Cheetah Girls score big with Disney audience

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By David Burke | Thursday, September 28, 2006 1:14 AM CDT | () comments

PHOTO BY WALT DISNEY RECORDS The Cheetah Girls �” Adrienne Bailon, left, Sabrina Bryan and Kiely Williams �” headline a Saturday afternoon concert at The Mark of the Quad-Cities.

Turns out those elusive tweens are savvier than older generations are giving them credit.

They know darned well the differences between the Cheetah Girls — characters Dorinda, Chanel and Aquanetta — and the actresses who play them — Sabrina Bryan, Adrienne Bailon and Kiely Williams, respectively.

“We don’t find that being something difficult at all, which is interesting,” Bryan said in a joint phone interview before the trio’s 40-city tour, which comes to The Mark of the Quad-Cities on Saturday afternoon. “We started to notice that at first, they would call us Dorinda and Chanel and Aqua, and now, when you come to a Cheetah Girls concert, they’re screaming Sabrina, Kiely and Adrienne.

“They definitely know the difference in us in the movie and us as a singing group.”

Whether fans know them from their two Disney Channel TV-movies or the two accompanying soundtrack albums, the trio definitely has a following. (Actress-singer Raven-Symone, who also stars in Disney’s “That’s So Raven,” is part of the movie and the soundtrack, but not a part of “the group” Cheetah Girls.)

“The Cheetah Girls 2” debuted on Disney in late August, and drew the highest ratings of any program — broadcast or cable — that night, with 7.8 million viewers. That’s more than the debut of “High School Musical,” another Disney smash. “The Cheetah Girls 2” soundtrack debuted in Billboard’s Top 5 albums in mid-August.

CD signings have brought triple the crowds the performers had expected, and they said everyone knew who was who.

“The cool thing about it is on the Disney Channel, they try to make it really clear to separate reality from fantasy,” Bailon said.

The first “Cheetah Girls” movie debuted in August 2003, and slowly became a hit for the channel, with its soundtrack selling 2 million albums.

“After the first movie, the success really shocked us,” Bryan said. “We were anticipating hopefully they would like (the sequel). Everything in this last movie really grew and we were really proud of it, and we couldn’t wait for the fans to see it.”

Williams said it was the culmination of how the group has grown.

“We put so much work into it in the past two years,” she said. “We’ve been working really hard building up the Cheetah brand, getting our faces out there and our music out there. The movie and its ratings are such a blessing, and we’re so grateful our hard work has paid off.”

Besides being in Cheetah Girls, Bailon and Williams are two-thirds of the R&B trio 3LW, which has had several hits in the early part of the decade.

Bailon said the Cheetahs and 3LW are two different animals.

“The styles of music are different, and it’s easy to separate the two,” she said.

Bryan said it was easy to fit in with the other two.

“As soon as we started going through the scene together, it was like an automatic chemistry,” she said of her audition with Bailon. “I felt really comfortable, and when I found out she was cast too, it was exciting.”

Bailon said her real-life experiences came into play in auditioning and getting the role.

“It’s similar to a lot of things we’ve experienced,” she said. “I can look back, as an actress, trying to find energy for those moments — the first time going into a studio, the first time stepping on stage. It’s real, because it’s something I’ve experienced in a girl group.”

It was the choice of the three singers, not Disney, to take the group out on the road as a trio, Williams said.

The tour continues with Miley Cyrus, who plays the title role in Disney’s “Hannah Montana,” through mid-December.

Williams said the Cheetahs worked hard to get rid of the notion it was pre-assembled, as several other groups had been in reality TV shows in the past few years.

“It was a decision we made on our own to become a singing group, and that distinguishes us from O-Town or Eden’s Crush, that we put it together,” she said. “Although our characters are what got us in the movie, Adrienne, Kiely and Sabrina decided they wanted to be a singing group and fulfill the Cheetah Girl promise we make in the movie. In that sense, we weren’t put together. We met each other through a movie, and decided that putting us together would be a great combination.”

Plans are being made for a third “Cheetah Girls” movie (they’re based on a series of four books by Deborah Gregory), and a second non-soundtrack album. (A holiday CD was released last year.)

There’s also a Cheetah Girls clothing line, video games and even toothbrushes that play the trio’s songs.

None of them wanted to guess what would happen in the farther future . All three say their age is “17 Cheetah years,” but an Internet Movie Database search shows them as 20 to 26, but wouldn’t venture if they would be out on the road in 20 more years as “Cheetah Women.”

“We’re just going to take it one day at a time. Everything’s coming along really smoothly, and it just seems like it gets better every day,” Williams said. “Every day creates new opportunities, and we’re just looking for ways to create ourselves.”

Although the shows are intended for the tween (i.e., preteen and early teen) market, the singers say they’ve found fans beyond those borders.

“We’re seeing more parents than anyone,” Bailon said. “Even girls in their 20s will tell us, ‘I’m not gonna lie, I know exactly who you are. It’s a guilty pleasure, whether it’s ‘That’s So Raven’ or ‘High School Musical’ or Cheetah Girls.”

David Burke can be contacted at (563) 383-2400 or dburke@qctimes.com.

if you go

What: The Cheetah Girls, with Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana, and Everlife

When: 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 30

Where: The Mark of the Quad-Cities, Moline

How much: $37 and $27

Information: (309) 764-2000