There was a time when Forever In Your Mind was all over Disney Channel and their fans patiently waiting for a TV show starring Ricky Garcia, Emery Kelly and Liam Attridge to air. Ricky had a main role on the short-lived series Best Friends Whenever and Emery appeared on Disney XD's Lab Rats, but besides making music that often aired on the network, we didn't get to see much of the trio acting together. They did film a pilot called Forever Boys that was basically about three brothers who happen to have been bitten by a vampire bat in the 1950s. After years of hanging out in the shadows, they decide to reemerge as a boy band and while one episode was filmed, that was it. The network didn't pick the pilot up and order the series like everyone had hoped and while the guys were on The Zach Sang Show, they spilled all about their Disney Channel journey.
"Before we signed with Disney, Ricky and I were going to book a Nickelodeon TV show, both different roles, we were going to be the best friends on the TV show and we were going to fly out to Florida and film it and Liam was going to fly out with us too," Emery explained. "The next day, we had an interview with Radio Disney and Disney hadn't met Liam yet, so the executives of Disney Channel come down and they wanted to see the new member and they were like hold up, we need a meeting. The next day we had a meeting with the corporate people of Disney and we did an interview with them, we sang a little bit, we did a little improv and they called and said Disney wants to give you a 360 deal."
How crazy is it that Emery and Ricky were almost on a Nick show?! And the guys got the call about this life-changing news while they were in the drive-thru getting food from Chick-fil-A, so a win all around. But although they had a fun time filming their pilot and thought it came out great, it just didn't get picked up.
"The whole deal was to be signed to Hollywood Records and do a pilot, which we had filmed. It was so good actually. I really wish people could watch it now. That's the weird things about pilots, it can do really well and it's corporate, they make [the] decisions [to pick it up or not] whether it tests really well and people like it. They decided they wanted to go younger with the channel. We're cool with it, we're here making out music," Ricky explained with Liam chiming in and adding, "it tested phenomenally then they didn't pick it up. We wouldn't be here without it so at tIme it was devastating but it's kind of a blessing in disguise. we would still been signed with Disney until we're 22 probably, which is hard to then break off from that brand when you're so old at the time."
So while it's obviously a bummer their show didn't get picked up, the guys overall have positive attitudes about it. They went on to say they're still good friends with current Disney Channel stars like the cast of Andi Mack, especially Asher Angel, so they're grateful for their experience being part of the network. Emery does think their show was pretty epic though.
"In the test results, it did better than all the shows in seven years. I know for a fact that if our show came out, it would blow up Disney again, 100%," Emery said.
Well, we'll just have to take his word on that one but a vampire boy band does sound pretty cool if we're being honest here.
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