Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - BONUS: We Test AJR On Their Kiwiana Knowledge!

Episode Date: August 22, 2022

AJR a.k.a The Met Brothers are heading down under this year. They chat about breaking through with the song 'Bang!' on Tik Tok, wearing togs on stage, and are put to the test with Kiwi Slang.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're excited. You guys are coming to New Zealand just a couple of weeks. That's pretty exciting for us. I don't know how it feels for you. Oh, we're so excited. It's our first time. I know in America, COVID, it's not really a thing. It's not really a thing. It's like travelling back in time, coming to New Zealand. You'll see masks, you'll see masks,

you'll hear about alert levels. You'll have to keep a social distance i'm not surprised you guys handled it probably the best out of anywhere but the problem is the problem is we came out too cocky we started bragging at the beginning going look at us look at us we've got nothing and now yeah and now we're in the hell pit that it is wow all right well thanks for the for the heads up i appreciate that now of course your story very famous you guys being brothers recording together in your apartment. But we're reading you guys have moved out. You're no longer living in the same apartment.

I mean, that must have been sad. Or was it good? It was sad. Ryan and I have lived in the same apartment for the last, I mean, I guess forever, up until a couple months ago. And it's always where we wrote the songs. And it was this sad moment that may create a song out of it where we're singing to each other who's got the worst habit when you're living together like let's unload have a therapy session i can cut you off and just say it's ryan 100 i don't share any of the blame when it comes to bad things happening around the house i hate cleaning he doesn't clean he doesn't care yeah i hate caring because ryan we understand now your apartment is the one you record in i mean you guys have you heard of a recording studio or you're like no that's our thing we love apartments yeah i think it is our

thing we started this way because we didn't want to pay for a studio and frankly we couldn't really afford it and then we got really used to it i think that we just have a certain creative freedom when we're on our own just the two of us i think when you're in a studio and you're paying by the hour your brain starts to go to like oh let's make something today i don't want to waste our money and so you end up like copying other things that have been done already to take a shortcut and when we're on our own we're just like let's experiment and do something crazy oh you've hacked it mind, when you go into a recording studio, it's going to blow your mind, isn't it? You're going to be like, whoa.

What is this place? What is this big desk? You guys have had such a crazy time, or what it feels like from the outside looking in. I mean, I just saw you on Jimmy Fallon the other night. Has it been quite surreal the last couple of years? Yes. Oh, my God.

It's been more than surreal. Everything has grown for us, which is really cool and rare. I think even these days for people to kind of hop off the train of a band or artists or anything like that, even if you kind of make a wrong move. But we've been working really hard and the touring has really grown for us,

which is cool. And now we're finally able to actually come to places like New Zealand and Australia and get people in the door, which is huge for us. And then the music too, we've just been working hard and people seem to kind of catch on and like it.

It's a rare moment that we're just really enjoying every second. I don't want to bring things up awkwardly, but you weren't wearing pants. Those sort of boxer shorts, the Jimmy Fallon performance. Oh, wait. You mean these? These bad boys? Are they not? They're wearing the same ones.

That was what you were wearing on Jimmy Fallon. That yellow. You dressed up. I loved it. I loved it ones. That was what you were wearing on Jimmy Fallon. That yellow. You dressed up. I loved it. I loved it. But that's what you were wearing on your bottom half. Yeah. Everyone thought it was boxers, but it's truly, it is a bathing suit.

It's probably the nicest pair of shorts I own. So I had to throw them off. Can I say you've got wonderful legs, though, Jack? They needed to be on national television. Thank you so much. Finally, someone says something about my legs. Is it fair to say you've obviously been playing music for a long time, but things really kicked off globally for you during the pandemic,

during lockdown? Yeah, that is true. With Bang, I guess, yeah. Bang was our first. We had had hits before, like Spotify streaming hits and some alternative radio hits. But Bang was the first like real worldwide top 10 hit that we've ever had. And then obviously, Tok, you know, picks up.

You know, how does that happen? Obviously, the good part, you know, people are using it for their travel videos. They're doing the cool thing where they put their hand in front or their foot in front. I mean, how does that happen? Do you guys start this and go, hey, guys, let's do this? Or does this happen organically? Yeah yeah we had nothing to do with it what happened was i guess someone started and then we were you know we were doing a meet and greet one time at a show and a fan came over and was like hey i want to do the good part trend with you and she did it and we were like

good part trend she's trying to make a trend that's never gonna be anything and then we like went on tiktok and there were like 80 000 videos made already we're like wait, whoa, why did no one tell us about this? And then the next day, there were like 200,000. It just kind of kept growing. That's one of the great moments or the great aspects of TikTok. It's like, it's making these artists kind of sit there anxiously and wonder which of their songs is going to blow up today. And it's kind of cool and never felt before in the industry. It's this cool new chapter. And I think it rewards artists that work really hard on every single one of the songs on their album as opposed to like let's work really hard on the single rest will be filler it's like more likely that one will go viral if you actually make every song or just try to give each one a hook yeah i was gonna say the

problem is as a listener though you learn word by word seven seconds of a song and then when you have to learn the whole song the rest of it's unfamiliar exactly that's an interesting test because there are those tiktok songs that are massive on tiktok but nothing online and then they're the ones that people hear it and they're like oh wait the rest of this one is good too so you never know i imagine there's like a seven seconds sometimes at your concert where everyone's singing quite loud it's a good part yeah that is the case yeah i mean in our show obviously our big fans know the whole song but when we've done like festivals and everything everyone's silent and they're waiting for can we skip to the good part hey now when you come into new zealand is there

one thing that you do in every country that you visit oh we're big foodies so we always want to try the best food do you have good? Have you heard of a little restaurant called McDonald's? I've tried to go to McDonald's in other countries, and each one has its own unique thing. We did have a kiwi burger for a while, which was made not with kiwi, the bird, or kiwi fruit, but just a kiwi burger. It just had beetroot and egg in a normal hamburger,

and somehow that made it a kiwi burger. I't know why yeah i gotta go try it speaking of new zealand we have some slang new zealand slang i wanted to throw it out there and see if you guys can guess what it is so if i said ajr a choice uh what would i mean what would choice mean sounds like like they're great they're the best yeah, one from one That's good, okay, if I say AJR Can I wear my jandals to your concert? What are jandals? Can I wear my what? Jandals, J-A-N-D

Can I wear my jandals to your concert? It's a mixture between something and sandals Like denim sandals Like jean sandals Jean sandals Basically they're flip-flops. That's what we call flip-flops. Oh, okay.

Now you could wear your togs and your jandals. And your jandals. Togs are what you were wearing, your bathing suit. Oh, okay. So I'm going to wear both of those things. Can I just say jean sandals sounds like a great thing that we need to invent. We may have just invented something. We don't have to say that

just because it's Ryan. It's horrendous. No, it's a great idea. Okay, I was going to drive to AJR, but my car's carked it. Karked it. Karked it? Karked it.

Tell it. C-A-R-K-E-D. Karked it. Oh. Karked it. No, karked. Karked? Yeah, karked it. Karked it. It's muntedE-D Carked it No, Carked Yeah, Carked it, Carked it, it's munted It's Carked it It's like a Boston accent

It's broke down Yeah Would you guys like a cup of tea with some ginger nuts? Ginger nuts Oh, maybe like a little cookie to go along with the tea? Jeez, you look so good. We've got a ginger nut. There you go.

Let's pick a ginger nut. There you go. If I was going to invite the pair of you to come over to my house this weekend and lacquer my deck, what would we be doing? Lacquer your deck. Lacquer my deck. Deck, yeah. The deck.

What's the deck in New Zealand? I know. Deck, yeah. The deck. What's the deck in New Zealand? I know, it's, yeah. Okay, that's definitely, I don't know, clean your deck? I don't know. Yes, yeah. You guys are good.

You're fitting great. Yeah, yeah. We are so excited to have you in New Zealand. It's going to be awesome. People should go along and see you guys. You look amazing live.

Just one last question before we go. We talked last time about Sia. She, you know, she tweeted about you and said you were amazing. I mean, who are the big fans you've had over the last 12 months? Oh, Taylor Swift likes us.

That was really cool. Who, her? Yeah. She wrote a thing about us in the description. As AJR said, 100 bad days, man. She did a whole thing about our song. Wow. I mean, just about as good as you can get.

Yeah. That is pretty amazing. Taylor, we've heard of as you can get. Yeah. That is pretty amazing. Taylor, we've heard of Taylor Swift down here. Yeah. That's great. Hey, well, listen, boys,

can't wait to see you in New Zealand. Safe travels. Thank you for your time. And we'll get lacquering decks later on. Yeah. The Hits.

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