2Cellos, 1 mission

Stjepan Hauser has been playing cello since he was a boy, mastering the instrument's classical repertoire while studying in Croatia, Vienna and England. But he's not known for his work playing Bach now.

Rather, he and his playing partner, Luka Sulic, are renowned for what's been tagged 'cello rock,” doing their versions of songs like Guns N' Roses' 'Welcome to the Jungle” on their two cellos.

While AC/DC's 'Highway to Hell” might seem on the surface to be alien to the warm, rich sounds of the cello, Hauser, in a recent phone interview, said that's not the case.

'Cello is like the most complete instrument,” Hauser said. 'It is really emotional. You can play beautiful melody. But using effects, it can be wilder than electric guitar. You can use the range of really high notes, like the violin, and warm, low notes like the double bass. Everything is possible on the cello.”

The versatility of the instrument makes nearly any style of song fair game for the duo.

'We don't like to divide music into any categories or genres,” Hauser said. 'The only way you can divide music is good music and bad music. Every genre has good music and bad music. We choose the good music. Then the only thing that matters is the emotion that you bring when you're playing it.”

Everything is possible. And anything goes when Hauser and Sulic take the stage. The duo will perform tonight (7/27) at the McGrath Amphitheatre in Cedar Rapids.

'We do all this crazy stuff on just two cellos,” Hauser said in describing the duo's summer 2017 set. 'It's all about how creative you are. We play all kinds of music in one show. We start really gentle with classical music and film music. Then it gets more and more crazy and the end of the show is a rock show. It's a real journey.”

The film music comes from 'Score,” the duo's fourth album, released earlier this year. It's filled with famous movie music - themes from 'The Godfather,” 'Love Story,” 'Chariots of Fire” - songs like 'Moon River” and the disc's hit, a medley of songs from 'Game of Thrones” that has garnered more than 1 million YouTube views.

That's a lot of views, but not even close to the duo's breakout. Their 2011 cover of Michael Jackson's 'Smooth Criminal” got 3 million views in three weeks and now, six years later, is closing in on 19 million views.

'Smooth Criminal” came after friendly rivals Hauser and Sulic, who met as teenagers in a master class in Croatia, became a duo when they'd completed their studies in England. Looking for something new, and a way to make some money, Hauser and Sulic decided to give pop music on cello a try.

'At one point, we just wanted to attract a wider audience and get young people to become more interested in cello,” Hauser said. 'We wanted to show cello is really cool and powerful. ... We did the ‘Smooth Criminal' video and that was it. Our lives changed overnight. From there, everything started happening quickly.”

Signed to Sony Masterworks, the duo released its self-titled debut with covers of U2, Nine Inch Nails, Coldplay and Nirvana songs in 2011, and has put out an album every year since then. They have toured steadily since they opened for Elton John immediately following the 'Smooth Criminal” success and have made television appearances on shows from 'Glee” to 'Monday Night Football,” proving that 2Cellos was not a one-hit novelty.

'When you have some innovation, that's when the work begins,” Hauser said. 'You have to work harder and harder to sustain it, to keep it going. We worked and worked and today, we're touring and playing arenas all over the world.”

So how do they select the songs that keep people coming to the shows, buying the records and tuning in on TV?

'It's a very simple formula: Choose a song you like, and you keep it if it sounds good on cello,” Hauser said. 'If it has a beautiful melody, it has a big chance. But with any great song, we try to something different with the song, so it sounds like a new song. That's difficult. It takes time to figure out what you can do with a song that everyone has heard many times and make it sound new. For example, with (AC/DC's) ‘Thunderstruck,' it took us three months to figure it out.”

One thing that hasn't been on any 2Cellos record yet - a contemporary pop hit.

'We didn't find a song from nowadays that could fit the cellos,” Hauser said. 'They don't really work with all the beats and loops. But we're going to keep looking. We will find one.”

Until then, Hauser said 2Cellos has plenty of material and no shortage of fans.

- L. Kent Wolgamott, Last Word Features