Stephen Kramer Glickman – Unplugged

PopEntertainment
Aug 8
6 min read

Updated: Sep 22

Stephen Kramer Glickman

Unplugged

By Kayla Marra and Emma Fox

Stephen Kramer Glickman is a Canadian-born musician, comedian, and actor, most widely known for his role as Gustavo Rocque in Nickelodeon’s Big Time Rush. The iconic series ran from 2009 through 2013, with Gustavo as his breakout role. Since then, Stephen voiced animated characters in several animated films including Pigeon Toady in Storks (2016) and Billy Bob in web series Trailer Trash.

Aside from web and film appearances, the multi-talented performer has released an expanding catalog of (now viral) covers of popular songs including “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley, “Bad Guy” by Billie Eilish, “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan, and more. His renditions of these tracks are wildly unexpected in the best way, bending genres and sound, much like in his live performances.

Over the summer, Stephen joined the In Real Life Worldwide tour alongside Big Time Rush castmates Big Time Rush and Katelyn Tarver, where the band plays every song from every episode of the show. We were lucky enough to sit down with Stephen to discuss everything from the tour to his covers, and what he’s been up to since his Nickelodeon days.

If you could describe this tour in one word, what would it be?

Nostalgia-fest. Is that okay? Does that work? That’s what it feels like. Just the general vibe, the energy, it’s like… inner child fest, is that weird? That sounds weird. Everybody’s coming to the show to experience and to see Big Time Rush live, to hear all the songs that they did on the TV show. Then you get this extra wonderful magic of having Jo Taylor (Katelyn Tarver) show up. She performs and she’s amazing, and she has special moments with Big Time Rush that’s super cool. Then I get up with my band and do a bunch of nostalgia-heavy songs. Later in the show I show up as a surprise and do a cool thing where I get to hang out with the boys and do songs with them, with my dogs. When I come back out on stage with the guys, I’m not coming out on stage as Gustavo, I'm coming out as me, but you very quickly see how similar these things are. I mean I’ve been Gustavo for so many years that it’s just part of my personality, part of my life, at this point.

Stephen Kramer Glickman with PopEntertainment.com's Kayla Marra and Emma Fox at the recent Philadelphia Big Time Rush show.

You've done covers of songs live and online, what's your favorite song that you've covered?

I’ve got a couple big favorites. I’m doing "Bad Guy” by Billie Eilish, so we open with that basically every show. It’s such a fun cover. It’s just like a real dirty rock cover. But doing "Pink Pony Club,” that’s outrageous. That’s an outrageous thing to get to perform. We were going to do a Chappell Roan song the whole time. We were going to do [her] song, “Good Luck, Babe!” That was the plan. We rehearsed it once or twice and I was like this is not working for me. It’s already so amazing, but I don’t want to just do a cover, I want to make it mine. It’s already perfect, there’s nothing that I can do to make a version that would be in any way possibly cooler than the way that she did it. Then we were like okay, well “Pink Pony Club.” There’s a great guitar solo. There’s a lot of fun stuff. We were like, what if we just went super hard and just rocked the shit out of that song? It would be such a fun thing to perform on stage. That’s what we started doing. At every show people are on their feet, they’re singing along, they’re dancing in the audience.

I love Chappell Roan. It comes from a real place of love because the job that I had before I was on Big Time Rush, I was playing Shrek in Shrek the Musical on Broadway. I did some Broadway workshops and then Shrek. The job I had before Shrek, I was the opening act for the drag queen show Dream Girls, and the LGBTQ+ club RAGE on Santa Monica Boulevard. You listen to the song, and she shouts out Santa Monica and I was like, this feels good. Some of the states that we’ve performed in have issues with drag queens and drag in general, and they have a lot of issues with the LGBTQ+ community. Not all the states but there’s a few on the tour that we’ve done. When I say to that audience that my job used to be opening up for drag queens, the roar of love that comes out of that audience – it makes me feel proud as an ally of that community that I get to do that song.

We've seen all the fun content with you and your fans online since the start of tour, has there been a favorite or funniest fan interaction so far?

A thousand percent. It happened a couple days ago. It was Soren’s birthday. He’s my guitar player. He can play anything, he’s classically trained. I was literally scrolling on TikTok and found him [on TikTok] when he was 20 years old. He was just getting out of university, and I wrote him and was like, “if you’re ever in LA, let’s play together.” He was like, “Hey, I’m in LA!” We just started working together and now we’re touring all over the world together, which is so much fun. But it was his birthday, and you know the trend on TikTok where people are like, “I hope they play ‘Pink Pony Club’” or “ I hope they play this.” So there’s this video where at the start, this girl goes, “I hope they don’t make me serve cake tonight” and then someone goes, “Why would you serve cake at Big Time Rush?” and then it cuts to me on stage during “Pink Pony Club,” and then Mark hands her a whole cake and goes, “You serve it now, it’s your job” and she’s just like, “What???” (laughs) It’s so good. The way that he did it and the moment, it’s just so fucking hilarious, it’s just perfect. It’s perfect comedy.

What has been your favorite part about being out on the road on such a major tour, and being back together with Katelyn [Tarver] and the guys of BTR?

Back in the day, Katelyn was in a lot of episodes of the show. There are like sixty-something episodes of the show, and we got to work together a little bit back in the day. I’ve always been a huge fan. She’s just so talented, an unbelievable songwriter, an unbelievable singer, and just a great performer. But actually getting a chance to really spend time with her and get to know her as a friend, like a real friend, where we get to work on our bus. Katelyn and I share the bus. We have her band, my band, and our tour managers with us. Every night, we all sit around and we talk. We share stories. It’s like we’re camping. It’s bizarre and it’s so much fun. I just love it. I love the experience.

Honestly, getting a chance to spend time with the boys, I call them my boys, getting the chance to wake up in the morning and sit and have breakfast with Carlos and his kids, and they all of a sudden call me “Uncle ‘Stavo,” it’s so adorable. They all look like him. They’re so good. And Alexa of course (Carlos’ wife), and they’re just so adorable. Getting to hang out with these people that are so extremely important in my life, it is life changing. My life before Big Time Rush and after Big Time Rush, is so different, being able to have those guys that I can share that with, and then they show up in my life and change it all over again with this, getting to tour. It’s crazy.

I get very emotional about it because they know that they’re doing very significant, amazing things for my life by having me come and do this. Last year, I did 45 days on the road, but they were all colleges, all universities, all over the country, which was great fun, and amazing. I went to Monaco and did a show, and it was a super cool, amazing experience. I got to work with Matt Bennett from Victorious and did Party101 with him. So much fun, such a good time. Those were really great. There were a couple thousand people at those shows, that’s really extraordinary, but getting a chance to get on stage in front of twenty-thousand people on a regular basis. That does a lot to your brain, it blends your brain chemistry.

The best part really is getting to show the Rushers that grew up watching the show, another side of your personality, of who you are and what you do, and that’s a wonderful thing. That’s an irreplaceable cool thing to get to do.

Fans can come out to see Stephen, Katelyn, and the guys of Big Time Rush overseas starting in November. You don’t want to miss this! Get tickets here: https://bigtimerushofficial.com/tour/

Make sure to keep up with Stephen on social media and stream his newest covers of Harry Styles’ “Matilda” and Britney Spears’ “Toxic”!