“If people ask me [about my background] I’ll tell them,” Chord tells Zooey Magazine. “I’m from Nashville. My family is German, Irish, a little bit of Native American. [We’re] pretty much a mix of many different ethnicities. I came [to Los Angeles] when I was 19. Going from Nashville to LA is like going from a small town in the country where there isn’t much going on, to being [pushed] into the center of everything.”
Chord comes from a musical family. His brother Nash is part of Hot Chelle Rae and his dad is a famous musician. But how has he adjusted to acting? “Acting’s a little new for me. I grew up doing music, but acting is a daily challenge. There’s always room for improvement in both music and acting and that’s why I love both. I like to be challenged.”
Everything about this interview is ironic. An awkward silence fills the space as I sit mere inches away from Chord Overstreet in the narrow stairwell of a stockroom somewhere in the middle of Beverly Hills.
He is wearing sunglasses, but we are indoors. He is dressed to the nines, like a dapper Ken Doll pulled straight from the manufacturing floor, yet the only things separating us from the dumpsters overflowing in the alley are colorless wooden doors and bleach-white plaster walls. I could feel him looking me dead in the eye, possibly wondering how I was going to break the obdurate silence and get beyond those dark glasses in the 15 minutes I’d been allotted to get to know him. His personality is arguably the exact opposite of mine; quirky and interesting as his given name suggests, with his biting, cheeky yet endearing sense of humor and seemingly perpetual sang-froid. He hates olives, and has an aversion to heights that isn’t quite as strong as his distaste for ditzy girls.
Aerosmith is his favorite band of all time. He is at ease enough in his own skin to burst out into song, usually snippets of hip-hop or early ‘90s top 40 hits. He’s got the babe-like good looks and effervescent charm of a true modern “Good Ol’ American Boy”, but there is infinitely more to Overstreet than what superficiality divulges. His taste in music alone is evidence that he has a much older soul than he’s given credit for. “I like Mumford and Sons and John Mayer, [but] I’m a huge fan of the older stuff. Hall & Oates, Creedence Clearwater Revival, James Taylor— it doesn’t really get any better than that.”
