BONUS: Interview with Kyle Gordon (Preview)

One-song nation, in case you missed it, we have a Patreon, and starting today, that Patreon is officially part of the One-song family, patreon.com/one-song. Go join now for free to get unreleased footage from our show, early access to new episodes of One-song, and exclusive long-form interviews with some of our favorite artists, starting with an incredible conversation we had with comedian musician and internet sensation, Kyle Gordon. If you don't know who Kyle Gordon is, you're about to find out. The man has four million subscribers on TikTok alone. His comedy music has been incredibly spreading like wildfire, including his latest single, Mr. John Bow, which absolutely blew up over the summer on YouTube and TikTok. We talked to Kyle about that really thin line between music and comedy. It is so fine, so nuanced. Kyle has it dialed in. He's a scientist of the blend. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about parodying Paul Simon and so much more. So stay tuned for a preview of our conversation with Kyle Gordon and go check out the entire interview with Kyle Gordon at patreon.com/one-song. I don't think I've ever done more research for a song. My wife keeps saying, you were studying for a test that no one was ever going to give you, but I just really, really just hunkered down and I was like, if I'm going to parody the ignorance of maybe Paul Simon, but kind of this character of a generic American tourist seeking wisdom in Africa, I can't then be, or as much as possible, I don't want to be guilty of the same things that there's an inherent ignorance that I'll always have just being an American guy going there. But as much as possible, I tried to do as much research as I possibly could before I undertook this trip. And so yeah, the trip, we went to, we shot in two locations. So we shot in South Africa. And so everything with animals and landscape, we shot in this like a game reserve. That was like an hour and a half north of Cape Town. And so, and then everything with the choir and the Mr. John Boe character, we actually shot that in the country is called Eswatini. It was previously called Swaziland until like three years ago and they changed the name. So it's a tiny landlocked country in the east of the country. Like it borders like Mozambique, but it's mostly surrounded by South Africa. So we went in Cape Town and then we flew over and shot everything there. And kind of, you know, all of these things were like you were saying, like, and I could go into detail about every little choice we made. But where we shot it was, it's literally a a, a preserved Swazi village for tourists. It's like a, like a, like a tourist, it's like a tourist thing to, uh, for mostly for European tourists to see like what traditional life would have been like, right. And then we, we, uh, cast like a local choir, a local brass band. And then Mr. John Boe was just a, the guy who played him was just a friend of the producer who was retired. Which is crazy because he's got great comedic timing. Like because his eyes to like the, who's this guy? He's his white man yelling at me. Uh, his timing is great. I was just as excited. I would point out one, um, timing, I think is so important in music and in comedy and ways. And I think that's the sort of connective tissue between musicians and comedians. Like your timing's just gotta be good. But also, um, I've had friends, white friends, you know, like some of the other soccer ads and stuff who were like, showing me their footage of like when they took their family to Safari this summer. And I'm always like, oh, yeah, wow, that looks, that's awesome. And like they're visiting these places. And I'm just like, I wish the reverse was true. I wish like there was like all these African tourists who would go to like rural Missouri and like go to see how real Americans live. And they'd be like, oh, look at them. I just, I went, I went the equivalent. Whatever the, uh, foreign equivalent is to happen in America because when you go like Nigerian friends go to Lagos, they're living like it's London. You know, there's like freaking amazing restaurants at the bottom of like 12 story buildings. But like, yeah, a lot of people go to Africa and they visit the traditional village and talk about chiefs. Yeah, it's just projecting what you want. It's sort of like what I say in the song. It's like you like you want these people to be this image of what they are in your head. Yeah. And there's almost a disappointment when you realize they're just regular people. And it's like, no, I wanted you to be a shaman. Like, exactly. They're, yeah, they're, they see what you decided. They see what you, they see what they decided they wanted to see. Yeah, exactly. By the way, brilliant line, brilliant line. I love that. Have you been on, have you been on genius to check your own song's annotations? Or is that a bridge too far? No, I have. I haven't been recently. I know people were going. It's Mr. Jonbo specifically. Yeah, no, it's fine. I was just going to read a little clip from your line. So your chorus, he said, the love you seek, it's in the valley of the soul with, you know, Zulu, it misinterpreting. You know, you're getting it wrong. What the Zulu line is. And a genius annotation is this type of racism is called orientalism, where multiple cultures are assumed to be more homogenous through awful ignorance and various aspects of the culture are used interchangeably and innocuous things are mysticized or romanticized. I think that's, I love it. Like, that's actually pretty dead on. Like, your intent has been understood. Obviously, because you made it easy. That was, yeah. No, no, I didn't. I wanted to finish that. I thought only because I was halfway through what sounded like a backhand in compliment, you made it easy through all of the effort you put into it. To your wife's, you put in all of the hours you put in, got little nuances dialed in that made the balancing act successful because it could have gone sideways, right? Any step of the way, even including within South Africa itself, during the shooting, not to say after. So kudos to you for putting in all the work to get this balancing act, right? And the end result is just a funny song. Like, that's the good news. It's just plain funny. Thank you. Thank you. It's been a cool experience if not a challenge to find that balance of like when to lean more into the pop song tropes and when to make it more comedic. And sometimes you can't have both. And or it's like this weird balance. So for example, you know, the big, the perfect example is like jokes don't have a verse chorus, verse, you know, you don't go back to the chorus in a joke like, you know, and or like, you know, with like a sketch, for example, like you have to, if you want to play with game or heightened pop songs don't do that like in the same way. Like there are, and or in a live context, the clearest example is like that I had to figure out is when you go to see a comedian, you're going to see something new and be surprised. When you're going to see a musician, you are there to sing along to the songs that you know, often, especially when you're seeing a pop act. So those are, those are completely incompatible. Like those are the opposite. Right. Yes, exactly. It's literally the opposite. So fine, you know, deciding to lean more into this is a concert. This, uh, it's, yeah, it's just been a journey to kind of figure that out and be comfortable. Again, it's coming from a comedy perspective. Like people can be having so much fun and like really enjoying themselves, but they're not laughing at every punch line. Like you would need them to do in a comedy. So, and that's actually, you don't want that in a concert. You don't like, it's, so being comfortable with that, not like having punch lines that are landing in like a, like you would do with live comedy, it took some getting used to. Would you say then again, I think it's interesting even just literally the choice of standing versus seated. So you're talking about the binary decision, I'm going to choose venues where people are standing up. They don't have chairs to sit down on. That single decision is very indicative of like, well, that's not a comedy show anymore per se, because those comedy clubs have seats. You know, and the venues where people see music, where they're, they're primed to see a musical act and the standing is a part of that. So that one decision was a big part of it. And then within the run of your, whatever it is, 40 minutes to an hour long show, you know, I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about the one hand, maybe Weird Al, and then somewhere over here is Tenacious D, right? But then you have John Early, and I'm sure you saw his special couple years ago, where it's mostly him doing stand-up, but then he does like five or six songs, and the band is there the whole time. Where in that kind of spectrum, and then on the far end of that would just be a pure stand-up comedian, right? On the stage, in this sort of spectrum of of comedian, perhaps all the way to Weird Al as being the pinnacle with the orchestra that Hollywood bull, where is your set, where is your placement right now today as you continue to work through what the balancing act is? So essentially what I've done in on my previous tours is pretty stripped down. So I was like, I would just want it to be, you know, a simple show, but like I would have like a hat rack where I would change characters each for each song, which kind of became its own device in that like the audience could see all the different costume pieces, and because they know all the songs, I would take, you know, whatever, like my millennial hat and like a little chair, they would recognize it. He comes this one. And I guess my, you know, obviously the concert is funny and there are moments like obviously comedic moments, but I it the goal became more like I want you to have the most fun you could possibly have at this show and leave like I say like I promise you will not be bored. And so like I prioritize more like having fun and maximizing the energy in the room. And so that's how I started inching more towards a show that's I guess you would say is more similar to weird out. And then in this upcoming show that I'm building now, it's going to be a little more ambitious than what I've done in the past. So I'm going to have more like visual elements and there's going to be sort of a thematic kind of structure in that similar to kind of the the framing device of the album where it's this like which is what I had Daniel Radcliffe do where it's like this is like a almost like an educational experience about the history of music, but you know, like stupidest, you know, like and on the album like Daniel Radcliffe like wildly overanalyzes like, you know, my stupid songs. So yeah, that's kind of the framing device of the of the show too, as if you're like in an immersive like educational musical education experience. So yeah. Well, we will be there on the front row, my friend. I can't few tours am I looking forward to with quite the fervor that I'm looking forward to. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That'll be awesome. Yeah. See the actually weird out came to my last L.A. show. So yeah, you never know who will stop by. I mean, I got to ask was was he as big of an inspiration as one might assume given that in our culture, we don't have that many comedy music people. I think I've I think in the course of this conversation, we've named almost all of them if not all of them. Yeah, seriously, like it's yeah, I mean, yes, yes, and no, like it's like weird. Al is he's like such a huge part of like American cultural fabric that it's like, how could he have not? And I think that's why, you know, sometimes when people say like, Oh, new weird out, new weird out, I am obviously flattered by that, but I think the reason they say that is because there are so few people who exactly it's like the only name they can grasp. I hesitated even to ask because I would assume that on every morning show hit you ever done, it was like the focus of what they were asking you. It's such a obvious crit, but it's obvious for that reason, we don't have that many. Like the right. And you're now is the Beatles and the stones and the who and the kinks a little bit of comedy music. 100% yeah. And so I don't mind it at all. I'm very flattered by it. Even if I would say we're not really doing the same thing in many ways. I love him and his music and and like I grew up on it absolutely. And so yeah, I it doesn't bother me at all. Like I'm really flattered by it when people say that. You know, I just want to give a shout out because it's dawning on me like arguably you were just as influenced as the man and at other posts his stamp over there. Diolo and Bashir, you probably grew up watching their parodies just as much as you might have heard possibly even more than you heard weird out as they were propagating their humorous songs into the culture. You know, it would do a job like that. We're the internet's best kept secret. But what's interesting about that, if I can just put a point, put a button on my own interesting theory. Like maybe 30 years ago, there was just weird out and like, I don't know, the Smothers Brothers, like their ward and that was not there was a lot and there was the Borscht belt and there was and there was a long history of music hall and comedy. Like that's a long tradition. And then at some point in the 80s, we have TV and radio and and in this new world, if you're getting funny songs, it's probably weird out in 1987, right? For sure. In 1997. And then at a certain point, the late night shows are another venue for that to happen. Diallo Riddle and this year are another way that on a daily basis, you might hear something funny involving music like just that category. But then we now have with social media this other new way to get funny stuff. And that's where you come into the picture a little bit as a pioneer of the forum where you're doing so now on our phones and you're doing so now in short form. So I'm just kind of thinking through how there is this evolution from music hall and Shakespeare whatever all the way through now. It's a new way to get something and Diallo is a bit of a bridge from maybe weird out to Kyle. Totally, totally. And it's like, it's a crazy, weird history. And like, I mean, if you think back to, you know, the musical comedy and novelty songs are go back like, you know, like you were saying, there's like pre-war Spike Jones stuff. But like the early like 50s rock era was like, a lot of that was like comedy novelty music, you know, like, yackety, yack and Charlie Brown. And like, that's like, that's, you know. So the big bopper, you know, is always like the rock and roll died. But then I was always like, the big bopper. I don't know. Well, Richie and Buddy, I'm on board. I'm on board, but no pun intended. The big bopper. I don't know if that's when the music died. Sorry, sorry to that man's family. I think that's a really good point though. And kind of the one I'm trying to make is like, you know, obviously we like so many people revered that golden age of rock and roll. But the fact that the big bopper was part of the day the music died, you can't forget that a lot of that music was like dumb music for 12 year old boys, too. And hey, I love it.