XL MUSIC

Cheetah Girls kick off tour in Austin

By Dale Roe
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, October 02, 2008

According to an Internet quiz, if I were a member of the teen pop trio the Cheetah Girls, I'd be Aqua, portrayed in the popular Disney Channel movies, CDs and DVDs by 22-year-old Kiely Williams. Thing is, I'm the 45-year-old dad of a Cheetah Girls fanatic, so that's not likely to happen (although, with the current state of the economy one keeps his options open).

How serendipitous, then, that I had occasion to chat with Williams on the eve of "The Cheetah Girls One World Tour," which kicks off Wednesday at the Erwin Center.

In true Cheetah Girl fashion, she was cheerful and enthusiastic despite what must be a great weight inherent in carrying the Disney money machine across the country. But the Cheetahs (the trio also includes Sabrina Bryan and Adrienne Bailon) have prowled these parts before, including a 2007 tour-closing stop at the Houston Rodeo, where they helped break Brooks and Dunn's ticket sales record.

"We've spent so much time in Texas it's become kind of like a second home for us," Williams says, adding that the girls would rehearse the show's hip-hop, R&B and Indian-tinged tracks in Austin for a few days prior to Wednesday's performance.

"It's a bigger tour than we've ever done, and I really think it has a lot to do with the energy that the fans gave us from our last tour and getting their feedback. We really just totally scaled this tour up, and I really think it's something that fans are going to enjoy. And their parents are really, really going to enjoy this tour."

Ah, the parents. As a veteran of tweentastic Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus and Aly & AJ concerts, it's good to know the girls are thinking about us.

As opposed to Cyrus' recent Erwin Center gig, the Cheetah Girls rock out to recorded tracks. So don't expect any boring, show-slowing band member introductions. But do look for lots of flash and movement. "We're not touring with a band," Williams explains, "but we are touring with dancers."

An accomplished singer, dancer and actress (her latest non-Cheetah role was that of shy sorority sister Lilly in Columbia Pictures' "The House Bunny") Williams declines to choose one discipline that makes her happiest.

"I'm going to say that performing (live) is my favorite out of all of it, because we get to combine the dancing, the singing and the acting," she says.

She shies away from the role model status implicit in the Cheetahs' popularity with young fans. "We think it's great, but we think there are so many other role models that are more important in our fans' lives," she says. "Their parents."

Boy, these Cheetah Girls really know how to play up to the parents.

"Our parents are our biggest role models. Those are the people we, to this day, go to and look to for how we want to model our lives. We think it's really important that our fans have someone in their lives like that. Someone they can actually talk to, that they can really get advice from. That's what we tell our fans, and that's what we really believe."

OK, enough about parents. But are the Cheetahs really like sisters, as they claim in their songs?

"Yeah, we are," Williams says with a laugh. "And that makes work so much better, when you go to work with your two best friends."

All three Cheetah movies (this year's tour basis, "The Cheetah Girls One World," is no exception) have followed a predictable pattern in which superstar opportunity knocks just before something threatens to tear the group apart. Then the Cheetahs cat fight.

"We actually think it's really funny that we get to do that," Williams says. "It's kind of the time when we step out of who we are and really jump into character. It doesn't take much work for us to play three best friends on TV; it does take a lot of work for us to act jealous or mad at each other and those kinds of things because we don't have those emotions typically for each other. We laugh all the time."

All the way to the ... Erwin Center.

"Everything we do, even if it's, you know, morning press which is kind of rough for everybody, we're cracking up laughing and making jokes and taking pictures, because this really is the time of our lives, and we're really enjoying every minute of it."