The reports said SkyBlu, half of the smash duo LMFAO, fell off a stage in December, causing a back injury and forcing him to cancel several 2012 shows. What actually happened may have been the musical understatement of the decade. “I started partying a lot,” says the pop star born Skyler Gordy, “and not training anymore.”
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LMFAO, the goofy-looking band behind such 2011 fist-pumping jams as “Party Rock Anthem,” “Sexy and I Know It” and “Champagne Showers,” was rumored to be breaking up during SkyBlu’s recuperation time. But the rumors weren’t true.
“I just led the rock-star life for a good five years. I’m the crazy one. I’ll do anything, especially when I’m drunk,” says SkyBlu, by phone from his home in Los Angeles, where he was once a football player and into martial arts. “All my old injuries started showing their ugly head. … I got three herniated discs. Fluid was leaking out of one of my vertebrae. I started getting sciatica down both my legs. I couldn’t really walk. I was actually in tears when I was rapping. I really stepped back and said, ‘Hey, man, you’ve got to take care of yourself.'”
Through doctor visits, MRIs, medication, training and yoga, SkyBlu, 25, managed to nurse himself back to health — to the point that he and his uncle, 37-year-old Stefan “Redfoo” Gordy, are back on the road for an LMFAO arena tour.
“I’m all the way back now,” SkyBlu says. “But it was a hell of a road. I had to teach myself how to walk again. You can’t do any old thing. I’m really knowledgeable now.”
Pop hits and catchy, well-crafted radio singles are in LMFAO’s bloodline. Redfoo is the youngest son and SkyBlu the grandson of Berry Gordy Jr., founder of Motown Records in Detroit, and as kids they regularly met people like Smokey Robinson and Michael Jackson. One day in 2006, they were rapping together in a car and decided to form a band; they had been hanging around clubs and playing sports, and figured out how to capture that upbeat vibe on their first single “I’m in Miami Trick.”
The song became a novelty club hit, and Redfoo and SkyBlu were on their way to becoming party-rock ambassadors, translating the DJ-club vibe to the pop charts.
The duo signed to major label Interscope Records, and put out the humorously titled “Sorry for Party Rocking” last year. Although the album itself isn’t a massive hit per se, the single “Party Rock Anthem” has not only sold 13 million copies, it has joined Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll Part 2” andAC/DC’s “Back in Black” in sports-arena ubiquity.
“It’s a fun, clean, innocent song,” says Jeff Wohlschlaeger, senior director of game operations for the Chicago Bulls, who put the song into regular rotation last season. “It has a consistent, upbeat nature — our job is not to create energy, it’s to maintain energy, so it works well.”
The Gordys dress in a deliberately goofy style to match their fizzy, synth-heavy, party-rock energy, trying to outdo each other with huge, Sideshow Bob-style hair-frizz, colorful tight pants, black leather and eyewear of all shapes and sizes. Fame has not been a problem. “It’s extremely exciting to me, and I love it,” SkyBlu says. “It’s something I definitely pictured in the past, and it feels good when it happens in reality.”
The band has become such a cultural phenomenon that strange stories about its songs have been surfacing in national media.
This month, a 6-year-old in suburban Denver was suspended from his elementary school for alleged sexual harassment after quoting the title of “Sexy and I Know It” to a girl in a lunch line. SkyBlu heard the news, and he’s outraged.
“The principal was trying to flex power on somebody,” he says. “‘Sexy and I Know It’ — it’s a self-empowering statement, ‘I’m strong, I’m good, and I know it.’ For somebody to blow it out of proportion, shame on them.
“Whoever that kid is, I want to meet him, because he is the sexiest little 6-year-old in the world,” he continues.
“And when somebody tells him he’s suspended, (he can say), ‘Sorry for party rocking.’ That’s the excuse! He’ll get off anywhere with that.”
Of course, LMFAO’s fame peaked worldwide in February, at the Super Bowl halftime show, when they sang “Party Rock Anthem” during Madonna’s set. Redfoo got to ride on the Material Girl’s shoulders because of SkyBlu’s back injuries, but the younger LMFAO managed two career highlights nonetheless. “One was her speech to people going on stage. It was really powerful, and I love to see her leadership,” he says. “She made the experience great to one who’s young and wants to be in this game, and just be a legend and make all different types of music. That’s really inspiring to me.
“And I got to touch her booty a couple times.”
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When: 7 p.m. Saturday
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Where: Allstate Arena, 6920 N. Mannheim Road, Rosemont
Tickets: $25-$70; 847-635-6601 or ticketmaster.com