Arts & Entertainment
Former Santa Cruz Musicians Hit a Homerun on the new Clint Eastwood Soundtrack
Colby Pollard and Greg Camp have played Santa Cruz for years. Now their song is in the movie "Trouble with the Curve," which comes out Sept. 21.
You've heard Colby Pollard, but you didn't know it was him.
If you've seen or heard the television commercials for the Boardwalk, at the end of the "California Sun" theme song, a group shouts "Boardwalk!!!!" Colby is one of them.
Find out what's happening in Santa Cruzfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
So is Smash Mouth guitarist and songwriter Greg Camp, who co-wrote the new song "On My Way," which is featured twice in the new Clint Eastwood film Trouble With the Curve, which comes out Sept. 19.
"It's just amazing for all of us," says Pollard, 53, now of San Jose and Los Angeles.
Find out what's happening in Santa Cruzfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Pollard's song got a listen because his best friend since he was 3, Randy Brown, wrote the movie and worked on the song. Brown's cousin, Joey Hester, also got a co-write.
Pollard and Brown were next door neighbors in San Jose, which is how they got their band's name, The Neighbors. The song plays during the movie and again in the prime real estate of the closing credits.
This was Brown's first movie after many years trying to get his foot in the Hollywood door.
The movie, which has some big name actors, including John Goodman, Amy Adams and Justin Timberlake, is about a baseball scout who is losing his vision and depends on his daughter's eyes to help him find his last great players.
Pollard got in the Boardwalk commercials because the he was hanging out with the Santa Cruz band, Maids of Honor, when they recorded the remake of the Rivieras' "California Sun." The Maids include Camp and television phenom Lex van den Berghe, who placed third in the third season of the Survivor TV series.
They all got together for the final Boardwalk shout after recording the studio on Camp's Pro-tools machine.
All of them have played local clubs in various bands, with Camp reaching the highest level with the band Smash Mouth, which had several hits and songs in several movies.
Pollard played locally with Wayne Sloan, the Heartbeats and the Maids of Honor.
Camp is returning to Santa Cruz next week to do a video with the Maids for an ep called Perc. Camp has a studio on the Westside he calls "Halfway to Hell."
He's living in New York now, co-writing songs with the likes of the Madden brothers from Good Charlotte. He's also scored his first film, Valley of the Sun.
"It's great to be back in movies," he said of the Eastwood film. Smash Mouth's version of "I'm a Believer" was featured in Shrek and their cover of "I Wanna Be Like You" was in Jungle Book 2.
Camp left Smash Mouth in 2008 and now plays with a band called the Selectrics, which mostly plays around New York, where he is living. His wife, Gina Marie, sings in the band and the members of the former Monterey band Persephone's Bees are also in it.
He has three kids, aged 1-13, and he talks to Van de Berghe every other day. The two were neighbors in Santa Cruz.
What's his fondest memory of life here?
"I remember me and Lex were sitting out on Christmas Day in the water on our surfboards and we took off our wetsuits because it was so hot. On December 25, it was that hot."
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.
