James Dallas (piano, guitar), Sammy Lopez (drums, piano) David "DC" Yeager (video games). A.k.a. Dallas, DC, and Sammy.

The Beginning: When Dallas and DC's group Part 4 split up, they decided to form a new group with Sammy - whom they had been hangin' with socially anyway. They called themselves Youngstown because, as Sammy says, "It's where we all met, where we all struggled, where we all started our vibe at. Youngstown was that place."

The nickname DC stands for Dazed and Confused.

The Roots: Dallas started out dancing and performing to "be popular with girls." (It worked.) "One day I passed this studio where these people were dancing and I picked up the steps really fast. I was dancing a hip-hop dancing mixture. Kinda like MC Hammer. It was exciting to be onstage." The love of performing stuck. DC just always loved to sing: "I started out just singing to the radio. And one day a friend of mine said I sounded good and he said I should pursue that, and I said, 'All right!' I was around 13, and ever since then I started shuffling my way into it and meeting people, this that and the other thing. And it just turned into this." Sammy's been singing in church, and in church-sponsored competitions, practically his whole life. "I kinda grew up singing gospel. And I was doing a lot of fine arts competitions against different kids in the U.S. all through my high school years. I did a lot of solos -- I sang solos at all kinds of stuff, weddings, even a funeral a couple of times."

Sammy irons his jeans -- himself.

The Sound of Music: Dallas digs classic '80s rock - like Def Leppard, AC/DC, and Ozzy Osbourne. "Pedal to the Steel" was originally an AC/DC "Back in Black" sample. We couldn't clear the sample, though, so we couldn't do it. We hear that Eminem got it, but he did the straight sample of it, whereas we did a sample of it and added a whole bunch of stuff around it. It was dope." DC is all about classic vocalists like Babyface and Boys II Men, and he loves classic country ballads, "because they always have the greatest lyrics. Whenever I think of a hook or a chorus, I think of a country song, because they make it so deep." Sammy digs non-mainstream music like ambient orchestrations and classical concertos. "Something weird that people just don't catch on to. Anything that's different because you could put that different kind of style into anything." He's also into salsa music, and loves salsa drummers like Louis Conta. "I'm Latin, he's Latin, and he's the bomb."

Dallas' favorite current vocal group is *NSYNC because, "they're just all around performers."

The Sound of Youngstown: They describe their music as dance pop with an edge - a kind of popified mix of rock and R&B -- and say they'd like to become even more edgy in the future. Their favorite song on Let's Roll is "Pedal to the Steel" because, as Dallas says, "You're gonna dance when you listen to it. Lyrically, it's dope as hell -- that's dope as in good. It's a hype song. I think that's one song that undeniably everybody likes."

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