OC Times’ Shawn York, Sean Devine, Cory Hunt, and Pat Claypool, photographed for SPIN in Orlando, Florida, August 31, 2008

barbershop isn’t quite doo-wop (no satin shirts, no backup singers), it’s not quite college a cappella (no drum noises, no more than four parts), and although bands like Portishead and TV on the Radio have incorporated elements of barbershop into their music, it’s definitely not rock. It’s just…old. But OC Times—the “OC” stands for “Orange County,” where the group formed—is dismantling barbershop’s kitschy, golden-age image one gig at a time. They’ve combined old-school harmonies with boy-band aesthetics and a modern repertoire to create a hybrid genre— call it barberpop—that has given a badly needed jolt of life to a small, time-trapped musical community. Now they’re faced with a chance to go where no barbershop quartet has ever gone before: the mainstream.

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“DON’T HURT YOUR
HAND, BRO.”
“Yeah, Pat, be careful.”
“GUYS, CHILL. I GOT THIS.”

I’M SITTING WITH OC TIMES IN A HOTEL SUITE in Orlando, where they’re headlining the Labor Day Jamboree, a sort of barbershop Bonnaroo held in a small convention center just down the street from Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. Claypool, the group’s surfer-looking baritone, is trying to open a Corona Light by wedging the bottle against the top edge of a dresser and pounding the cap with his palm. After a few

whacks, a soft pshht is heard, the cap falls to the floor, and Claypool lets out a satisfied sigh as he sits down to contemplate the question I posed to the group a few minutes ago. Namely: What are four young, jockish musicians from Southern California doing in a barbershop quartet?

“We all feel a connection to the music,” says Devine, the charismatic lead singer and apparent heartthrob. “There’s something awesome about the pure, stripped-down barbershop chords.”

“It’s a great art form with a rich history, and we wanted to put our stamp on it,” says York, the group’s tenor, now sporting cargo shorts, a Hurley T-shirt, and leather flip-flops. “We wanted to show people that a barbershop quartet doesn’t have to be this geeky, out-of-date thing.”

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