That Time I Almost Met Nelly Furtado
If you’ve spent any time around me then you’re well aware that in the early 2000’s I hung out with Stone Temple Pilots in their private rehearsal studio. I’ve probably regaled you with this tale so many times that you try to hide when you see me coming. You probably think to yourself, “Oh shit, here comes Clif ‘I Hung Out with Stone Temple Pilots’ Haley! I better go get a root canal right this second!” Well, guess what. There’s another part to this story you’ve never heard! Oh, you have? The part about how I almost met Nelly Furtado? You mean the part that goes…
When my old band Plow Monday was at LA’s SIR Studios circa early 2000’s getting ready to put on a showcase for several major label reps, a guy walked into our rehearsal room carrying many outlandish outfits. Seeing us, he looked very confused. Seeing him, we also looked confused. Were we supposed to wear these outlandish outfits during our performance? Naturally, we really hoped so! Unfortunately, this would not be the case, because as it turns out Outlandish Outfits Guy was looking for Nelly Furtado’s rehearsal room across the hall. The outlandish outfits were for her backup singers and dancers to wear during a performance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno that night.
This is as close as I got to meeting Nelly Furtado. I got to witness — with my own eyes no less — outlandish outfits. However, our singer Jon English DID meet Nelly Furtado briefly outside SIR Studios that same day and I’m happy to report that she was — according to Jon’s first-hand, human-to-human conversational interaction with her — a “pretty nice person”.
