Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of A Cappella

Episode Date: June 7, 2022

From The Yale Whiffenpoofs to Pitch Perfect’s Barden Bellas, a cappella groups are not just your average band, they are a *family*, like a cross between fraternities and theatre kids. Crooning Top 40 covers in tight harmonies might sound like the most innocent way to commune... but can these seemingly wholesome, aggressively punny groups be sketchier than they seem? Amanda and Isa chat with an aca-mazing guest, Dani Calleiro—ex-member of the cult-followed YouTube a cappella band, Cimorelli—to get to the base note (sorry) of this week’s “cult.” In honor of Sounds Like A Cult's one-year anniversary, we're hosting our very first ever live show! It's virtual, meaning anyone from anywhere in the world can attend. On June 15th at 9 pm ET, join Isa and Amanda to ask questions, play games, hear us talk about never-before-discussed cults, and dive into alllllll other things culty. Details and ticket info can be found at momenthouse.com/soundslikeacult Go to HelloFresh.com/cult16 and use code cult16 for up to 16 free meals AND 3 free gifts! For listeners of the show, Dipsea is offering an extended 30-day free trial when you go to DipseaStories.com/CULT

This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm Issa Medina and I'm a comedian. I'm Amanda Montell, author of the book Cultish the Language with Fanaticism. Every week here on our show we discuss a different group that puts the cult in culture, from Disney adults to Instagram therapists, to try and answer a big question. This group sounds like a cult, but is it really? To join our cult, follow us on Instagram, that sounds like a cult pod. I'm on Instagram at Issa Medina, I-S-A-A-M-E-I-M-A-A, and I'm on IG at Amanda Undersquare Montell.

And feel free to check us out on YouTube where you can listen with your eyes or hit us up on Patreon at Patreon.com slash SoundsLikeACult. I literally didn't know how to start. Should we do some warm-ups? Some scales? Mom, me made me mash my M&Ms. I don't know how to sing, so I don't know how to warm up. We sing once around my bonfire, remember?

Oh yeah. I hope my landlord- We did a lot of weird things during the pandemic. I really explored. I rapped in Spanish. Right, right, we got really high and you rapped. But yeah, we're going to be talking about the cult of acapella. The cult of acapella today.

I suggested this episode maybe like a year ago and you were like, I don't know about that one. I was like, that's the niche topic we get into later and this is the perfect time. I had personal experiences in acapella as in I auditioned for a group in college. It wasn't until classic I tried the cult myself a little bit. I tried out, I didn't get in and I was like, this shit is not for me. I auditioned maybe six years ago. But I too have a connection to that world because my boyfriend Casey, our lovely composer

of the sounds like a cult theme music, was hardcore in the cult of acapella. He was the arranger for the Princeton footnotes. At an Ivy League nonetheless. That's an Ivy League. They have acapella at a lot of colleges and universities, but I feel like at Ivy Leagues they're like even more pretentious just by nature because it's Ivy League's more pretentious. Oh, of course. The outfits, they would wear these like Tommy Hilfiger matching very waspy suits.

Yes. That was the biggest culture shock to me when I went to UVA because it's like a Southern institution and everyone dresses so preppy. This might make me sound ignorant, but I actually never even heard of acapella until I went to UVA. It is an Italian word. Acapella. You want to talk about Italy?

Yeah, my main personality trait right now is I just got back from Europe this morning. I don't know. I feel like acapella is just, it's something that really, really is done well on college campuses. It's true. I think the movie Pitch Perfect put acapella on the Main Street Pop culture map, but college campuses are where it's traditionally always thrived. When you're a freshman, you think that like the kids in acapella are the hottest kids

in school. Well, I know that you definitely thought that. I did. I did think that. I was not under the impression that acapella was cool. You weren't? No. Well, I was a recovering theater kid.

That was too soon for me. I got to college and I was like, get me the fuck away from these acapella losers. Also because you went to NYU, which is like a city school, right? So it's like, it doesn't have like the classic culture vibes. You're right. Whereas like at UVA, they have acapella groups perform at your orientation. You're entranced by these groups and they like sway together. Yes.

They like snap together. And then you're like, I think I'm in love, but then you take the rose colored glasses off and you realize they're just basically nerdy frat boys who can harmonize. Definitely. But let's get into it because you might think acapella, that seems fairly innocuous. How can that possibly be a cult? But when you go to analyze the different qualities, it becomes clear that there are definitely some cultish elements to acapella.

Yeah, definitely. And also like as a reminder, we do have a scaling system. Yes, of course. You know? And so we're going to have fun with this one, but it's a big community. I mean, there are over 1200 college acapella groups in the country. Harvard has like almost 10, I know UVA has like 10 plus and every year kids come up with more like, like people who couldn't get into like the traditional ones, they like make

their own. Their own offshoots. Yeah, there are apparently as many as 18,000 total acapella errs in the country and competitive acapella is its own subculture. Not every team competes, but there are various acapella championships. Actually my, my boyfriend's group, the Princeton footnotes, they competed on the reality acapella TV competition show, The Sing-O. Really?

Yes. Oh, I could see that. Is the show that Pentatonix won? Oh, yeah. Because I feel like there are these two sort of denominations of acapella. There's college acapella, which is very connected to tradition and everything else. And then there's sort of like YouTube pop culture acapella groups. And I feel like those groups do more like pop songs and mainstream songs and like, that's

like the pitch perfects of the world. Yeah, exactly. You mentioned pitch perfect sort of made acapella cool and mainstream brought it from campuses to the zeitgeist. And we're going to be talking to a guest later who was in the cult of YouTube acapella specifically. So we're excited to hear about that. Yeah.

We're really excited to talk to her. I think that we could compare, in a way, college acapella or acapella in general, kind of to sororities and fraternities. Definitely. Because of their recruitment process. Absolutely. I mean, they are steeped in tradition similar to the way that Greek life is. Let's go through some of the culty qualities of acapella.

First of all, recruitment, as you mentioned. Yeah. Yeah, recruitment. I mean, it's like this, I, when I auditioned, didn't realize it was like a month long process, even though obviously they like post posters all around campus and they're like, auditions are held from like Monday to Tuesday at 3 p.m. in the dining hall or something, collagy like that. These people had actually been like socializing and hanging out and like it's kind of like

a sorority in that way that you kind of like get rushed into it because they only accept like two new members. It's exclusive. Yeah. Apparently it's harder to get into once you've already auditioned and didn't make it because they want to accept like freshmen like they want to accept people who like the hot new freshies. Exactly.

And so like if 100 freshmen with great voices are auditioning, 50 freshmen with bad voices are auditioning. That's still competitive. Oh, totally. So they're like, oh, like we'll meet people and we'll get a vibe for them and it's not just a matter of whether they like your voice. It's not a meritocracy, of course. Like everything.

Like everything else. So I was talking to Casey about some of the recruitment initiation rituals that were involved with the footnotes and to this day, okay, this is like 10 years post footnote audition. He was like, I refuse. I refuse to tell you it is a secret. All he said was I wrote it down. I don't know what this means. If there are any footnote alums who can tell me all he said was the Jackie Newman show has

the best Kobe beef sliders. And then he said, ask to see the paddle. The paddle. This is my partner. This is my romantic partner with whom I share a home and a dog and a cat and troubles and tribulations. And he won't even tell you to this day. And he will not to this day tell me about the acapella recruitment initiation.

Okay. Well, I never got in. So I can't tell you either. But damn it. But speaking of us and them dichotomy, I did hear that during auditions, some people would choose members based on attractiveness. Like there were some groups on campus known as hot and other groups known as not, I guess, but they only accepted the hot ones only accepted hot people, which is traumatizing, traumatizing.

He did also mention that while the rituals were culty, they weren't dangerous, not like fraternity hazing. That's what I was going to say because although I didn't get into the cult of acapella, I did join club sailing. You did? Yeah. For a semester at UVA. I love to diversify my interest.

Exactly. You were, yeah, you were dipping a toe into every little cult that would take you. And I feel like I got hazed for that. And it was like, we go into this basement, they cover our eyes, we drink this like goo from a chalice, but it's essentially just like, I don't know, the Jell-O shot vibes. Right. So I feel like acapella is probably similar in that they do like this fun thing to make you feel like you're part of something because absolutely, isn't that all like hazing is

is to like bond you. Exactly. So like bond in a fun, it's a conversion event. And this is one of the three elements of cultish influence that I talk about sometimes conversion, addition and coercion, coercion being the most dangerous, but conversion is just meant to make you feel like your life is now forever changed. Like you cannot go back once this event has happened. And some conversion events are more insidious than others.

But there is one story that we'll talk about in a bit of a much more nefarious acapella hazing story. Oh, this is incredibly disturbing, speaking of exit costs, Casey told me that once you joined an acapella group on campus, you were literally locked in and could not quit because there was this overlord acapella organization called acapellas that made sure that if you quit, you were prohibited from auditioning and joining a different group and were basically banished from the community, which could be so problematic if you didn't like your original group for any reason whatsoever.

Yeah, it's giving overlord and not cool. Not cool. Like you were indebted to these guys for life, like regardless of how well you actually got along, there was this understanding that if you were in the acapella group together, you were brothers forever. And those are some of the red flags that you can look for, like how much coercion is there? How much are we being conditioned to act in a way that controversies my former behavior and my former self?

Another aspect of acapella that I think is pretty culty in an innocent way, though largely is some of the lingo, obviously, all acapella groups have a dorky, punny name. The Harvard Opportunes. Yeah, at UVA, there was the Hollabahoo's. What? So like UVA is like mascot is like the who's we say like wahoo, what literally no one knows where the fuck it came from. Okay, some people say as a joke that it's like a wahoo is a fish that can like drink the

most. And I'm like, that's stupid. Okay. But Hollabahoo's because they like sing. What is that? The silhouette? Though that's cute. What is the name of that Yale acapella group that they talk about in Gilmore Girls, but

it's also really real and it's super prestigious and it's discussed with great severity and reverence. But it has the dorkiest name ever. The Whiffin Poofs. Yes, the Whiffin Poofs. It's so silly. It's just so unbelievably silly. Now, where does that name even come from?

I don't know, but it's just funny because I think about like a bunch of men in smoking jackets speaking with great reverence about the best moments of their life were spent in the Whiffin Poofs. Yeah. Wait, let me show you what the jackets that the Hollabahoo's would wear. They're actually like the ones that the Pitch Perfect guys are based off of. Yes. The robes.

A classic Colt Red Flag. A robe. Yeah. They wear robes that look like the Trader Joe's uniform. A convergence of so many Colts and Wands and Wands. Yeah. So, let's talk about it then. There's this uniformity aspect in acapella, right?

Like every group has coordinated outfits. The music that they perform is the same across all state schools. It's really wholesome pop music and songs from musicals. There is an eerily perfect, smiley, polite image to acapella, which is part of why it's not uncommon for acapella groups to overlap with different sects of Christianity. We'll talk a little bit about that with our guests later. Yeah. And I also feel like they have a little bit of in-group out-group because like we mentioned,

it's not just like a place where they sing. It's literally like a community, like all my friends who are in acapella, like their best friends were in acapella. And so, if you wanted to stop doing acapella, you might lose your friends. Oh, completely. Apparently, also all the acapella groups on campus, like I've heard this from multiple people at different universities are like really incestuous. Everyone's always hooking up with each other or like they only date other people in acapella.

Dude, Casey told me stories of acapella orgies. Oh, no. Sex, cults, energy. It's just you spend so much time with these people that anyone could basically convince anyone to do anything and you're a horny college student. I was just about to say you're a young college student who's like, sex, yeah, let's go. Let's go. But no solidarity that Casey has will follow him for the rest of his life.

I mean, his closest friends to this day are from his acapella days. Does he hang out with them in LA? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. They should perform. I know every time I get together with them, I demand that they like beatbox and sing Taylor Swift medleys for me. It is entrancing.

That's a word, right? It is. It is totally entrancing. I mean, it's a type of music that is created only with the human voice. Yeah. And I love acoustics. I'm huge on acoustics. I like pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.

Like this room? Great acoustics. You think so? But not for acapella. Not for acapella. You need echoing for acapella. That's right. That's right.

Speaking of the in-group, out-group, I mean, any community that has its origins on a college campus is going to get problematic at times. I mean, the Princeton footnotes originally started in the late fifties because the college acapella groups on campus at the time would not allow Jewish members. So that's something that still exists in acapella. I mean, there has been all this sort of hullabaloo lack of a better word and controversy in the footnotes in acapella groups across the country, I imagine, because they're trying to decide whether or not to allow women to join the group.

And I don't know, whenever a group doesn't allow women in because of tradition is sort of like an automatic red flag to me. The nature of it being like a tradition means that new students or kids who didn't have their parents go to that institution might not know about acapella, i.e. me. And then you don't do the right things to try and audition for acapella. So if you do want to be part of the group, then you're kind of on the outskirts because you don't have an insider's tape. But at the same time, there are also the positive aspects to any cult that exist in acapella.

All cults, it gives members a chance to commune with people who have similar interests. A lot of these groups are sort of like safer spaces for queer people. 100%. I feel like a lot of my friends in college that like joined acapella, it's like you didn't even you didn't know who you were, and then you join in like after being in a community that like accepts you for who you are without you even knowing who you are, then you feel more comfortable coming out probably. Yes, there were many a coming outings in that footnote room.

So actually, I asked Casey what he thought was the cultiest thing about acapella. And I have to agree with what he said. It is the tags. Do you know what a tag is? I know what a tag is in comedy. It's like set up tag punchline. So a tag is like something that gets you to the punchline. Got it.

It's like the middle thing. Got it. Got it. Okay. So in acapella, for those of you who don't know, I'm a comedian. Cute laughter. Hello. So in acapella, a tag is this incredibly like cringy, slightly off putting behavior slash

ritual where a group of acapella members will be in a public space at a party at a restaurant in a freaking church, wherever they are, they'll, you know, like make eye contact with one another and one of the members will be like, uh, and then they break out in maybe like eight bars of a song. That's like the acapella version of the penis game. Did you ever play that? Where you say like penis louder and louder, like in 500 days of summer? Yeah.

Yeah, of course. But like that's, yeah, but everybody recognizes that. Yeah. Everyone knows the penis game. Everyone knows the penis game. I would have the worst secondhand embarrassment if an acapella group did that next to me in a diner. Dude, exactly.

So, so that's the thing is that, um, they bust down into song and it's kind of isolating because it really, it, they're not performing for other people, they're doing it for themselves. It's like musical masturbation. Yeah. It separates them from everyone else on the outside. Which is illegal in public places. So I feel like they should take note. It's a public disturbance.

Yeah. I mean, it just, it further establishes that in group. And it's kind of like when the Hari Krishna's chant through the street, it's like, do that somewhere else. Yeah. I did, I will say, I did look forward to it during finals though. Like sometimes the acapella groups would come in the library and like do like a, what do you call it when you like a dance, but, oh, a flash mob.

It was like a flash mob of acapella. It's totally like a flash mob. Yeah. But it only lasts 30 seconds. It's like bat six. And you only want to watch it when you're like one page into like a 12 page essay that like is due in three hours. Exactly.

And you're like, how do I procrastinate? Oh, I'll watch these dorks. Like any excuse to procrastinate. If you're listening to this episode in early June, 2022, we are going to be doing a live online show and you can still get tickets. It's on June 15th, 2022 at 9pm ET, 6pm PT. It's to celebrate our one year anniversary of the podcast and it's going to be so much fun.

We're going to discuss cults that we would never ordinarily discuss on the show. I'm going to do stand up. I'm going to read a little bit of my book and we're also just going to like have a live chat so you can literally like give us suggestions of what you want to talk about. We're going to engage with our listeners. There's going to be a Q&A. There is going to be an opportunity to do a one on one meet and greet with us and the opportunity to buy merch if you attend the live show.

Yeah. iPhone cases, t-shirts. It's really cute. I designed it myself. It's very cute. You can get tickets and info at momenthouse.com slash sounds like a cult. The event is being put on by Moment House and all the info is also in link in our bios. So we've talked about some of the culty but fairly innocuous aspects of acapella.

Let's talk about some worst case scenarios. There was a pretty controversial hazing scandal at Cornell with one of their acapella groups, the Cayuga's waiters, which let me tell you, that's a weird name. Yeah. There's no zing to that. Yeah. Like are they waiting on people? Are they waiting around?

Come on. We're talking Ivy League. Yeah. Anyway, they were founded in 1949. They were the oldest acapella group at the school. All male. All male. Yeah.

And they're low-key like campus celebrities. Like you were describing. Yeah. Like I was just like, but to everyone, well UVA, I was just like, I was the one who was like, oh my God. You were the one groupie. Yeah. But at Cornell, they were like kind of campus celebrities, the Cayuga waiters.

And they got kicked off campus permanently for hazing members. They made them sit naked in ice baths. They made them go running and then they were forced to eat food until they threw up. This sounds very fratty. Yeah. Members had been pressured to climb into garbage cans and sit there for undisclosed periods of time in order to land coveted solos. So as in, once they were already in the group, they still got hazed in order to like score

a solo, which is kind of not just singing the shower like the rest of us, but older members reportedly pissed on new members. Sorry. I don't know. I said it like that. As long as it was consensual, but it sounds like it was not gross, but Ed Helms acapella persona in the office is based off of this. Oh, that's incredible.

This story is is a little bit shocking. I think it's interesting because there are so many frats who've engaged in this behavior and have not been shut down or banned. I was just thinking the same thing. Like I actually have like friends who have literally told me this exact kind of hazing for fraternities, but instead of like eating food until they throw up, they had to eat like tobacco until they threw up. It's disgusting, but in fraternities, it's almost expected and it's written off as tradition.

It's just for fun. It's harmless. But I think against the backdrop of acapella, it felt a little bit more shocking. Even though acapella has really deep roots and it's like an old, really traditional thing, I feel like fraternities have deeper pockets, you know, like people who were in fraternities might run the university or might be donating to the university. So the university is less likely to reprimand a fraternity because it has consequences. Totally financially speaking.

Whereas people who joined acapella groups are likely to like pursue like the arts after college unless it's like literally Tina Fey. Yeah. Well, actually what's funny is that so many of the members of the footnotes, this is like my one case study, a lot of them just went on to become like finance bros and stuff because Ivy League vibes, you know? Yeah. But it's true.

Like acapella members are misfit types. They're artsy types. Yeah. But those finance bros, they're not going to be like donating to the acapella group. So they do, but not as much. You're right. Yeah. There isn't that legacy that there is in fraternities.

I think, yeah. The culty aspect of acapella is less connected to the institution of the university. But at the same time, because they are these artsy misfits and because, or at least they can be and because they are like slightly like dorkier or how do I want to say it? Because they're not as perceived as nicer than when you put their cute, adorable persona against the hazing that happened. It looks way darker. Totally.

Because it's not expected, you could wind up doing something that you absolutely didn't consent to because it was under the guise of, oh, we're just this friendly, sweet acapella group. Yeah. They are so sweet looking. Yeah. They are. They really make you fall in love with them.

Okay. Is that just me? I feel like we, I need to maybe set you up with a former footnote. Are they finance bros now? No, no, no. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, I forgot.

That's your type. Money. Money. I actually think it's like when people are like, oh, like you can't just be like attracted to someone for their money. I'm like, yeah, you can. Why not? We found this story in GQ about the Cornell acapella hazing controversy and we want to

read some pull quotes from it because I think they're enlightening. It turns out that the same isolation that made acapella cool-ish had for a century also made hazing acceptable to many people, kind of like what we were speaking about before. They said what we were selling was an identity, a vibe, which at a place like Cornell, which has been a punchline on at least three episodes of Broad City in addition to, it goes a long, long way. We're talking about how Cornell is an Ivy League, but it is kind of like known as the shitty Ivy.

It's like less prestigious, so when you feel like you're an underdog, you have something to prove. Well, I thought this quote from the article also addresses that is that you put a pack of guys together in any selective exclusive group and someone needs to prove he's the alpha. So true. And notice how like this controversy happened in an all-male acapella group too, like we said fraternities are a little more culty than sororities.

Add that on top of like having to prove yourself because it's like Cornell versus other Ivy Leagues and the fact that they're all men and then the fact that they go in not expecting it. And then they're like, oh wait, then I need to like double down. I feel like when you go in not expecting something and then you get hazed, you're like, oh hey, I need to prove that I'm a man. You justify it to yourself because you don't want to believe that you would go along with something so batshit or so destructive.

So you sort of convince yourself like, no, no, no, no, it's not that bad. I meant for this to happen. Yeah. I'm totally fine with this. Yeah. And that's how a lot of abuse happens. It's because you are ashamed to admit to yourself that you allowed this damage to occur. Yeah.

I think a really good example of this is, have you seen the show Sex Lives of College Girls? Yes, I love it. Yeah. It's so good. It's so good. And you know when the girl joins the like comedy group on campus and like she tries to convince herself that like what's happening to her is normal and then she realizes like, no, this is not okay.

Yeah. Because she gets sexually harassed on that. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. A lot of university groups are able to get away with this sort of thing because as you were mentioning before, you show up to college, you're a young person, you're vulnerable, you don't have a super strong sense of self, you're looking for community in unlikely places

and when there's no checks and balances, when there's no one making sure that the power is restrained to some degree, then these cult like abuses can occur. Yeah. I almost feel like college is an even more vulnerable time period in your life to get, to be like susceptible to cults because when you just turn into a teenager, you're so hard headed when you're like 13 to 17, you're like, fuck everyone. I literally know everything. I know everything.

And I've been owning this town for 17 years and then you move to college. Also you literally live with your parents, which makes it harder to join a cult. But you're still young totally. But you're 10 times more vulnerable and you're like, but now I want to act like an adult. What do adults act like? Yeah. Like 17 to like 21 is really a vulnerable time for people. Absolutely.

I mean, it's no accident that so many different cultish groups from MLMs to self-help groups to evangelical Christian societies will target people in college because you're exactly right. So all of a sudden for the first time in their life, a small fish in a big pond, they want to find their identity. They want to find their way. And here's a group being like, I'll show you. This is actually a perfect transition because Keith Ranieri was, yeah, so Keith Ranieri

was the leader of an acapella group. He was such a weird dude. He was the leader of an acapella group called Simply Human. Of course. Of course. Ew. He gives just like saying his name gives me the creeps. I know, right?

So he founded this group under a nonprofit called Acapella Innovations, so highfalutin with him. According to the documentarian John Wilson, Keith Ranieri would lurk around big acapella events, proselytizing the transformative power of acapella and then lure college students into nexium through the appeal and seeming innocence and solidarity of acapella. Oh my God. And he was targeting people exactly that age, people who thought there was only good to come from acapella.

Exactly. But he tainted the beautiful art that is acapella. How could he do that? I can easily see because when you have like a young, creative person who maybe wasn't like the coolest person in high school, Keith Ranieri looks like he was like the biggest loser. Dork. 100%.

Sorry, I'm being a believe this episode. He was a loser. He wasn't even a dork. He was a loser. Giant loser. He was not just a whale penis. He was a whale butthole. Yeah.

He was actually the origin of the word loser. Whale ass. Who's the etymologist now? But yeah, I mean, when you have someone who's like, I was just like you in high school. I wasn't that cool either. And now look at me. I'm brilliant. I'm the leader of this organization.

You can get involved with me. We'll sing acapella together. It'll be great. Those are the perfect conditions under which to lure young people into a cult. I just don't understand how people who approach younger people like that and say like I was just like you or do things like that don't see themselves being creepy. Like there are every year there's like new comedians in the comedy scene, obviously, but it's like there are plenty of male comedians that do that and that's fucked up, like taking

advantage of someone for their like newness and youngness. In large part, I think it's insecurity. I think some of these cult leaders have a chip on their shoulder because they felt bullied and oppressed for whatever reason in high school. And because they have so much privilege, they think they're entitled not to feel that way. And they're like, finally, I can be a cool kid. You know you're a loser when you're like the only way I can achieve power is to start a cult and recruit 18 year olds.

Yeah, it's pathetic. Yeah. Pathetic. Anyway, follow us on Patreon. I'm just kidding. Amazing. So we have discussed some of the ins and outs, the highs and lows, the the A's and G's. Some music theory humor for you, that's probably why I didn't get in because I'm like, what

are you talking about? Of college acapella. But next we're going to hear a little bit about the cult of YouTube acapella from our very special guest. We're going to talk to Danny Cairo. She was in the cult of YouTube acapella, but she's now a vlogger herself. She's on TikTok. She was in a massive, probably one of the biggest YouTube acapella cults.

It was all of her sisters. It was a group called Simirelli, and she left to do her own thing. And we're going to talk all about her experience. For the listeners who don't know who you are, can you tell us your name, what you do, and are you connected to acapella? You know, my name is Danny, you know, my name is Danny, Danny Cairo, a.k.a. previously known as Danny Simirelli, that is my old last name because I got married. I was in a band called Simirelli, and we started off doing only acapella covers for many years.

We did some here and there like recorded things, but acapella was like our thing. It became very successful. Oh, yeah. I mean, what were your numbers and stuff? We had like 5 million subscribers, and in like 2012, we got like millions of views, like anybody who was on YouTube watching music related content in 2012, which was a lot of people. That's probably what I found too.

We watched our videos because I was 12, like it was like middle schoolers, some high schoolers, mostly like kids though. Oh, my gosh. And like we did a collab with Maddie B, and that got like 100 million views. So it was very much like early 2010. How was that as a 12 year old, like having that kind of power? You know, it was actually like one of those things where you just don't realize it because I was so young and I started when I was 10.

So it's like you don't think about anything that happens when you're a kid because it's just happening. Yeah. You know, you have to have an appellate group with your siblings. Your sisters. With my five sisters. And you also have brothers though. I have five brothers as well.

But they could not be in the group. Wait. How many siblings total do you have? I have 10. Oh, my God. Catholic family, right? Yeah. So that's a thing.

I grew up Catholic too. Yeah. That's okay. Family is not a cult. I'm like some rally. But it's okay. All right. Jolt's fired.

Amanda's like, we're gonna start light. You're like, what are we gonna talk about? She's like, you're in a cult. No, I totally subscribed to it. I like literally subscribed like with the button and everybody needs to know and everybody knows who listens to this podcast. When we say cult, it's not. Oh, everyone knows.

It's not a cult. No. Everyone knows that. Everyone knows. And I just need to say it. The whole point is that cults are a spectrum. This word is so up to interpretation. Okay.

So I know about college acapella a little bit because my boyfriend college acapella groups think of themselves as a family, but your acapella group was literally your family. Can you tell us about how your family first got into acapella and how did the band start? Yeah. Honestly, I was like seven years old. So I don't remember all of it because they started it without me. But yeah. It's giving what's the Jonas Brothers little brother.

Frankie. It's giving Frankie. Yeah. That was like a joke for a little bit. So they started without me because I was really young obviously like who's gonna put a fucking seven year old in their band. So they did their thing and they got really popular just from posting acapella covers. So they posted like party in the USA was their first cover.

They posted in 2009. Hey, we're Somerelli. We're five sisters and we're gonna sing party in the USA. It was actually really a genius marketing move. They were like, Oh, her performance of her dancing on a pole is going to get leaked on Eric got leaked or it whatever on YouTube somehow right before it came out. So my sisters were like, Oh my God, that's going to be so controversial. Like we should make a cover of party in USA because everybody's going to be searching

party in USA. So what they did, they put the title of the video party in the USA live at the Teen Choice Awards cover. Oh my God. Your sisters were like click bait prodigies literally like before click bait was even a thing. They were like, Oh, let's name it this. It was like a genius.

Genius. Genius. So then they sent it to this blog called Ocean Up and it was like a gossip blog kind of like Perez Hilton. Yeah. And they sent it to them and we're like, Hey, we did this cover like no, no reason for them to care. And they're like, Hey, but they posted it and they got like a bunch of viewers and keep

in mind YouTube was so small at the time. So like if Ocean Up posted this with their 100,000 readers, it was like a big deal. I wasn't in the band, but I was a kid and I heard my sisters like screaming cause they woke up and it had like 100,000 views, the YouTube video and they didn't literally didn't have any views at all. Yeah. It went from zero to 100,000 like overnight and then from there it just like catapulted and like didn't stop for like years.

So did they set out to become like a YouTube famous band? No. I mean, my sister Christina, who started it, she was very driven and like really wanted to like be successful, like really bad. And so I think she definitely had like goals in mind, but I don't think they thought it would happen at least not that quickly and definitely not like an acapella group either. Like they just started doing acapella because we, they didn't really play instruments and it's so funny and like high tech stuff.

Like what are you going to do? I mean, they played piano, but like it's hard to film like a piano cover and it's loud and like what are you going to do like in 2009, like just record like, nobody knew how to do that. What are you going to do? Like do covers of Lil Wayne. Exactly. Like with a karaoke track.

No, but seriously, you're going to put a karaoke track like that was the only option, but harmonies were like a really big thing too because there were five of them. And so they did all these harmonies in the back and they did the bums, bums, bums and all that stuff. But it definitely evolved like at first it was very minimal harmonies and they were kind of just singing like snapping. But then later they, we did a lot more like complicated arrangements and it became more like people labeled us like an acapella group a lot of times, even though we definitely

weren't, but like, Oh, that's funny. That's how we think of you though. Yeah. A lot of people do. Oh, that's funny. I think it's also makes sense because there are so many of you. It's kind of like when dad have their kids like join sports and then they put them all

on the same team and they're like, oh, we can be a team. You have a lot of kids to start a team. Exactly. Yeah. My mom was one who suggested it because my sister really wanted to be a singer and she was like, well, you couple of these siblings, like, why don't you just start a band? And then she was like, okay. Was she the oldest one?

Yeah. Okay. She was like 17 at the time or 18. That's so funny. And she's a girl boss. She is literally. That's such older sister vibes to ladies. Let's go.

Exactly. Shania Twain's Let's Go Girls is about your family. So you mentioned that when you were seven, you didn't immediately join the group, but was there like a choice once you ultimately did join the group or like, was it like, you know, when you're like in a family business, you kind of like have to join the family business or did you want to? Oh, I really wanted to. Really bad because I like wanted attention.

Really bad. Relatable. I mean, as a family of 10 kids, like you can understand like, I want attention. Yeah. And I loved Britney Spears. I loved performers. I loved like being in the spotlight in the center of attention. So like when I saw my sister's performing on the stage, I was like, I want to do it

really bad. Oh my God. Cult of attention. Literally in the age of the internet, when celebrities are gods on earth, nothing is more transcendent than attention. So I feel like, and maybe I'm reading into this a little bit too deeply, but you probably are. Always.

Based on me reading your book, you probably are dead attacked. But it seems to me like acapella singing would make the members even more tightly bonded than other types of bands because it's like literally just your voices working together and like these tight harmonies and it has to be so coordinated. And if one little note is off, it ruins everything. So it really requires the sort of like precise communal effort. I'm wondering what you think makes acapella cultier than other types of musical groups, if anything.

Yeah. That makes sense. Like when my sister's and I would sing in harmony altogether, you literally have to like stare at each other. My sister would be like the leader and she would like be moving her hands and shit. You need to like really hone in. And there's these really magical moments where I don't know if it happens with everybody who sings acapellas or sings in harmony, but like my sister's and I sometimes we would

harmonize and our voices would harmonize so perfectly. It would start buzzing. So we would all be singing and it would there would be this underlying buzz and it would only happen sometimes. But like when it did happen, it was like we were perfectly like together and like, I guess I don't know how. I don't know. Just like an alternate universe loophole opens and you're like,

We open a wormhole and travel to another dimension. Literally. That's the next Marvel movie. Acapella Marvel. Oh my God. It's so cheesy. Finally, I could watch a Marvel movie and feel invested. That definitely makes sense.

And then also, I think maybe it's like the people who are drawn to it, you know, like theater kids and like kind of nerdy people. I feel like like acapella more. It's not exactly like Justin Bieber isn't an acapella group, you know what I mean? Not giving Pharrell. Yeah. Like much pitch perfect and stuff like that. That's like some people are cool in that, I guess, but no, but it's the misfit.

But you're right. These, you know, people who are not otherwise feeling accepted will maybe seek out acapella and that makes it cool. And then they get really close because they're all together all the time, whether it's a band or an acapella group or a girl band, a girl group, like there's a lot of little things in just being a musical group together, especially if you become successful because then you start to rely on each other even more. Yeah.

And it's such an emotional practice. Like singing is so emotional. I always joke as a stand up comedian whenever I like see a musician at an open mic because sometimes there's like stand up open mics and then there's musical open mics and sometimes they're mixed. And whenever I see a musician, I'm like, how are they on stage being like so vulnerable? And then I get up there and I'm like, so it's like last night. I think, you know, I think music allows you to sort of camouflage yourself and the music

is almost the safety net, whereas like stand up. You're so exposed. It's so blunt, but I feel like we're not expressing ourselves with our like body and sound with music. You guys were literally like vibing. Oh, yeah. Literally. Literally.

On a wave. Like the sound. Yeah, exactly. But there is something about participating in like a group music practice that feels almost spiritual. Well, I mean, you think about churches. Like when they lead worship and one time I went to Hillsong in New York and I wanted to go for the music because I didn't know anything about the church and coincidentally,

that whole thing just came out with them. And so I wanted to go to a non-denominational church and I was like, oh shit, Hillsong is right around the corner. Like I've always wanted to go and I went and I don't think you guys understand. When I went in, I was like weeping because the music was so good. Yeah. Well, it's designed to make the audience feel like they're having a cathartic spiritual experience, but really just what they're experiencing are really good harmonies.

No. Harmonies and chords and when they hold up the synths and everything and then everybody starts singing and it's in this massive like old building. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. Isn't it like performed like a concert? Yes. Like it's like a ton of people.

It's like a ton of people. The speakers are also like insane. Yeah. And then you're singing about God and you're singing about spirituality. So it's like really deep and intense. So I've never, ever had an experience like that until I went to that church and I was like, oh my God. I went back in because I don't live in New York, but it's fascinating because the connection

between like transcendence and religion and music is pretty tight. Like you were at a church that felt like a concert, but when I'm at a concert, it feels like a church. It feels like church. Yeah. I was at a Robin concert before the pandemic. Robin. I mean, I'm just like, yes, I can't even like think of a song dancing on my own.

I remember being there with my friends and yeah, and like one of my friends was like weeping as we were like scream singing one of these songs and she said, this is church. Yeah. It's secular church, but it's music and those are all connected. Yeah. You hinted at this a little bit because you talked about your sister and your family, but do you think you guys had like a cult leader in the group? And what would happen if like you wanted to question her or did anyone ever like disagree

with the leader? What was the vibe? Yeah. I would say like the leader was my sister Christina. She was the oldest and she led the band and she kind of influenced like the cool the culture of the group, but we had a very, I'd say open communication. It was very group like oriented and we all kind of had to agree. Yeah.

We all kind of had to agree on stuff to do it. Can you talk about like what YouTube acapella culture is like specifically like is it competitive? Is there drama? There was definitely competition in the fans, like in the comments, like the gardener sisters, people would comment on them and be like, Oh my God, copying similarly because they were all sisters and they was in covers and whatever. Yeah. So I would say they were copying us or like Pentatonix versus similar.

Like people would like comment like, Oh my God, Pentatonix is way better. Oh my God. Similarly way better. So there was definitely people in the comments, but we never honestly, maybe because we were just removed from like YouTube culture, we never spoke to anybody. Like we didn't really meet Pentatonix or hang out with them and like the gardener sisters, we were friends with them. So like there wasn't ever like we were so involved in the culture that we had like beef

with anybody. The stand-up made it go to the fans definitely did because and that makes sense. But it also seems like it was like pre Instagram times. So it wasn't as heavy like TikTok wasn't a thing and Instagram wasn't as popular like there weren't stories or anything. So it was at our peak. It was mainly just YouTube comment. So you mentioned you left the group to pursue another career.

Yeah. What was that experience like leaving the group? It was hard because we were sisters and we are again, I keep saying we're, but we're sisters, you know? And so doing it for 10 years and then leaving it. Like I thought about it for many, many, many years because music just wasn't always my like number one passion. Even YouTube wasn't my number one passion.

So like nowadays I'm doing YouTube, but I'm considering like heavily stepping back on YouTube and like getting a regular full-time job because I don't really want to do it like full-time anymore. When you start doing something when you're that young, you're not really going to be passionate about it unless it's like your thing. You know, like some people I guess are lucky and they like want to be a singer since they're a kid or an actor or whatever, and then they jump right into it when they're a kid. But like for me, like my sisters were doing it and I just wanted to have fun.

And so I liked it, obviously, you know, I had a lot of fun for a lot of years. But towards the end of it, I was kind of just like, this isn't really my thing. So it was really hard because it wasn't an easy leaving like, oh, there's beef or like, oh, I hate this or whatever. It was kind of just like, I don't want to do this anymore and I haven't want to do this for years. So it's kind of like that bittersweet thing. Yeah.

So my sisters were all pretty supportive of it. And like, I remember the day before I left, like officially they like, I don't remember what they did, but they like gave me a gift or something. It was really nice. It was a good, like cathartic, yeah, leaving experience. It sounds like internally you guys were obviously family and like, they're going to be supportive of you. Yeah.

What was the fandom? How did the fandom? Oh, I remember they freaked the fuck out. They made it a whole thing. They thought surely there must be beef. Yeah. There must be like under someone's pernicious influence or else why would you ever leave? Like, I remember it was a very dramatic thing.

Yeah. Because I was getting married at the time and I was 19. To your current husband? Yeah. No, my new husband. Well, I don't know. I don't know why I asked that. That's okay.

No, that makes sense. I've been married for like three years. Okay. I also left the Catholic church at the same time. Everybody thought that since I was making so many changes all at once, it must have been because my husband was influencing me and he was like controlling me, which first of all is so fucking annoying as like a woman. Totally.

Because it's like, okay, so I can't like make a life decision or else a man must be influencing me. That was the patriarchy talking. Literally. Like so many people in my life, they're like, are you sure you want to do this or is he making you? Right? It's like, do you think that I'm like easily manipulated like that?

And it's like, am I not allowed to want to do something other than this acapella group I've been doing since I was 13? Exactly. Like, am I not allowed to want to change my life? Like a lot of people on the outside just didn't understand that. My sisters, I think, understood more than anything. We talk about exit costs a lot on this show, like how that's like a cult red flag, but it sounds like the people who are actually in Somerelle, your sisters, your family,

they weren't making leaving hard. The fans were making leaving. They were making it really hard, yeah. Which like, I mean, you can partially understand because you all meant a lot to them. But it's just the internet, I think, brought out the cultishness. It made it a lot worse. The community. Yeah, for sure.

What you think was the cultiest thing about being like a YouTube famous acapella girl, was it kind of the necessity to seem happy and wholesome all the time? Was it the subscribers? Like what was the cultiest thing about it? I would probably say the inside like image that we all had to have because it was a family friendly group. And so as I became a teenager growing up in this group, like my sisters have very strong morals in a very certain direction.

They started the group when they were late teenagers, like they were like 15, 16, 17. And so they were kind of formed in like their ideals and their beliefs and everything. And so they dress really modestly. They don't curse. They don't like, they change the words in every cover they do. They're super Catholic. Like that's their thing. And that was my thing for a while.

But I was literally 13 years old. And so I didn't really know what I wanted or what I believed. I just believed whatever they believed because, you know, they're my siblings. And so growing up and like wanting to wear crop tops and like wanting to like curse or whatever, like normal kid stuff or teenage things or whatever. Get tattoos. Yeah. It's like starting to do those things, I had to like do it secretly.

And so I would say the cultiest thing was definitely like having to pretend like I was something that I wasn't in order to like fit the image and to like look a certain way to the outside. Kind of reminds me of like child stars, like when they are like coming to terms with like who they are, but in the public light, it's so hard like Disney Channel stars, Miley. Yeah. It makes me think of a couple of things. First of all, the cult of families, like, but it also makes me think like just the general

vibe of acapella, whether you're you're in like a religious family or not, is pretty wholesome. It is. Like you don't tend to see pretty edgy acapella groups for sure. So now we're going to play a game. It's a classic game of would you rather a sounds like a cult staple. Would you rather cult of acapella edition? Would you rather only be able to listen to acapella music for the rest of your life or

only be able to listen to Christian rock music for the rest of your life? Oh God. That's a hard one. It's hard. Call back to what we were talking about earlier. Christian rock, I hate. I hate it. I like worship music.

I cannot with Christian rock like Jesus. Yeah. Okay. But what about like Christian? Almost like indie alt rock. That's even worse. Yeah. I think I'd rather listen acapella because like there's some fire acapella covers of

like popular songs. Like the drums basically sound real. Yeah. You can listen to any style of music in the style of acapella. Yeah. Agreed. Okay. Question number two.

Would you rather have to get a chest piece tattoo featuring the words I'm acapella amazing or get a big upper back tattoo of a pentagram? Only because my family would disown me if I got a pentagram. I'd probably have to get the other one because since it just has to have the words, I could make it work. You know, I could put on like a little traditional banner. Yeah. You know what I mean?

And it says chest piece. It doesn't say how big. It's specific. So it could be anything. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. You get it in like another language too.

Exactly. You translate. Amazing. I don't know, but you can. You can do anything in this world. Okay. Would you rather have to spend every Sunday morning for the rest of your life attending a fundamentalist church service where you speak in tongues or have to spend every Sunday

morning for the rest of your life singing a two hour Taylor Swift acapella medley? I grew up Catholic and I went to church every Sunday, so it's kind of the same thing. Like sure the speaking in tongues is weird, but like sometimes they speak in line. I grew up Catholic too. Yeah. That's fine. Same deal. Yeah.

I didn't understand half what they were talking about Catholic church anyway. So I'd rather do that because I don't want to hang for two hours. I think about Catholic church is that it's so boring. So when you're not like invested in it, you really can zone out and take an app with your eyes open. Exactly. It's great. I would lay down in the pews.

I would go to bed. Me too. And my mom would let us lay down. Like we were like in the map and all over the place. Oh, my mom would kill me. My mom would kill me. My dad would get mad at my mom for letting us lay down. Oh, that's like.

We're all adults now. We can all sleep sitting up. Well, that's when my husband told me I should probably leave the Catholic church because I was an adult going to sleep in Catholic service. Yeah. And he was like, Hey, maybe you shouldn't be Catholic anymore. Yeah. No, when I was lying down, I was like 10.

Yeah. My parents would let me. I love how we're a cult podcast that like could be critiquing the cult of Catholicism, but instead we're choosing to brush right past that and talk about the cult of acapella that is just so on brand for this podcast. Yeah. Would you rather have to be only friends slash hang out with college acapella singers or only be friends slash hang out with YouTube acapella singers?

Probably college acapella singers because like, I feel like YouTube, no offense. YouTube acapella singers. Like I feel like they don't have. This is such the biggest generation I've ever made in my life, but like, I feel like they don't, they're YouTube and like everything's the kind of their life. They're ugly. Yeah. No, I just mean like, I feel like YouTube would be like their life and it'd be kind

of annoying. Like I don't want to talk about that shit. Like I feel like college students would have like different things they're doing and acapella would be like, Oh, this is what I do for fun. They are very insular in college too, but at least you're on a campus. So you're also in like the cult of like your college campus. You're taking classes. You're partying.

Exactly. So I'm not just like stuck with all these YouTubers all the time. Yeah. And YouTubers can be really annoying sometimes. Yeah. I don't want to deal with that. I mean, other cults always look more fun than the one you're in because you can't see the underbelly from afar.

So true. Thank you so much for coming here and talking about the quote unquote cult of acapella. If people want to keep up with you and your work and your new life, where could they do that? Anywhere that has the name Danny Callado, so it's spelled C-A-L-L-E-I-R-O. I'm on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, etc. So Issa, out of the three cult categories, live your life, watch your back, and get the fuck out.

What do you think about the cult of acapella? I think the cult of acapella is a live your life. You do. I do. I do. I'm going light to these days because we only found one red flag hazing situation and recently there haven't really been many. And I think just because there are people like Keith Ranieri who use acapella to lure

people in, I don't think that necessarily is associated with acapella itself. It's associated more with youth and optimism. And Keith Ranieri making anything he can cult-y. It's true. I'm going to call to watch your back because I just think point blank whenever a group that has such deep roots in tradition and involves young people and is so active on college campuses, notoriously cult-y, also YouTube notoriously cult-y, it's got to be a default watch your back.

I think it's less extreme a watch your back than fraternities and sororities. I think it's less extreme a watch your back than another YouTube cult that we'll talk about in a later episode on this show. Yeah. Yeah. Because it has such a strong hold on young people, it can quickly dive into a more dangerous territory. Oh my gosh.

What happens when we disagree? I'm like, live your life. You're like, watch your back. And I'm like, but live your life. Should we wrestle? Oh, that's our show. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back with a new cult next week, but in the meantime, day cult-y, but not too

cult-y. Sounds Like a Cult is created, hosted and produced by Amanda Montell and Issa Medina. Kate Elizabeth is our editor. Our podcast studio is all things comedy and our theme music is by Casey Colb. Thank you to our intern slash production assistant, Noemi Griffin. Subscribe to Sounds Like a Cult wherever you get your podcasts. So you never miss an episode. And if you like our show, feel free to give us a rating and review on Spotify or Apple

podcasts and check us out on Patreon at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult.