone, our mom held it down. She’d take us to see him. They’re still together to this day. They’ve been together for 36 years. So we thought that that was a great story to write a song about.”
It was a great subject for a song; but their mom also may have set an extremely high standard for any prospective girlfriends in Theron and brother Timothy’s lives. Theron laughs about that: “We each hope we can find a woman who will love us like that. Who will be there for us, whether we’re down and out or whether we’re doing great and who will love us for who we are. That’s our standard. our whole outlook on relationships is based on that.”
It’s suggested to them that that standard may be tough to live up to.
Timothy laughs: “Hopefully not too tough!”
How did mom and dad react to the song?
Theron reports, “We played the song for them and they loved it. But they didn’t know it was about them. When we told them it was about them, they were like, ‘Wow, thank you, that’s so cool!'”
Of course their parents are proud that their kids have a huge U.S. hit. The song’s cause was helped by the presence of Levine. Theron reports that producer Dr. Luke helped to make it happen: “Dr. Luke and Cirkut worked with Maroon 5 on ‘Sugar.’ They told Adam, ‘We have this act from the Virgin Islands, you might have heard of them.’ Adam actually had heard of us. He said, ‘Let me hear the song.’ He liked it, and here we are.”
The video, showing different families in different stressful situations, brings home the song’s universal message. Theron says, “We wanted everyone to be able to relate to it. We also wanted everyone to know that we’re Caribbean, without being in some tropical s— somewhere, you know? But we wanted it to appeal to everyone. We grew up in the St. Thomas projects in the Virgin Islands. so how can the people who we grew up with see that and say, ‘Yo, I feel that!’ And then how can somebody who grew up in the suburbs also say, ‘Yo, I feel this!’ That was what we wanted. The director nailed it.”
But the road to being in a position where they could actually shoot a video was a long one. They were stars in the Virgin Islands, but not well known outside of that area.
Theron recalls, “We moved here to be artists, we left St. Thomas with $85 in our pockets.” But things didn’t take off immediately.
Timothy says, “Nothing was happening and we got jobs, I worked at Party City.” He looks back on that time with a laugh:
“I blew up balloons, helped people get costumes. One year, I worked all day on Halloween and then they fired me. And then a month later the guy who fired me stole something, so they fired him and they rehired me.”
Soon, though, their songs were getting discovered by other artists and producers. “We got paid $5,000 for one song. At the time that was the most money we’d ever received, up front, at once. ‘You’re gonna pay us $5 thousand for a song? And we’re working at Party City? We’ve got a bunch of songs!’ That was life-changing amount of money at that time.”
“So it just kind of opened that door for us. ‘Yeah, we can write songs!’ And we just got better at it as time went on. Our manager said that we should stop trying to be artists and focus on the songwriting thing, because that’s what people were calling us for. That’s what was paying the bills.”
However, a key collaborator soon helped them to get back to making their own music: “We started working with Dr. Luke on some projects, and he said, ‘Do you want to record any of your songs for yourself?’ And we were like, ‘Uh, cool!’ We recorded nine songs in three days, and we made a deal.”
That deal has been working out well: their debut album, What Dreams Are Made Of, is due out on October 9.