Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Ep. 82 The Gregory Brothers - Ear Biscuits

Episode Date: August 14, 2015

The Gregory Brothers, the musical group known internet-wide for their viral series, “Auto-Tune the News,” join Rhett & Link this week to talk about the path that led them to compose the theme song for the hit Netflix series “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” the behind-the-scenes stories of auditioning for American Idol, and what it’s like to work so closely on a regular basis with members of their own family. *NOTE: This conversation contains adult themes and language To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I'm Link. And I'm Rhett, joining us today once again from VidCon, where we recorded a handful of biscuits, are Michael Gregory, Evan Gregory, and Sarah Fullan Gregory, three of the four founding members of the musical quartet, the Gregory Brothers, a band that's best known for their YouTube series,

Auto-Tune the News and Songify This. And longtime friends of ours, which will become very clear as you begin the biscuit with us. Their YouTube channel known as Schmoyoho, accent on the yo, was created back in 2006 by Michael. And I dug up some interesting stuff on there by sorting by oldest first.

That's a little trick I let you in on. Well, it's quite a trick, Link, the old sort button. Oh yeah, on YouTube. But it became the home for all things Gregory Brother, thanks to Auto-Tune and the presidential debate six years ago. Since its start, the channel has racked up 2.5 million subscribers and over 680 million views.

And a lot of those views are attributed to the success of their masterfully auto-tuned songifications where they digitally manipulate the voices of politicians, news anchors, other characters from viral videos to create these insanely catchy songs accompanied by a hilarious video, often that employs a lot of green screen and sometimes a keytar. And they may not have invented the software for auto-tune.

Well, I can say they did not. They definitely did not. But they can certainly be credited for making it the sensation it became back in 2009 and 2010. I'm sure you remember the Charlie Sheen winning song almost 57 million views today, and with 36 million views, the internet classic, Double Rainbow Song.

That's a whole rainbow black. Ah! Double rainbow all the way across the sky. Yeah, yeah! So intense. Double rainbow all the way across the sky. Wow, wow. Oh my God. Look at that red moon. But their most popular video of the day is the Bedroom Intruder song, which currently has 128 million views. And I know that you remember this one.

He's climbing in your windows. He's snatching your people up. Trying to rape him so you need to hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husband, because they're raping everybody out here. You don't have to come and confess. We're looking for you. We gonna find you. We gonna find you. You can run and tell that, run and tell that, run and tell that, old boy, old, old, old boy. Now guys, that was the most watched video on YouTube. So I guess that means the planet in 2010. Yeah, that's big.

So of course the success of their auto-tuning and songification skills has led them to various other projects, a lot of which we talked about in this Ear Biscuit. We had a great time sitting down with three of the four Gregorys talking about the history of how they became magicians. They're magicians?

It's hard for me to say musicians, especially when I'm fixated on magicians. How they became a band and a YouTube sensation. We talked about how Evan and Sarah met. We talked about how all of them met, which is by birth, many of them. Most of them met by birth. What led to the creation of Auto-Tune the News

and how their online success opened the doors for many other projects, like I said, like making an Auto-Tune segment for the Oscars and creating the theme song for the TV show Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Yeah, so we enjoyed talking with the gentleman and the lady and we think you'll enjoy this Ear Biscuit, but first, we wanna take a moment to let you guys know

about our Song Biscuits animated series. You remember Song Biscuits where we collaborated with other YouTubers to create songs based on your suggestions. We should've had the Gregory Brothers on that, but it didn't work out. It didn't work out. That'll have to be for season two. Yeah, we'll bring it back at some point,

but what we have done is we picked some of our favorite Song Biscuits from that series and partnered with some of our friends over at Frederator to get some of their animators to bring these to life in animated form. So we're doing that on Saturdays on the Good Mythical Morning channel so make sure you check those out. But now, let's get on with the biscuit.

How often does that happen? Do you show up somewhere and it's like some news thing and they're like, can you sing our like call sign or whatever? Oh yeah. We've sung like three call signs today,

just today. Yeah. Serious. Yeah, mostly for like kids in our signing line who are like my youtube channel is called oh well bobby mcgee productions and you grant this request you're that nice oh yeah we love doing that yeah oh yeah what we don't grant is when someone is like so

have you auto-tuned your baby crying yet why not now you have to answer the question you just made fun of because I really want to know. The answer is no, we haven't yet. You're thinking about it. You're thinking about it. So where's Andrew? He's missing.

Great question. Andrew is on his honeymoon. He's just been married. Oh, yeah. Andrew got married this last week. Where's he honeymooning? Costa Rica. Oh, Costa Rica.

He went to the Rica Coast. I have beenoning? Costa Rica. Oh, Costa Rica. He went to the Rica coast. I have been to the Costa Rica. He's probably learning to surf or something. Boring. Well, you know, we're finally getting you guys on in your biscuit. I mean, we see each other. We've been friends for so long. It's just been a question of when are we all going to get together,

and now Andrew's missing out. You know what? If he wants to be married and honeymoon instead of be here, then so be it, Andrew. He always has the lamest excuses. We'll be rubbing this in for a long time. Let's talk about the first meeting. Let's reminisce on this thing.

Oh my gosh, great idea, okay. So Michael, you're gonna have to help me figure out how this works. And then there's the initial thing about what we did once we got there with the recording. You remember that? So I wanna talk about that. I will remember, but, oh yes.

Once we get there. Now I'm remembering a lot. So I think I reached out, I don't know how, I like sent an email that was like, you guys were auto-tuning the news and it was amazing. And somehow we started talking, right? Yeah, yeah. On email.

Yeah, and I can't remember what email was up like at the time, but I must have had the email up in the videos or something and then we were emailing each other. I tracked you down in like the channel section, like channel information email thing. Right. Because I was like on this kick that's like, if I really like somebody, I'm going to find them. And we were going to New York for 789, July 8, 2009.

Right. YouTube gathering. And so I was like, we're going to New York. That's where the Gregory brothers are. So let's make this happen. And you guys helped me out because I was new to the YouTube so I didn't even know that existed. So otherwise I would have missed the whole thing.

I was like, oh, there's a 789. But you had to agree to meet us first, which was like, True. We had never like, I had never like cold called a YouTuber, cold emailed a YouTuber and been like, hey, I really like what you're doing. Let's meet. On the corner of 156th. I remember feeling this sense of,

I was taking an emotional risk in sending the email. I mean, I don't think we had been cold called ever before, really. So we were feeling the same thing. We had jitters, butterflies. It was a weird experience. And we had just gotten our first iPhones. Whoa.

Yeah. One of the features on the iPhone was the voice memo thing. Revolutionary. And I just remember the first time we ever recorded a voice memo, I was like, it sounds so clear. The audio's so good. We could be like, and then Rhett was like, he pitched this idea to me, he was like, we could be like NPR, just using the voice memo on my phone. Cause it sounds like NPR.

And we're like, well we're going to New York, we're going to New York and what we're gonna do is instead of like doing video, I mean, how stupid would that be to like do video? We actually thought it was a great idea to not vlog but just record audio. Have audio vignettes and and we would take a picture and then have the audio on our website.

And so the first ever interview we did was- Download that. We met, and then we went to your house. It came up to our apartment. We had nachos or something. We had that, what was that? We had that beer with the clam sauce in it. Michelada, Michelada, yeah. I'd never heard of that. Never had that, what was that, we had that beer with the clam sauce in it. Michelada, Michelada, yeah.

I'd never heard of that, never had it since. Well, you got a good one, man. It was like Tecate beer with what? Tomato juice? For some reason, when we made nachos, we were like committing to a full Mexican theme on the dinner or something. So we got to get the clam beer.

It can be different things, or something. So you got to get the clam beer. It's like, it can be different things, but I think the basic michelada is tomato juice and Worcestershire. Is that right? I thought that was Clamato. Maybe we put Clamato in it? Yeah, it was like Clamato and chili pepper in your beer, yeah.

Oh, okay. I was totally wrong. And Tecate. And Tecate. And so we drank some of that at your round table there. Yes. I mean, do you remember this? Yes, I do. You're painting the picture. I'm reliving it. And so we drank some of that at your round table there. I mean, do you remember this?

Yes, I do. You're painting the picture. I'm reliving it. Am I making this up, man? It was really cute. I remember it being really cute. We put the phone. We sat around the little family table. And we interviewed you just like this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was just like this. Wait, I don't remember the interview at all. I just remember the nachos. It was just an iPhone. What did we talk about? I think there was a little bit of like, how do you we talk about? I think there was a little bit of like, how do you auto tune?

And there was a little bit of like, talking shop and then there was like. I recently found it. Oh for real? Oh my gosh. It's online, it's like on a. No but I recently found it like, in my like voice memo playlist.

Yeah, cause it's like, you know. Six years? It never goes away, it just keeps passing along, you know? It just goes from phone to phone. And it's not labeled, it just says like July 7th or July 8th, whatever day it was. My memo 13. Yeah.

It's like, oh, this is when we were in their kitchen talking to them. And then afterward, we went to watch Bruno. Oh, that's right! Which just came out. And then afterward we went. We went to watch Bruno. Which just came out. It was probably opening weekend. Sasha Baron Cohen's follow up to. I really blocked that out. What was the?

Borat. Borat was great. It was like groundbreaking. And then this was like his follow up a few years later. It was a total date I remember. Yeah. Like yeah we did dinner. We made you guys dinner and then we went to a movie. It was a full date, I remember. Yeah, we did dinner. We made you guys dinner, and then we went to a movie together.

It was a full date experience. Yeah, it was a group date. But there was a scene in the movie where it's like a full-on close-up of a penis. Yeah. Just dangling. And wagging. Wagging, and it started speaking. Yeah, it points at you and then starts speaking.

Yeah, and that's quite a first date. It is. You don't want to see that on a date, especially unexpected. Every time I look at you guys, I see that penis talking. Me too. That's like a date number three movie.

Yeah, right. Where you've already established an atmosphere of mutual respect and affection for penises. Yeah. That's something you have to sort of work your way up to. I mean, thanks to that choice, I Google is there a talking penis in this before I see any movie now.

Right, thanks to you guys. Well, it's on Kids and Mine, there's the talking penis section, like Common Sense Media will tell you that, right? Oh, okay. That's a plug? That's a spoiler you're willing to find out about. Yes.

About a movie. Yes, I want- Required to find out about it. I have to know when to close my eyes. Because actually not being spoiled is the spoiler. It would spoil the movie if you actually showed up and didn't know. You were going to get a penis to the face. But we remained friends.

Yeah, right. Despite that somehow. It was beautiful. I loved it. We have to recreate that evening. You haven't made nachos in a while, actually. We're overdue for some nachos. Yeah, right. It was beautiful. I loved it. We have to recreate that evening. You haven't made nachos in a while, actually. We're overdue for some nachos. Great, done.

Are you guys still in the same place? No, we were there for several years. We moved. We're still in Brooklyn. Just still in the same neighborhood. All of us live in Brooklyn. Somehow we landed a three-bedroom apartment in one of the coolest neighborhoods in Brooklyn, and I think the landlord, it was just one of these situations where he kind of forgot

he owned this property, I think. He got confused. Yeah. And then eventually, years after we'd been in there at the same price point forever, he was like, oh, wait a minute. He remembered we lived there. And then raised the rent like crazy. We were like, okay, bye.

Just some New York real estate talk for you. You New Yorkers love to talk about real estate. We do. Rent. Yeah, well we like to talk about traffic. Yeah, we talk about traffic, you talk about rent, right? That's true, and you know what? Is LA traffic that much worse than New York traffic?

You're getting us to, you want us to talk about it? No, let's not talk about it. Let's not talk about it. I just mean, you shouldn't talk about it because New York is just as bad. But you don't have to get into the New York traffic if you don't want to. That's a good point. That's a good point. You're right.

You can avoid it. You can't avoid it in LA. So you've got to talk about it. Yeah, you're right. That and the weather, which is always the same, which is weird that we talk about it. Right. I hope that weather is still the same. Yeah.

So if I'm continuing to track our friendship before we get into anything anyone else will be interested in. Right. before we get into anything anyone else will be interested in. Right. To me, the next defining point in our internet meets real life friendship is probably VidCon number one.

Yeah. Because it was in Beverly Hills. It was in LA at the Century City. Yeah. They had the attached Mall. Like outdoor mall with the rock sugar. Yes.

Where we had dinner. Rock sugar. We sure did. And at some point, either year one or year two, cause it became a semi-tradition, the wives were there. Oh yeah. Well, I mean, you're a wife and you're there. Yeah, but I was so happy to have some other wives

in the party. Right. We really took it to the other level. When like the wives showed up. Yeah, we don't even bring them to VidCon anymore. Well, they elect not to come. I mean, it has nothing to do with what we do or don't do. They're not willing to come.

Right. We'll do it. I got to. Once we were all going out to eat at Rock Sugar after VidCon, it felt very date-like, and I felt we were in a long-term courtship. We are, aren't we? We are a little bit. What is this all leading to?

Red and Link, will you marry us? No. Okay. We can turn that into this, possibly. Or we can go back. We can go back to the beginning of the Gregory family. Because you can talk about Andrew at length because he's not here to defend himself. Exactly.

That's one thing to keep in mind. So we're talking about what, growing up in Virginia. Radford, Virginia. Yeah. Yeah. Good memory. mind but so we're talking about what growing up in virginia radford virginia yeah yeah good memory yeah uh michael and me and andrew were all actually in real life real brothers were uh were until we started working together then we legally severed the brother relationship and is that is that that's all the siblings yeah okay yeah well not like it's not like the peyton family and there's like one brother that's like yeah i'm not part of this right you know the manning family not the peyton family the manning family yeah he tried he was part of it

he was right but yeah yeah um but yeah 100 of us three brothers are in the youtube business um sarah married me and now it's the four of us. But what the heck are we talking about? Radford, Virginia. Yes. Going back to the beginning. Were you like a singing ensemble at a young age? Wasn't there something with the parents taking you guys on the road

with like playing spoons and something? Yeah, that spoon playing session. I can picture it right now. It's Partridge Family type stuff. Oh, totally. I mean, our parents are not professional musicians. They're teachers, but they're both very musical. So there was always music around the house.

Now, we're three years apart each. So it's three years from me to Andrew, three more years to Michael. That's family planning. When you're like 10 and your youngest brother's four, you're not going to be like singing in the same ensemble for a while. You're not going to be singing in the same ensemble for a while. But there was a point at which our parents did start pimping us out as a family band, and we'd go sing at the local Lions Club or stuff like that. Really?

It's not like we were going pro trying to sing at theater. We were singing for friends at clubs. But what were you singing? I remember a performance of In the Jungle and When I'm 84 for a friend's birthday. Was this along with a cassette tape playing or was this like, no, no, we brought instruments? Oh, Dad would be strumming the acoustic guitar for sure. Oh, yeah, family band. I love that.

Oh, and I remember when we played at that club, this one time we would get our pitch from a tuning fork. And you know how when you hit the tuning fork and it goes, when you like hold it against your forehead or really close to your ear? Yeah. But if you don't listen to it really close, the first tone you hear is actually just really high pitched and it's a completely different pitch. It's probably like as far away as you can get. Like if the correct pitch is like an A, it's like a D or something. Really?

And so I still remember getting a pitch from the wrong. It's what you're supposed to do with it. You're supposed to hold a tuning fork against an instrument like a guitar that resonates. And then you can clearly hear a pitch. But if you don't know that, then you're just holding it up in the air and it's playing a completely different note. So we had this disaster at an early family performance where there's like three of us children waiting for dad to give us the note so we can start singing or whatever. And like three times in a row, he would go would go like you know the note we need is like or something completely different and he's like okay and then we would start the song within like five seconds as an utter train wreck oh yeah we cut off and you know

the only piece of information we needed was hold the fork against the guitar. And that would have fixed everything. Dad didn't know that. Yeah. Or just have a harmonica. Yeah. Eventually, it was like, we're just not getting this, but it's too embarrassing to start over again.

We're actually going to sing through the whole thing in this awful key. That is awesome. Yeah. We could handle the singing and the guitar playing, but not the tuning fork. All of you listening who are currently misusing the tuning for it, as I would be doing, because I didn't know about this either. There's not enough room to put instructions on it. Yeah, right.

But now you would have an app for that. Yeah, now we'd have the iPhone playing the ocarina on it. But you still have to put that against your guitar, right? Or not. The app? I don't know. playing the ocarina on it. But you still have to put that against your guitar, right? Or not. The app, I don't know. So musical from pretty early on. And I mean, what was the, was it like,

oh, this is kind of an obligation, this is what we're doing, especially with the three year difference, you're six years older, you know, you're the oldest, right? Yeah. And you're the youngest, Andrew's the middle. So it's like, you know, I see how my kids interact

being five years apart. It's like, they love being together, but it's just like, Not a lot of peace. In certain social settings, there's like this embarrassment of each other or just like, well, this isn't cool. Was that happening?

Yeah, yeah, sure. I mean, we always got along to a certain extent and then you have rivalry over like, you know, different things are going on at home, music or whatever. But I can't say there was a lot of rivalry around music because of age difference. You know, it's like you're at different levels studying the piano or guitar singing or whatever. And we would just kind of as a stunt play in the family band or do piano recitals together or whatever. We weren't really collaborating as peers until we got to be more like college age. And everybody's kind of come into their own musical own, basically.

And people are starting to write music or perform themselves. And then we started to collaborate together a little bit more. So, if I'm going to backtrack from the Auto-Tune the News breakout, Michael, were you out of college when that happened? Yeah, I graduated and was interning and came up with it at the time. Okay, so if we back up from that, were you guys married? No. In fact, I guess to back up from Auto-Tune the News, which kind of broke out in 2009,

but the premise for the series had been started by Michael the previous fall in 2008. Really, the first time we ever worked together as a quartet was the year before, in 2007, where as a quartet, we went on tour just as a band. And we're performing our own original music. Andrew had come out with his own folk album, basically, and Sarah had an EP of soul music. And how did you two meet?

Sarah and I met in Brooklyn. Just I met her when she was singing backup for another friend like at a music venue in Brooklyn. So you moved to New York first. Yeah. It was just like right out of school? Yeah, or within a year maybe, yeah. And what was the first?

It was to be a musician? I mean, in theory, that's the hope. It's like, oh, I would love to try to do music. I want to be somewhere. Yeah, like a music degree? I had a music degree. I also had a degree in computer science, but I was like, we grew up in a small town. Let's try a different environment where I can meet musicians that are really doing it

and just try to get in the game a little bit. But I didn't have a job when I moved there and no game plan other than what i just very poorly articulated so i had a terrible year of just like trying to grab gigs here and there um what kind of gigs what do you mean i directed a children's choir for a while on staten island that's a terrible idea i i uh what i sang that sounds like a movie in and of itself i was you know 23 or 24 or whatever i sang lead in a classic rock cover band where every other member of the band was 45 oh my goodness and we would play dive bars how did you get that job was that like answering like pulling off one of those paper tabs in like a restroom somewhere

well i um that gig the classic rock gig came about because I was playing drums in a musical production of Godspell and the guitar player in the pit orchestra was like, hey, you wanna come over? My band jams at this bar after practice. Come on over. And I went over and then they found out I could sing

and it just ended up being that and we started doing gigs every weekend what was your signature cover you're as cold as ice oh god one of those classic rock um yeah classic right you know we um all right now baby it's all right now you know we have 45 right there i'm gonna wait till the midnight you know all that stuff just screaming it out just belting a little bit beatles stones whatever i did get one weird gig in those days when i was kind of taking anything i could get from literally what you said a pull tab on a flyer back in like the pre craigslist days of like paper flyers on a boarded up store

where i pulled the number and i called it and it was just like, vocalist needed. You're like, I'm a vocalist. So Sarah, you rescued this guy. How did it happen? Because you were doing your own music thing in New York as well. Where are you from? Did you pull his paper tab? A little bit.

He was like, I need a vocalist. little bit he was like i need a vocalist um i grew up in texas and went to school in dallas and moved to new york to pursue a career in acting oh i did one show i was cast in one show in new york which i was like i don't think that's for me measure for measure oh of course i know nothing of that we're talking theater yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah. Measure for measure. Measure for measure. And I was like, this sucks. So I had, I have always

done music as well, and so I was getting a lot more work as a musician than an actor, and so I just kind of transitioned into that, and that's sort of where Evan and my world overlapped. What was the moment you know was there is there an epic story a lot of moments realizing you were singing in harmony without you know intending to what was it we met through a bunch of mutual friends and immediately I was like oh I was dating another guy at the time and I was like man bummer because that guy Evan is like the guy the kind of guy I've

always wanted to be with but oh well I'm in this other, because that guy Evan is like the guy, the kind of guy I've always wanted to be with. But, oh, well, I'm in this other relationship. And that went on for like a year. Oh, wow. So we were just friends. Did you know this guy, Evan? Yeah. He's a great guy.

Wonderful guy. Great dude. Not the guy for me. I'm not the girl for him. So anyway, I realized that eventually. And then Evan and I got together and then I moved away from New York oh really yeah I was like I've had it so I moved back to Texas and Evan just like made it work long distance so you moved to Texas too uh no the first

yeah first year of our relationship was long distance at the time I had like kind of failed to make the music thing work full time i was still playing in bands nights and weekends but i had taken a job doing computer stuff and basically i would just scam the game where we would have like a i worked in new york but say there was a meeting in chicago or something like that okay they're gonna're going to fly me to Chicago. What if my return trip just accidentally went to Texas? Whoops. Yeah, long layover. Yeah, like a 10-day layover.

I don't know. There's something weird. There's a storm. Flight traffic somewhere. I don't know. How did I end up here? So I basically just worked that ankle super hard for about nine months and would visit Sarah

once, twice a month or something. And I'd say that pretty much kept our relationship alive. True. And then right from there we went on tour with his brothers. Because meanwhile, as you guys were sorting out who you were as people, Michael, you

were at App State. Just a little baby. Boone, North Carolina. Yeah, Bo were at App State. Just a little baby. Like. Boone, North Carolina. Yeah, Boone, North Carolina. There's things that pop up, like I try to start piecing together from like the YouTube channel, what's like still up there very early on,

like this whole, oh who's this like, okay, nerdy dude with like a big fanny pack, doing like, rapping like Tupac and Twista on a stage. This is at App State. These videos on your YouTube channel. I thought I hit all those.

How did you find them? They're still out there. We found at least one. And there was like, there was that, there was an American Idol audition thing or, was that real?

Oh yeah, that wouldn't be on my channel but yeah, that actually happened two out of three gregory brothers have been on american idol it's true and you took the like who's the second all right who was first evan was first so you you went in for an audition on american idol yeah yeah yeah that's and was it sincere uh oh yeah totes bro okay Was he sincere? Oh, yeah. Totes, bro. Okay. That was actually season two.

So the show had only been on the air for one year. Oh, wow. And it broke huge that year. Yeah, that year. Very good at producing stars at that time. Yeah. Yeah, they were one for one with Kelly Clarkson at that time. Well, one for two if you count Justin. I was big into that season two sure so but i don't i mean

i didn't know you at the time i guess but you you were on they showed your audition as part of the show yeah i went to hollywood the whole thing oh it did yeah they didn't show that audition though right they're just so there are more people than they can show but evan legit made it yeah you can see yeah in the hollywood episode you see me just like flashes here and there but but i didn't go on from hollywood so it's like they didn't invest in my storyline or whatever but you can you can see me in those episodes it was the season with clay and ruben what was your audition um your your song your your live audition i sang a few because really what they hide on the show somewhat is that there's like five rounds to get to hollywood

you know what you see is the encounter with simon and paula but you've already been screened through four auditions at that point so that they're getting the people they want on tv in front of the celebrity judges so um and now i can't even remember all the different things that i was saying there's like at least you you know first you're in like a cattle call with 10,000 people and you walk up to the front of the line and some producers and they're like, okay, go! And you sing for like 20 seconds and then they

literally turn around and give a thumb up or thumb down gladiator style to like a security person behind you. And you either just like, you either get... Fall through the floor. You're done. Or you get a bracelet and you get to go back like a day later to the next thing. And then you're singing for like an executive producer or whatever. And you have the like tag that looks like you're in a marathon on your shirt.

So what was your song? So anyway, by the time I made it to the celebrity judges, I was singing Sitting on the Dock of the Bay. Oh, yeah. Still playing that old man bit. Playing the old man bit. Soulful. They love the oldies on American Idol.

It's a great shtick because Evan looks like he's 13 and he's singing like an old black man. Look at this old soul. I'd say the greatest part of it for me was this is in a pre-YouTube, pre-Rickroll era. And Simon Cowell compared me to Rick Astley. I'm glad it was free, but that's still pretty awesome. Evan, you got to do your impression. Pose. Yeah, so, you know, you finish singing or whatever,

and they kind of took turns. Randy was like, yeah, it was pretty good, dog, pretty good. And then Paula Abdul goes, two thumbs up all the way. And Simon Cowell's like, well, you remind me of Rick Astley. You don't have quite as good a voice as he does, but you remind me of him. I think it was basically the i look younger than i sound idea that was the basis for comparison the trench coat yeah and i was wearing a trench coat and i did a backflip off the wall evan evan took a chain link fence into his audition

you remind me of someone who is it but michael, with yours, I think I've seen it. I don't know if it's, I don't think we've talked about it. I just think I've seen it on YouTube. But I thought it was a joke. A different angle. At the time, I had this character that might have been on the channel, the guy wearing the huge fanny pack. Yeah.

A fanny pack that can like pack like two lunches. You know, singing Akon, which like at the time was a hit. It was like, i want to love you now this would not be a very novel character but at the time i was like oh man this care i gotta bring this troll character to prime time. And somehow it made it on. But you got nixed right off the bat. Yeah.

Actually, this is another secret. I mean, not so secret now, but I didn't actually meet the judges. But on the show, as long as you're in the room, they can cut you against the judges. Right. And you montaged. You made a montage. So I was talking to the producer, Simon, what's his head? And I montaged with somebody else.

Nigel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if it was Nigel or another Simon. But you did appear on the show, even though you didn't meet the judges. And then they edit it so it looks like you're going, I see a one. And then just cuts your reaction shot of Randy going, huh? They were actually kind of generous with the reactions because sometimes what they do and i actually saw it in that same episode with some other like poor guy like i don't think he this actually happened with the judges but they just

cut to a reaction of a guy saying you suck or whatever it's like obvious that they were just like feeding that to like a camera or something yeah and then then editing it later that was you you uh you left you had you you your callback was during our tour so i remember like we took a few days off from our tour and you were like you had to float fly to atlanta is that where your callback was yeah very important appointment yeah no it was. And I remember going through Dwayne Reed with you or whatever and trying to find the perfect glasses for the audition. So you guys were on tour.

So you had graduated by this point. Not really. I was still in school. You were almost there. Let's just say you were. But you guys have basically already established that hey we're the Gregory Brothers band at that point yeah how did well it grew into it over the course of that tour it started out it was like Andrew's album and Sarah's record and

they're going out as two bands and me and Michael are kind of playing backing them up and we're and then by the end of the tour we were one unit. The whole tour was like 50 dates, 50 gigs and we had booked like the first 15 to 20 or whatever as two acts. Andrew Rose Gregory and Sarah Fullen.

And then we were just each other's backing bands. And after repeated dates where like, we would show up to the venue and they'd be like, oh, thank God, I'm so glad you're here, Andrew, but we're still waiting on the other band. I have no idea where they are.

They're supposed to open for you. And we're like, oh no, that's us. The other band is us and we change instruments. Yeah. So then eventually we were like, this is too many words. Let's just be the Gregory Brothers. But there was this like schmoyoho thing

that was percolating over here on the side. And was that, at this point, just a Michael thing? Like, I'm just doing this on the side. During the tour, yeah. Yeah, because you had some locally viral hits. Like what? In Boone. So you started a YouTube channel. You called it schmoyoho. Nobody knows why. I'm sure. I what? In Boone. So you started a YouTube channel, you called it Schmoyoho, nobody knows why.

I'm sure. I still don't know why. You don't? I was like, this will be genius, I'll get all the Google search results. No one will ever choose the name Schmoyoho. You just made it up. Yeah.

And because what were you seeing on YouTube that you, did you have videos that you wanted to put up there or were you observing something on YouTube that you wanted to be a part of? A little of both. I mean, lots of the stuff on YouTube at the time that I had seen was just stuff like ripped from MTV because that's like before the big Viacom rift where they were like pulling stuff down. So I was just like, oh, look, like I can watch an episode of Ali G. Now we'll upload a music video about this local park. Why not?

So yeah, the locally viral video they're referring to is this video called Jimmy Smith Park, which is just about a park in Boone, North Carolina. That is like, how big would you say it is? Well, it has this huge sign. It's no bigger than this room. Yeah, it's like twice as big as this room. Maybe.

Which, for listeners, is not very big. It's a hotel room. We'll post a picture. It has a huge sign, you know, like way bigger than this Ear Biscuit sign. If you laid this sign down, it would comprise the whole park. Pretty much. It was this huge, yeah, like etched stone sign.

How do you make that locally viral? Well, every Boone student watched it How do you make that locally viral? I don't know. Every Boone student watched it. I think that that's right. You wrote a song about the park. Yeah, it was a musical called Jimmy Smith Park. It was an ode. It was an ode to the park.

Let's sing it. Oh, yeah, please. Three rocks, three benches, smiling at me, a copper visage Jimmy Smith Park Jimmy Smith Park Jimmy Smith Park that was great lots of leaps like very yodely

oh gosh I want to go there real bad I'm clicking mentally right now on that and I'm sharing it I just noticed like last year I was getting like a lot of like a little bit of hate from that video and then I clicked on the video. I was like, what happened about Jimmy Smith Park? And then it was a bunch of commenters that thought

I was making fun of a famous organist named like Jimmy Smith. I was like, whoa, what happened? Views any way you can get them, you know? Never deny any sort of traction we can get on the internet. But what about space creatures from the future? What?

Space people. Space people. From the future. Man, you guys are going deep. This is awesome. Space people from the future. Engineering, global warming. Space people from the future.

Assassinating, cyber-helicopter. I'm a little lonely with space people from the future. Assassinating, save my family girl. Space people from the future. Messing with my Facebook profile. No, I remember when we showed up there to meet you, I was like, the auto-tune thing, I was like, this is genius, this is awesome, showed it to Rhett. I was like, I'm sending an email.

I'm gonna fanboy a little bit. But then I was like, listen is genius, this is awesome, showed it to Red, I was like, I'm sending an email, I'm gonna fanboy a little bit. But then I was like, listen to the other songs. But then we dug a little deeper and saw the original songs, yeah. So you just had these things that you were kind of creating? Was this just you? Were you guys collaborating on any of these songs?

Yeah, mostly no, except Space People from the Future, I think Michael was composing while we were on tour, so he'd bounce a few things off of us, but he was recording and producing it. And what was the vision at the time? It was just like, okay, I'm gonna try to make something go viral on the internets. I guess the main goal with that one

was just to sing about space people from the future. It was just, you're just having fun. Yeah, there was no real hook, like viral hook that was very trendy or newsy. Because it was before the day where everything is so calculated now where if you're in a band, you think about the viral thing you can do to draw attention back to the real project, right?

So it wasn't that mentality, it was more just like, hey, we're trying to do this thing as a band, but I'm gonna have some fun on the internet at the same time. Yeah, and I was just learning to edit and record, so that was like me experimenting with a bunch of stuff, all the split screen stuff and green screening. And waving a keytar around.

And waving a keytar. Did you actually play the keytar in that or did you just wave it around? Probably just waved it around. Oh, okay. This is an expose. Because what were you doing as a band at the time? What kind of music were you singing as a band?

Was there comedy in that? I mean, I would say most of the songs had a sense of humor about them, but they weren't comedy songs. It was mostly Andrew's music, which is very like folk set in sort of a in sort of a soul motowny kind of way and then all the stuff that i was writing was like kind of soul stuff so um you know just four white kids singing soul right how you do

um yeah so i mean there were a few you know like like Evan and I wrote a song called Butter on My Roll that was basically just like a goofy love song. And so there was cleverness to it, but it definitely was not intended to be like a comedic, viral thing or whatever. But then auto-tune. So give us the background on that. Like the skills that lined up in order to like physically make that happen.

Because there's, yeah, I mean, there's like Akon has got the signature auto-tune sound pre-T-Pain, I think, right? About the same time? Yeah. But it wasn't like power to the people. Everybody's, you could get an autotune plug in. But what were you doing when you, that you started playing around with this stuff? So at the time I was interning at the studio in Hell's Kitchen in New York. And I mean, we use the technology on everybody, whether you want it detectable or not, whether they're a great

singer or not, just because it was like part of the style you know at the time i guess to that 2009 it wasn't only like to be undetectable sometimes people just wanted the effect because all the t-pain songs were really popular akon was really popular now you'll hear that some but it's mostly like a little bit more hidden and i mean pretty much everybody has used it in pop since like the end of the 90s. Yeah. But people didn't really know about it until like 2009 when it like, yeah, Cher, and then especially in like 2009-ish when it got really popular. Well, it's weird that now in hip hop,

it's, they use it to actually make them sound worse, if you ask me. I mean, it sounds cool, but it's like. Like that Kanye song. Totally, he totally messes with it. I mean, it's a complete but it's like... Like that Kanye song. He totally messes with it. I mean, it's a complete stylistic choice. Like the one about the... I'm blowing up the club on a Tuesday.

You know that song? I don't know that one. Well, that one's horrible. I love it. It's so bad. It's good. It's like auto-detune. Little Wayne has used it like that a lot.

And it's kind of cool how sometimes it sounds almost like atonal. Yeah, exactly. So you... Okay, so you were... This was part of what was happening, and you were in the studio. So in the studio doing that a lot. And I think at the time I was doing some more topical YouTube videos, or one in particular that was around the 2008 debates.

And it was a musical. Why? And really for no reason except I thought that – I always thought that news and politics were funny. Just kind of like the messaging like around the election season is always like so basic even though – it always felt like we should be voting on like really like high level platform stuff but instead you're just talking about like the most basic like did you can you believe that that guy didn't like wear a flag tie you know like that's the things you're talking about even though you should be talking about like oh like what what are their tax policies or whatever yeah that i

always just thought that was funny so i did a musical that was like in the debate, but it didn't have any of that kind of auto-tuning in it. And it did really well, surprisingly. So what was it? It was footage that was just kind of like rhythmically. So it was footage of the debate. I took Obama out and put myself in. And so it was me, McCain, and the moderator and just sang a musical. And it did surprisingly well. And I was like, oh, and the moderator and just sang a musical.

And it did surprisingly well. And I was like, oh, let's follow it up. But it'll be boring if it's every week, every debate, it's just me like singing at people. You got to sing with people. I was like, this technology I'm using at the studio is so powerful. I mean, if it can make non-singers sing,

it can make especially non-singers sing, people that are speaking. Yeah. And that had speaking. Yeah. And that had not been done. You had not seen that anywhere. I had. I mean, it probably had been toyed with around the same time,

but I don't remember. But it was more just kind of recognizing that, like, this technology can accomplish a lot. Yeah. That was the question. It can correct people so thoroughly that it could correct a speaker into... I was already making non-singers sing. Right. You were doing it anyway.

So how easy was it once you got into it? It was pretty tough. I mean, you can hear, like, if you watch that first video, that would have been at, like, the end of 2008. And our videos now that were way better but we'd super lucked out because the first time i tried it was sarah palin and joe biden and they're actually both like pretty good accidental singers i love that term i love it because i've heard you guys say that before the accidental singer accidental singer an accidental writer i guess qualifies a good accidental singer uh i think

the sentence you just spoke was good accidental singing because it like held a pitch it was supported by the breath my voice is like mediocre right now i feel like if your speed like a low male speaker has a disadvantage yeah because women women and high male speakers are. Because women and me. Female and high male voices have an advantage. Honestly, a good rule of thumb is are you using your voice like a singer would? And someone can be talking, but they could be talking like this and they're projecting and using their full instrument.

So sonically, a lot is happening that is already similar to singing. And so then it's just like a shorter trip to make to match that person to a singing melody. Is it true that everything you say is technically a note? Like what I'm saying now, is it a note? If your vocal cords are vibrating, they're making a note, right? Or multiple notes.

But if you're doing like a gravelly voice like this, I mean, I'm not making notes right now. It's dirty, it's dirty. Yeah, it is. That's terrible accidental singing right there. Right, yeah, you're not gonna do anything with that. This is huge, I mean, you can't, maybe other people. Guys, this is gonna be big. You should really invest in this.

You realize this. But that's my point, at the time, I mean, you're reluctant to say I invented this, but if other people invented it at the same time in parallel, yes, but I mean, you didn't see someone else do it and you emulated it, you invented it. And that's pretty freaking amazing.

I mean, when we continue to trace everything that happened, it reshaped the internet. Oh, I'm blushing. The SoundCloud is turning red right now. It's me blushing. But it's, did you have a sense of any of that? It's like, I had this, well, you kind of stumbled into it. What was the first sign?

Yeah, when it worked. The first sign that like, oh, they're good at it. This is gonna work. Well, you know, stumbled into it, but then when it worked, it's like, oh, they're good at it. This is going to work. Well, Michael kept doing it, so you knew that it was working close enough. But when's the first time you heard it? When you heard it, was it VP debate in song and dance? It was out? You guys were doing something else, and then Michael's like,

I got this thing, it's on my channel. Well, you guys, you were already, I was just working a day job, but you were already helping. During that whole time period period we've been playing together a lot as a band we're spending tons of time together we knew everybody's business and everybody's projects and stuff like that and when michael made the uh video for the the first debate we were loving we were like this is so hilarious um we you know we'd love to help out and like let's all let's all pitch in so um we worked overnight together on the vp debate and song and dance and like you know michael's working on the tuning and we're working on like the video montage or whatever and that that helped um

in the sense that like you know the debate air debate airs at 8 PM or something. And like collectively we're working on it overnight and it came out the next morning or something like that. So we were kind of on board following Michael's lead from that point on, and then trying to pick up different elements of the craft or kind of self taught on the video side. So it was during that period that it felt like we, we got an inkling of like, Oh,

Oh, people think this is interesting and funny because they would get views in like the realm of like a few thousand views or something, which is light years beyond whatever we would do with, you know, live recordings of our band or whatever. Cause that was part of the craft, right?

Part of the craft was and continues to be, but especially in the early days was the quick turnaround. So you have to tell us the process. You watch the footage, you decide on some theme that you're gonna kinda key in on and make the chorus out of or whatever. Does this rhyme in a certain place? And then you gotta come up with a melody.

You know, like what goes into that? Yeah, it's really tough because there's so many factors it's is this a good accidental singer but then if everything they say is like super boring then we might not include it or if somebody doesn't have a great voice but everything they're saying is like super interesting or entirely crazy or like oh we have to include this um so if you hit the jackpot and it's somebody that's giving a very interesting speech and they're like the Beyonce of accidental singing. Like Katie Couric.

Like Katie Couric. She was the greatest. Right. She's here, by the way. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I haven't seen her, but I've heard that she's here. Yeah, she's wonderful.

With a child of hers or something. Thank you. Who's actually into this type of internet stuff. I believe it. That's clicking with me now why she's here. Yeah, yeah. Right. And she was like, I feel like with that video, the first video we did with her,

it felt like one of the first times that we were crafting the song as well as just making quick one-liners. And that was, yeah, that was Auto-Tune the News number two. Yeah, that was Auto-Tune the News number two. And that was, I think, I mean, we obviously were enjoying the debate videos enough to keep doing them and enough for Michael to figure out how to sort of make this a recurring thing. So you coined Auto-Tune the News. And then with number two, that was our first video to hit a million. And we were like, whoa. Pirates, drugs, gay marriage.

This is a thing. And that had a lot to do with Michael finding that melodic hook in Katie Couric's voice. It wasn't just like snippets of notes here and there. It's like it turned into a hook. And when that really landed,

people just started sharing it virally. That video broke out really big. With temperatures rising even faster if we all don't take bold action And when that really landed, like people just started sharing it virally, that video broke out really big. With temperatures rising even faster, if we all don't take bold action and take it soon, we will find ourselves on very thin ice. Very thin ice. Very thin ice.

Very thin ice. Tell them to hurry, pirates on. And so, okay, so these videos begin to get traction. And then when does the perspective shift from, okay, Michael's got this thing going over here that now we're kind of contributing to, to know this is what we're going to pursue. This is going to be the thing that we're all doing. It was that video, right?

Like I think you started pretty much working full time on your videos at that point. Yeah, after that video it was it was we all recognize that like we should be like all trying to put energy into this and stuff like that but the creator program didn't exist in its uh current form then so there was no mechanism to be like oh clearly we're going to make a living off this that's still a question mark but it was just like people are responding to this whether or not there's any money there let's try to make more fun stuff and there was pretty like traditional media feedback from it too like we went on the rachel maddow show and um and whatever

so there was you've probably started getting some of the like auto-tune for hire type stuff at that point right people hitting us up with their bar mitzvahs right and yeah well yeah exactly there was definitely a sense of like it's not like we're going to i'm going to be a youtube partner uh that was all new i think that was new at the time but yeah i'm definitely going to suddenly be writing for jingles but that was like my my dream job oh dag i can write jingles now yeah cashing in and there was a big piece of this was that um michael was working with barely political at the time oh you were working you were did you have a job there uh no we just i worked with them like freelance on a couple videos but autotune the news wasn't under their banner

well actually they were really generous and it's really like the reason um a big reason that that went viral is we double posted it it actually i i posted it on schmoyoho and at the same time i was about to do a collaboration with them and i sent it to them and said hey why don't we do something like this format it's kind of funny to be like a mashup instead of trying to be like super structured and they said this is great can we just post it on our channel and we'll link to you? And so they did. So it actually went viral when they posted it. But they linked back to our channel very generously. But then you kept putting Auto-Tune the News on both channels for a while.

Yeah, we kept double posting for probably about eight more episodes. Okay. And then at a certain point, you've got to branch out. I can see in revisiting five years ago, well the first, Auto-Tune the News number one was six years ago, and then five years ago, the first Songify This, Auto-Tune Cute Kids and Kanye. Oh snap.

Very simple title. Which that blew up more. I mean, Autotune really blew up, but it was on the barely political channels where it really went through the stratosphere, I think, looking at the views. But then you kind of, it seemed like you had to figure out a way to iterate on the concept.

Well, we did like a year. It's not a flash in the pan, right? We did a year of Autotune the News exclusively. And then after that year, we were like, this is a year of autotune the news exclusively and then after that year we were like this is a lot of work for one video well actually i think the kanye video came out that same year oh okay yeah that was like the 2009 vmas oh yeah at the end of that year yeah i guess and then that's then then that next summer was when uh was it the double rainbow or was it the five years ago strut that ass, yeah. Or was it the Strut That Ass?

Which one? The Strut That Ass was after Double Rainbow. Yeah, I think Double Rainbow was first. Yeah, so Double Rainbow was first. So Double Rainbow was the first, like, let's take this particular thing that happened. Yeah. And Obama sings kick-ass song was before Double Rainbow.

What? Oh, bam. Really? Yeah. That was a huge one for us. It was three, it was two videos before it. What? And then you did Auto-Tune the News number 12, and then you did Double Rainbow Song.

So, yeah. So, Double Rainbow was the first time that we were like, oh, we could do this not with news. Yeah. The Obama video was big, and it worked really well because it was a single subject type of thing. And it's also really funny because Obama- And he's a pretty good accidental singer. Yeah, and he's talking about how he wants to kick somebody's ass. So, that's already hilarious so people really like that one but the

double rainbow video was the first time that we were like you know what we could just look at a viral video as a subject for something that's awesome on its own on its own on the internet awesome squared right and but at the time like we had gotten somewhat big through auto tune the news, but we still felt like, Oh, we're just another guy out here doing stuff on the wild west of YouTube. The double rainbow song like took off so big that that was the first time that we got this picture like, Oh,

we're starting to be one of the larger fish in this pond of, you know, YouTubers or whatever. We can't just be going out there and remixing or whatever and then walking away. So that's when we started trying to build relationships with people, and we reached out to Bear, the Double Rainbow guy. Right, because that was the first time that you were doing something nonpolitical.

So, okay, news footage is one thing, but you're like, this is a person who made a video. Correct. So you made that call. Yeah. How did that go, and what did you say? Well, it's like the video came out, and then it's like the reaction to it was so immediate. You mean when you called the Double Rainbow guy?

Yeah. Right. But it was after the video came out. We were like, oh, we're just making this video. video michael had it out within um i don't know a couple days of when it had gone the original had gone viral via a jimmy kimmel tweet um and it's like the reaction to it by the audience was so immediate um you could see the size of the reaction and people were like i want to have this on my ipod i want to listen to this while i wash my dishes i want to give this on my iPod. I want to listen to this while I wash my dishes. I want to give this voice when speaking about what I want.

Somebody just punched me in the throat. But I thought you were about to say that you called Bear before you auto-tuned it. What was the sequence of events? Well, that's what we do now, but because this was

the first time, it's like we didn't have that in mind and because of the reaction we were like oh we got to get a hold of this guy we like we got to talk we got to talk this out yeah we got to talk this through and so then it was at vidcon actually because we put out the video right before the first vidcon and i think i remember as i remember we were at vidcon being like we've got to get a hold of bear like we need to talk with him and like make sure that this is cool and've got to get a hold of Bear. We need to talk with him and make sure that this is cool. And we got a hold of him through the YouTube messaging system at the time. And he's like the nicest guy in the world. And he's like the nicest guy in the world.

And five years later, he's here at this VidCon just walking around. Just being amazing. Yeah, exactly. So after we talked with him is when we put the song up for sale on itunes and just went 50 50 with him on proceeds of the of the song that's at 36 million views now five years later uh one two three four videos later was the bed intruder song oh yeah which guys i mean i remember double rainbow came out here and then you guys did the show and like it was amazing like the chills they like singing the song.

It was like awesome. But then you followed it up basically with this bed intruder, which is now at 128 million views. Okay, so tell us about that because that's Antoine, right? So he's a different character than Bear. And you would also kind of change your policy for when you make contact, right? So tell us how that went.

At the time, we were still just doing videos. So we just did the video. That was probably within two days. But again, I guess we felt like if we were going, I mean, when we realized the reception was so huge and people really wanted to buy this song and own it, we were like, it's not, we got to connect with the person. Yeah, and you're doing a favor and really for him. So we, it was really hard to get into, well, it was pretty hard to get in touch with him. Well, he was probably getting hit up on like all sides,

like crazy. So we put out the bat signal, like after we put out the video. And we were like, oh, this video is getting a lot of attention. You know, we really need to contact Antoine, see if this is cool. And if he wants to just do the same thing we did for double rainbow because we hadn't done that again at the time so we put out the bat signal which was just a huge annotation classic annotation at the beginning of our video it just said antoine email us at antoine number

one hit at gmail.com. You're kidding me. That was it. And it worked. Within a day. How many other emails did you get? It was like a cousin. A bunch. But finally, we were like, wait, I think this might be the real deal.

How could you tell? Well, it was a cousin of his. Right? Yeah, there were a few dubious emails, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think this one was like, I am Antoine's cousin. Why don't you tell me what you want to talk to him about or whatever, and I'll see if I can put you in touch.

And so we got in touch. And then how did that conversation go? Well, I mean, it went pretty well, as I recall. He was like, yeah, let's split it. And I think even by that, I'm not sure if it was by that point or soon after, but he was like, oh, yeah, that song's my ringtone. I love you guys. I'm trying to figure out

you know you guys had to start to deal with your own success right i mean you had to figure out well we've got to iterate on this thing and we've also got to branch out this is not the breadth of who we are as artists we're also a band we also have you know how did you start to deal with that what were those conversations like i mean we're still having those conversations every day about like you know what do we want to pursue because we we have our our main thing which is creating songifications that like our our audience love they want they want to see that um but we still have all these other side projects we play in other bands and we have a second channel where, you know, like our more in-depth super fans want to go see us do whatever. But striking that balance of how much energy you put into one project versus another is like a constant balancing act.

And you guys were working on a TV project for a while, too, right? There was a show that you were developing. Right. So, I mean, having success on YouTube, as you know, turns into tons of asks from around youtube but also traditional media and so we had you guys are auto-tuning the oscars yeah we did like that was huge we produced a segment for the oscars one year which was just in our own idiom taking clips of movies and put them into a montage as if those movies had been musicals it was was really well-received. It was in an otherwise somewhat dark year for the Oscars

when James Franco and Anne Hathaway hosted and was not well-received. So I think our segment was seen as sort of a bright spot. I remember seeing that, and I didn't know you guys were doing it ahead of time. Not like we talked every week. Right, you never called you after that bruno incident yeah it was awkward you didn't know how to it was so exhilarating to see that and it's like i either someone has totally ripped you guys off perfectly or you actually just did a segment on the oscars we got a lot of um we weren't allowed to really tell anyone about

it and and and the way the oscars work that, you know, they have dozens and dozens of segments produced ready to go. And then, you know, inevitably the speeches run long and they have to cut. Oh. So many or whatever. You didn't even know if it was going to air until you watched the Oscars. Yeah, that's right. I think we found out like literally like right when the Oscars went to air or or something that that we were had had a good chance but we didn't tell anyone so then our phone started blowing up and being like the oscars ripped you off you know i mean as you can imagine there is so much

protocol around making a piece for the oscars you're going through so many layers and i've i've almost forgotten about this because it's been three or four years now. But originally, the idea was we're producing a musical number that the hosts are going to sing. And they're going to sing a duet with like auto-tune clips of the movies are going to play over their heads. And they're going to sing and the movie will respond. And it's like as if it's a live musical thing that's happening. It was so complex. And so we wrote that whole segment. That's a thing that existed that it was so complex and so so we wrote that whole segment that's a thing that existed that will never be seen that and but it was so complicated that okay how are we going to

teach this to james franco and anne hathaway so we shot a whole video of ourselves wearing a sign that says like james and anne where we're singing the parts like instructionally so that they could learn it and then perform it live on stage. And then it was like, this is too hard. They're like, they can't do this. They're having trouble enough hosting. We're not going to throw this at them. It's a pretty complicated segment. And I remember on one demo, I played the part of Scorsese

giving them like a standing O. Just like put that in the bit. So obviously it ended up being just like a standalone thing. Right, right. You guys obviously continue to do more of the songification of things and you branch out into other areas. But given the nature of the internet,

I mean, there's probably not going to be another bad intruder moment, right? There's not gonna be another, because it's not going to have the same freshness that auto-tuning something had three or four years ago, right? But like the Shia LaBeouf thing comes out, like they put, it's the green screen thing, and I see that and I'm like,

the Gregor brothers have to songify this, which you did, right? What's your, is that what you're getting at? What's your interaction with that? When you see that, it's like, oh, we gotta do our eye for all or you're like, yes, at this point. That was sort of handed to us on a silver platter. Just do it, nothing is impossible.

Just do it, yesterday you said tomorrow. Just do it, don't let your dreams be dreams. And more often than you do it, more of a light there will be. But I guess what I'm kind of getting at is like, there's this, because the way YouTube works has changed so significantly, there's this like initial wave in which like,

okay, right place, right time, this is gonna go through the stratosphere. And then there's more like, okay, well, we are, this is what we do, this is what go through the stratosphere and then there's more like okay, well we are, this is what we do, this is what we're known for, this is how we provide for ourselves and we're good at it and we're gonna continue to do it. But it's not, just because it's physically impossible at this point given the nature of the internet

for something to be that novel in the way that it was. And in 2010, I mean you're exactly right, in 2010 like the novelty factor of that was just pete because nobody had seen it before right and so there was you know there was a song crafting but then mostly was just like what is this like i've it's totally new and i uh i mean it's almost like i feel like there was some time in in uh a caveman civilization when some dude like started singing and everybody's like, oh man, what the hell?

What is he doing? Like brain explosion. I can't believe this. And then like, you know, 10 years later, he's like still singing and they're like,

yeah, like, hey, why are you still singing? You know what I mean? Like at some point, like singing. Because now everybody's singing.

Yeah. Yeah. Now it's like a thing. Now everybody's still singing. Now it's still a thing. I feel like it's just a thing. Now everybody's still singing. Now it's still a thing. I feel like it's just like another art form that is going to exist and that will always have hits and non-hits.

You know what I mean? Does it change the anticipation that goes into the process? Because there was probably a moment in which when you were working on the Bed Intruder song after having done Double Rainbow, you were like, oh man, this is gonna explode. And now just given the nature of YouTube,

it might be a little bit more like, this is gonna be really good, but let's not get our hopes up because YouTube's different now. Is that going to? Yeah, the environment's totally, yeah, definitely different. So you have different expectations.

But even at the time, there was no precedent for either the Double Rainbow song or the bed intruder song so so with either of those like yeah we definitely had hopes like i hope people like this but never in a million years would we have said like well this is a hundred million views for sure right yeah you still never know right now because the novelty isn't there um we would you know never expect a mega hit like that but some things do break out and some things are really shareable um but we don't rely on that for our day-to-day it's like

oh let's just stay in the game and be consistent and and we can make episodes of songify the news that are more like about the comedy of us like commenting on stuff and then if we want to try you know something viral let's let's do that as well but you know our audience is still there and they still like it so you know we've been we made a lot of episodes this year right and the nature of virality is shifting too i mean it's always very nebulous we're we're all inventing it as we go along and i'd say like some of the biggest things we did this year are like the Kimmy Schmidt song. And on YouTube, it's doing well, but I'd say it probably has been seen the most on Netflix.

And then we did this one video for Hit Record on TV that got 10 million views on Facebook. And on YouTube, it's got like a good amount of views, but it's not like completely blown up. So now it's like you never know where people, like which community is gonna find that. So what's the plan moving forward, and like the strategy, and where does Songify fit into that? You guys sit down like Gregory Brothers meeting, here's a whiteboard, we're mad at each other,

and we're farting, and we're throwing felt markers. And we're- We lock ourselves in the room. Deciding on stuff. We schedule being mad at each other. We always schedule getting angry at each other for Thursdays. That's angry day.

Angry day. Is there family meetings? Let's take an emotional- There's a work meeting. Not work meeting, I'm talking like, hey, there's some emotional tension here. Oh no, that's way too that's way, way too healthy. There's two.

Are there explosions? Are there emotional explosions? No, there's just like internal angst and then one of us disappears for a couple weeks and then we resurface and we're fine. But I have to think that- Deals with it personally? Oh yeah.

But Sarah being there, that's gotta be a good dynamic. I think that you being there, that's gotta be a good dynamic. I think that you being there I think it probably helps with any potential friction between three brothers. Right? I mean, that's gotta Did you guys like really have knocked down drag out fights before I came along and you're just on your best

behavior still after six years? It's primarily passive aggressive, I would say yeah yeah the way we like you know build up some tension about like man andrew said he was gonna have this video edited today he's over there reading reddit and he didn't do his dishes it was a salsa bowl in the sink. Unwashed. Right.

Yeah, that's a big deal. Yeah. Now, we have plenty of business meetings where we're talking about, okay, we got these 10 videos we want to make. Which ones are we working on this week? Whatever. And we'll go through those weeks of regularity without ever talking about feelings. We did institute an annual meeting i recommend this for everybody this sort of like um it is is definitely business you know focused where we do like the the big picture sort of like goal setting and dreaming and stuff and reviewing of the previous year.

And just this year, so we hash out a lot there. Like I've really been pissed over this last year about this thing that you do. Wow. But this year, this past year was the first time I made us take personality tests specific to how you interact with other people. And so we did a little bit of that. I mean, it's stuff we already know. What else did you determine besides you're the only one who likes personality tests? Well, pretty much that.

Well, we kind of locked in on the fact that Michael and I are actually the introverts in the group. Andrew and Evan are the extroverts, I mean introverts in the group. Andrew and Evan are the extroverts. But that Andrew's an initiator. He's like our team coach. He can help us encourage, he can encourage something to the finish line. Michael likes to work alone,

which is tough that you have to work with three people. I don't know. What else did we learn that's it that's pretty much it thanks guys i'm glad it glad it really uh stayed with you very fruitful very fruitful so i don't know we you know we try to we try to go there and kind of hash it out every once in a while but i have to say i feel like we're all pretty lucky we work pretty well together and this is a question that we asked to any groups that work together and it's usually a duo

that we asked this question to, but, you know, is this a, this is a forever thing. We're gonna work together in some capacity forever or it's just like, we each, you know, this is great, but we've got our own things that we want to branch out and try. I know you guys already do a lot of things, sort of, you know, different projects,

but is there just this sense that there's a natural end to it, or is it just like, no, this is something that we're always gonna maintain? I'm really curious to hear your answers, but I'll just answer first, because that's what I do. I think none of us like to say no to anything ever so I think that there's just this sense that we'll just keep

doing it and do other things um you know we there's a there's like a connection to a community that keeps us really tied to what we're doing and then obviously like pride and what we've built together and being connected to one another and it's like you've put in all of this time to like learn how to work together and it would be such a shame to throw it out the window but um i don't i don't foresee a time that any of us would ever be like i'm out except that i just had a baby and i'm like i like hanging out with a baby more than you guys. Yeah. So there's that, but I'm still in the office. We would have to get brother divorced if we're going to stop working together.

Right, yeah, that's an official. I know a lawyer who can do that, who specializes in sibling divorce. Whoa. I don't know, what do you guys? I'm really curious to hear your answers. I mean, honestly, I think it's somewhere in between. I think we will work together indefinitely as long as it keeps working.

But, you know, six years ago, we never would have said, like, oh, this YouTube thing is definitely going to be a career. And we're still at a point where it's like, how long is this going to keep happening until the environment totally changes and the money doesn't work? Or we get an offer to go somewhere else. Like maybe we move from this to another medium or another platform or whatever. It's so different now than it was five years ago or 10 years ago that we can't possibly predict what the career is going to be like. But right now, we still really enjoy making videos together. So we're definitely going to proceed with that while we also try to make TV over here, make music over here, and just dip our toes into all the different things.

Well, keep dipping and keep us in the mix relationally. We want to add other data points to our dating life. I think we turn a lot of different ways. That was my first line to Sarah. Do you know that? Keep me in the mix relationally. Other data points to our dating life. A lot of different ways. That was my first line to Sarah, did you know that? Keep me in the mix relationally. Just got one request, when you go back to Texas, you'll just keep me in the mix relationally. Thanks for hanging out guys.

Thanks for having us. Come over for nachos anytime. You missed it Andrew. We'll watch Boogie Nights together, it'll be great. Oh. Nice. There it was, our conversation with our friends, the Gregory Brothers.

Let them know what you thought. Hashtag Ear Biscuits, tweet at them. Their handle is Gregory Brothers, not the Gregory Brothers, just Gregory Brothers. Let them know what you thought. Hashtag Ear Biscuits, tweet at them. Their handle is Gregory Brothers, not the Gregory Brothers, just Gregory Brothers, because that's a lot of letters and Twitter only lets you go so far, and that's enough. I mean, why do they need the? Well, I don't, you may not be able to fit the. Isn't there a limit on how long your Twitter handle can be?

That's exactly what I was just saying. Oh. You weren't listening to me? I just thought that you said it was too many. I didn't know it was too many just like philosophically or like, you know, is there a philosophical limit to how long a Twitter handle should be or is there a technical limit?

Both. And do they converge? Are they the same? Yes. That's my question. And do you know what the answer is? Because you don't seem to. Gregory, if you count the letters in Gregory Brothers, I'm betting that's it.

And you add at least, at most three, you're gonna get there. And if it was one less, then it would have been Gregory Brothers with a like B-R-O-T-H-A-S to get rid of the R. Yeah, that'd be confusing. Now, I like the fact that this came full circle. You know, when we went out to visit them in 2009,

we recorded them. We recorded an interview with them. On your iPhone. Yes. The to visit them in 2009, we recorded them. We recorded an interview with them. On your iPhone. Yes. The voice memo thing, like we talked about. I think significantly upgraded the recording quality in our approach to everything. I think that itch that we scratched because you had the voice memo,

I said, I would like to just do an audio interview, yeah, it's- And are those still available somewhere? It's become full circle. I think if you go to- The Rhett and Link community, right? They were on the Rhett and Link community at some point. It was on when we had a blog on our website. I think we did it that way.

So if you can- I don't know, I don't know, you can try to dig those up. But do you remember we also, you know who we also talked to that visit? You remember Alison Fishman who- The voice for- The voice for Swedish Meatballs or whatever she did. We ended up connecting with her

on our old Rhett and Link cast live and she taught us how to make guacamole over the phone and which we fed to a hawk, which you weren't supposed to do because it could kill it. Anyway, it didn't die, the hawk's okay. But when we went to New York to talk to the Gregory brothers, we also sat down and had a meal with her and recorded that. But now we find a way, that didn't make sense.

For us just to post a picture and an audio interview on our website, we are now doing that. I think we can credit the Gregory brothers to some degree for us doing Ear Biscuits. Let's do that, weuits. Let's do that. We have the right to do that. Okay, so they were on the first ever

primordial version of Ear Biscuits, which was just your iPhone. Yeah, six years ago. And they were the first in-studio guests on Good Mythical Morning. They were. That is a fact. They sat on that weird futon that I had in the garage

where we had our set. There's not enough room for all, and Andrew wasn't there then either, I don't think. Andrew has a way of slipping away. Or, you know what, I'm- No, he was there. I think he was there, but Sarah wasn't there. Sarah wasn't there.

I can't remember. I can't remember either, but it was awesome. They're all Gregory's. Well, three of them and then one of them married into it. But you know, I mean, we're just trying things. Let's just say we're ahead of our time. Yeah? Or that we tried it and it didn't work

and now it's finally working. Let's just say it'll sound more self deprecating. We also, if we would have known auto tune and we would have gone a lot further with some other things we tried, like we took people's words verbatim and turn them into song. And we did that for Alexis Cohen, the American Idol song.

You're saying that if we had auto tuned it, that we would have been the Gregory brothers? We could have been the Gregory brothers. And I'm so glad that we didn't know auto tune because they're so awesome at it. Because then they wouldn't exist. That's pretty presumptuous. No, because- That's pretty presumptuous.

Okay, so let me go on record in saying that I'm glad that we didn't do it because it would have sucked. Okay, that's a better way to say it. And then we would have looked stupid when they did it and they were awesome. So thanks to the Gregory brothers for doing things the right way and in a way that we wouldn't have done

and giving us all, millions of us, entertainment. And not just the past, the present, but also the future. We're excited about what you guys are doing and thanks for coming on the Ear Biscuit. Well, you're talking to them right now. Yeah, I usually don't do that, but you know what, they're gonna listen to this, right? And thank you, no, they won't.

I mean, I wouldn't listen to myself for over an hour. The chances of them listening to it go up really high because there's four of them. So at least one of them will, and then one of them will tell all the rest of them about it. And they'll probably divide it up. I'll take the first 25%.

Okay, yeah, they probably do everything. So one of them's listening to the end of this. Right, so. And I like to think that it's Michael. I don't know why, because he seems like he's, because he's the youngest, they make him do everything last. Oh, they make him do everything last. Thank you guys for listening

and for staying to the bitter end here with us. The music's playing us away. And it is a bitter end, it is very bitter. But we'll be back at you next week speaking into your ear holes and- Canals, can we say canals? Ear canals. Ear canals. We'll be rowing up your ear canals

this time again next week. In a romantic canoe. And the time is really whenever you so choose. Yeah, you choose it. You make it happen. It'll be six more years from now. What president's being auto-tuned right now? Who knows?