The Pilot Kids are, left, Donrique (Derek Sammak) and Jonny G (Jonny Gorenc). When Jim Gorenc of Manalapan said his family “hit the trifecta,” he did not mean at the racetrack. He was referring to his three children who have all made significant strides in the entertainment industry.
In 2006, his 10-year-old daughter, Allie, landed the role of Sage Snyder on the TV soap opera “As the World Turns.” She played Sage for five years until the series ended. Allie, now 17, is a senior at Manalapan High School and came in second in this year’s Freehold Idol talent competition.
Gorenc’s son, Greg, 22, landed a major role in the movie “Pitch Perfect,” which was released in October 2012.
While Greg was filming “Pitch Perfect,” he listened to music by his older brother, Jonny, and shared it with people on the set.
One cast member liked Jonny’s music so much that he sent it to contacts in the music industry. As a result of that and a lot of hard work by Jonny, 23, (stage name Jonny G, vocals/production), and his band mate Derek Sammak, 23, (stage name Donrique, guitars/production), the duo who call themselves The Pilot Kids recently moved to Los Angeles after being signed by Redzone Entertainment.
When Jonny graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts for film he decided to take a year off before seeking a job in the film industry in order to work on achieving success in his true passion — music.
Remaining friends since graduating from Manalapan High School in 2008, Jonny and Donrique, who is a graduate of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, concentrated on their Pilot Kids duo and set out to make a quality music video of their song “Million Bucks.” Their goal was to get recognized within the year. They lived in the basement of the Gorenc home and worked on their project nonstop.
“We spent 12 to 18 hours every day writing music [and] developing the sound,” said Jonny. “There are so many mountains necessary to climb; it’s so much more than music.”
The two friends used all their savings, borrowed money and raised funds on Indygogo, an online fundraising site, so they could rent high-end equipment and hire a scuba-diving camera girl to shoot the underwater scenes for the video.
Jonny said their goal was for the video to get them noticed so they could move forward in the music industry. They had faith that something was going to happen.
Their hopes were validated when they got a tweet from Merck Mercuriadis, who had seen the video and said, “We need to talk.”
Mercuriadis would later become the band’s co-manager, along with their friend Derrick Cowit, 23, of Manalapan.
Mercuriadis, who is currently a manag ing partner at Redzone Entertainment, used to manage Guns N’ Roses, Elton John and Iron Maiden, to name a few. He introduced Jonny and Donrique to Christopher “Tricky” Stewart and Mark Stewart, the cofounders of Redzone Entertainment.
The Stewarts and Redzone Entertainment have produced artists such as Rhianna, Justin Bieber, Celine Dion, Britney Spears, Sting and many others.
Tricky, who is a music producer and composer, was one of the writers of the songs “Baby” for Justin Bieber, “Umbrella” for Rhianna, and “Single Ladies” for Beyoncé.
Jonny said The Pilot Kids’ music genre is hip hop electronic rock that bleeds into pop music. It combines instruments and computers.
“It kind of sounds like really crazy future music,” Jonny said.
The “Million Dollars” video is about the electronic dance music scene and the use of drugs.
“The whole punchline of the video is ‘I feel like a million bucks,’ which is totally sarcastic,” said Jonny. “The video looks like a crazy party that looks fun, but is really terrible. We hope you walk away from the video going, ‘OK, clearly there are some fun things about drugs and alcohol, and clearly there are some terrible things about drugs and alcohol, so it’s your decision if you want to go do these things.’ It’s just very open-ended and the message is 50-50: Drugs are good, drugs are bad. You decide what you want to do with them.” Jonny said the video is not advocating that anyone should do drugs, but they are also not advocating that anyone should not do drugs. He said he wants people to walk away not sure how they are supposed to feel.
“There are all kinds of cool things about drugs, but really at the end of the day it’s bad, so you need to make a decision about whether or not you are going to be involved in that culture, which is a hot culture to be involved in now, and that’s why I made that video. That’s what we would like people to take away. Some people don’t see the ‘drugs are bad’ part and they think it’s a video glorifying drugs, but I can’t help that. There is a line in the song ‘What’s the price you pay to feel this way?’ It is said over and over as I’m floating underwater and seeing terrible images.”
Needless to say, The Pilot Kids are very excited about moving to Los Angeles and working with the professionals at Redzone.
Jim Gorenc, who is a businessman, said he and his wife, Robin, who is a teacher, both participated in shows in high school, but they have no idea how their children managed to get noticed.
“For two non-Hollywood kinds of people, we feel sometimes like we are on a wave going along for the ride,” Gorenc said. “We are terribly proud of them, but we encourage them to always keep a level head.”