The Taccones Live at SXSW

Hey everybody, it is Seth, and I'm here to tell you it was one of those weeks where everybody involved with this podcast was very busy, and we did not have time to get together and record. But a very cool thing happened, which is Jorma was at the premiere of his new movie at South by Southwest, and he did a panel with his brother Asa and his dad. It was called Jorma and Asa Takoni, a talk about life, sibling rivalry, and the Lonely Island. It was a free-flowing, rollicking conversation, as you can imagine when three Takonis get together. So that is going to be this week's episode. We really hope you enjoy it, and we look forward to getting back together and doing a regular episode when you next hear from us. Enjoy. Hello, hello. We saw Andy Cohen backstage, and I was like, why did we schedule this the same time as Andy Cohen? I want to be over there. Don't leave, okay? Don't leave, guys. First of all, here for Over Your Dead Body, if you can go see it tomorrow, please do. I'm so proud of how that movie came out, and being at South by, I'm saying this all up at the top because we might use this for a podcast later, and I'm just trying to hype my own movie, you guys. That's the reason. That's the reason, yeah. But it was an amazing response that we had last night. I've never had the experience of anything pop off the way that MacGruber did when we did a screening here at South by. I will always have crazy love for this festival because of that, and last night was comparable to that. It was crazy. So it was really, really fun. Thank you. Thank you. All of this is being recorded, guys. Yes. Thank you. Yes. I just got to say, Jorma's movies are extreme, and I remember at the premiere of MacGruber, I had to sit next to my 85-year-old grandmother, and there's literally scenes where people are fucking on a tombstone just repeatedly, and it was horrifying, for sure. Oh, she, our grandmother, was so proud, and the two of us worked on a wonderful short called Dick in a Box together, for which we both won an Emmy. Thank you very much. I didn't even know that they could put the word dick on an Emmy, but they did. I'm sorry, my children are here. Hi, hi, Zadie. Hi. Hi, Wiley. But she had a picture of us winning the Emmy, and she would talk to people and be like, look, they won an Emmy, and then people were like, what for? And she'd be like, I did. Wouldn't say it ever. This does not, obviously, you probably tell already, this does not have a structure. Me and Asa have been brothers for a very long time, but we sort of want to just talk about, like, our backstory of, like, growing up in the Bay, what influences us, because it is very, very much what influences Lonely Island, musically in particular, and we've worked together on so many different things throughout the years of SNL Digital Shorts. Asa most recently was working on, what was it, Sushi Glory Hole stuff that you were doing, or no, what were you doing on that? I did the Charlie XCX song. Oh, the Charlie XCX. Here I go. Here we go. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So, like, so he's still working. Well, actually, like, we'll get to that, so I'll try to jump the gun here. But- Growing up in the Bay area, I just wanted to, like, very quickly sort of go through, like, our influences, and with Annie and Keeve in particular, we all grew up listening to a lot of hip-hop and dancehall reggae. Our years of loving stuff, like, it was, like, 88 to, like, 96 hip-hop, and so that influenced us greatly, in addition to, like, all the things that the Bay brings, which is, it's political, it's pretty left-leaning, I would say. Our parents were, like, card-carrying, or my dad can, like, explain this later, but, like, but, you know, communists, which is super popular in America. And, but, you know, like, dancehall reggae, hip-hop, all that stuff is ingrained in a lot of the shorts that we have done over the years, and has influenced both of us. And I sort of wanted to just talk about, like, how we got into making music. I obviously sort of fell off on making stuff. No, but we started at the same time, just, like, record, you know, digging for samples and whatever, just fucking around in our rooms. I had, like, samples. Sounded at 16. I was messing around with Cubase. What were the first programs that you were starting? I was a little later than you. I had, like, Reason and Logic, just these early kind of programs, messing around, making terrible beats as well. But yeah, growing up in the Bay, there was a lot of reggae stuff, which made it into the kind of Trustafarian, Rosh Trent vibes. Actually, that's my favorite. I think that might be my favorite Lonely Island line, which is me toil part-time at Jock Coldstone Creamery. It is so crazy. We also had somebody. We recently write into our podcast. We have a podcast, which is called the Seth Meyers Lonely Island Podcast. We've done over 100 episodes, if you guys haven't heard it. But we had somebody write in recently who, from England, I think it was from England, who said, we toil full-time at Jock Coldstone Creamery, and we really appreciate it. But that's kind of a real thing. Like, from the Bay, there was, like, there was just a lot of white kids that were, like, ultra into dancehall and reggae, but were also, like, kind of wealthy, and, you know, but they were white dreads. Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. A lot of those things kind of made it. Made its way to your guys' skits. I mean, like, but, like, the early beats that you were making, too, like, all the stuff I was making was hip-hop stuff, a lot of loop-based bass samples. Matt Bennelli, Open, who is one half of Radio Silence, we all lived together for early Lonely Island, and I would make beats on this BR-8, which is, like, a digital 8-track thing, and we actually talked about this recently on the podcast, but, like, we were using all of this early program stuff to, like, mix, and a lot of your early stuff was hip-hop-based. Yeah, and actually, in the early days, even when you were making beats, you were making and you guys got on SNL, we were all still super broke, and it didn't sound that good. The early stuff, Dick in a Box, even that, it doesn't sound very good. I don't even know why you hired me for a lot of the stuff. I was terrible at music back then, but I think it's why some of it's kind of charming. It was just, like, truly DIY, these skits. Well, Lazy Sunday, like, that being one of the first things that we made on SNL, what I really liked and didn't even realize was such an advantage that we had was the first year that we got on SNL was the first year that they went. We went full HD quality, and I remember actually being, like, annoyed with that. I was like, it doesn't feel as organic, and we're like, they shouldn't go HD. But because our stuff was shot on these crappier cameras, it actually felt more special. Like, when Lazy Sunday hit, which is a rap video about going to see the Chronicles of Narnia, and this was, like, it was 2005. Was that the first digital short that you guys did? No, it was the third. We made two. One had aired, and, like, but we were just, like, us, like, messing around, like, outside of Andy and Keith's apartment. But, like, Lazy Sunday was also the first time I'd ever heard of YouTube, and so we kind of got intrinsically tied with it. But there was something about the graininess and, like, honestly, the beat being, like, pretty, it's pretty grimy, honestly. Yeah. And I was actually, like, taking drums and, like, crunching them to, like, make them even more shitty sounding. But, like, yeah, like, it weirdly made it feel more special. Yeah, totally. Totally. Okay, so what was the very first thing? Because I will say this, before we get into, like, actually, some of the things. Some of the things that we've done on the show together. It's a true joy to me that my wife has this with her brother, who, like, does all the music for her films. That's Marielle Heller right there. She's a much more talented filmmaker than me. Like, inarguably more talented. But to be able to share something creatively with somebody that you're related to is, like, it really has been, like, when. Oh, love you, boy. Love you, boy. Thank you, guys. That's what we were going for. I do want to say this. Asa is in a band called Electric Guest. And early days of The Lonely Island, I met a guy named Brian and a guy named Ben. Ben Lovett and Brian Burton. Brian turned out to be Danger Mouse. And he made the Grey album. Like, while we were all living together and making stuff, I met those guys through my friend Anna, who was doing, like, an interview with them. She was like, you got to meet these guys. And I met Brian and Ben, and they had a house. And we didn't have a house. And we were like, we're going to shoot at your house. We were going to shoot at your house immediately, because we were making all these shorts and everything. And so I became friends with Brian. And then at one point, Asa was making beats. Were you in the Bay? Yeah, I was in college. And I used to call you and play my terrible little music over the phone. And you were just like, oh, let me, I'm going to put my friend on the phone. And you put Brian on the phone. It was kind of before he did The Gorillaz and U2 and all that stuff. And he was kind of. I think it was before the Grey album. Or was it right after Grey album? Yeah, it was right before he did the Grey album. But you just put him on the phone. And he was like, that's cool. And within five minutes, we immediately got into this kind of mentor-mentee dynamic. And I ended up moving into the house that he lived in in LA when he kind of blew up and left. And there was a studio in the house. And I got to work with all these artists, all these MF Doom and all these incredible underground artists that he was working with that I just kind of inherited from living there. But he became my mentor in music and still is today and produced my first album with me. And it's just always, he's my first phone call in life often for kind of anything. Before me? Yeah, it is. Before me? Yes. Well, I mean. You're welcome. No, kind of. I mean, you know, you put me on majorly, majorly. Well, so I think the very first short that we did together. Was Natalie's Rap. Natalie's Rap, right? Yeah. So after we made Lazy Sunday, just the backstory of Natalie's Rap was that Natalie Portman came to SNL and loved Lazy Sunday and was like, we got to make one of those. And we were like, I don't know. We were like, it's got to be filthy if you're going to do this. And then she started spitting like memorabilia. Memorized full verses of Lil' Kim lyrics that were so foul. And you were like, oh, she's down. She's like, she totally gets what this is. But as I remember it, our pop is a theater director. And he had done a show on Broadway called Bridge and Tunnel. And she was at the premiere before you guys even got on your first episode of. Before we knew her. Yeah, before you guys got on SNL. And she was at the after party. And we ended up hanging with her. She was super cool. And I think that kind of like broke the ice. Andy said like by the time that when she actually was a host. Yeah, when she was hosting it months later. You guys kind of had this rapport. And it lent itself. She's like, okay, I'll turn up and do this super raunchy rap. I mean, talk about turnt up. Okay, do you want to talk about the beat before we play this? Or you want to hear it and then. We're going to play. My first of all, my son's here. My son's here and he hasn't seen a lot of the stuff that we've done. So I apologize in advance. This is very foul. Wiley. Okay. So, Chris, can we. Play the first. And we'll probably just go through the first chorus, which is. This is a nightmare. We're sitting here today with film star Natalie Portman. Hello. So, Natalie, what's a day in the life of Natalie Portman like? Do you really want to know? Please tell us. I don't sleep. Mother off that yak and that turban. Doing 120 getting. Ooh, I'm swerving. Damn, Natalie, you a crazy chick. You shut the up and suck my. I'm busting dudes mouth. Like Gusher's mother. Roll up on NBC and smack the south. Just suck up. What you want, Natalie? To drink and fight. What you need, Natalie? To fuck all night. Don't test me when I'm crazy on that airplane crew. Put my foot down your throat till you're in my shoe. Leave you screaming. Pay for my dry cleaning. Fuck you, man. It's my name that he's screaming. Okay, that's good. That's good, Chris. Thank you. So glad that's censored. So we don't get super deep. We've talked about this on the podcast before, but we don't get super deep on how music is actually made. And there's a reference. The format of that song is very much based on an Ice Cube song where he's being interviewed. Oh, no, it's EZ. I'm so sorry. And it's called No More Questions by EZ. But tell me about the actual beat making process. Yeah, I mean, it was early days of me just messing around on my computer. So, again, I was super broke. I was part of this thing. I think I was, at that time, paying for this service called Dynamic Producer, which was like, we'll put you with real rappers in the game. And each month, you can submit a beat. And I had done that beat for some East Coast rapper, probably some underground dude. And they didn't choose it or whatever. And so I just sent it to you guys like, oh, maybe you'll like this. And, of course, then it was like a month later, Natalie Portman was rapping on it. And I ended up actually going to Dynamic Producer, had one of these, this kind of like symposium, and all the producers came. And everyone was like, bro, I can't believe that beat, like, really went. So it was just, it was super random. I was just kind of like sending you guys whatever I was doing at that point. And you were taking a chance on me. I mean, the wild thing about SNL was that you'd make these things and then you'd see them, you know, you're watching it air for the first time. Like, and the feeling that you would get as it's going out. And I loved being connected to you in that way. Like, I'm just being like, holy shit, this is like the thing that is happening on a Thursday is now airing. And I was in LA just like, sending you stuff. You're in New York. You guys would stay up all night. Sometimes you'd call me at like, sometimes you guys would call me at two in the morning. I was like, oh, it's 5 a.m. New York time. And you're, I'm on speakerphone with Justin Timberlake. And it's just like, it's wild. And I was just some kid. But that put me on. It's just like, that was the beginnings for me. Speaking of Justin Timberlake, so let's go to the next thing we worked on together. Yeah, this was the second time. Hi, Isaiah. This is such a, that's my daughter. She's five. Okay. Let's play the second one there, Chris. Hey girl, I got something real important to give you. So just sit down and listen. Girl, you know we've been together such a long, long time. Such a long time. And now I'm ready to lay down. Too late. Too late. Too late. Too late. I see it on the line. Wow, you know it's Christmas and my heart is open wide. Open wide. Gonna give you something so you know what's on my mind. What's on my mind. A gift real special. So take off the towel. Take a look inside. It's my f***ing box. It's a box. Not gonna get you a diamond ring. That's a lie. So a gift don't mean anything. Not gonna get you a fancy car. Girl, you gotta know you're my shining star. Not gonna get you a house in the hills. A girl like you needs something real. I'm gonna get you something from the heart. Something special, girl. It's my f***ing box. It's my f***ing box, girl. It's my f***ing box. It's my f***ing box. It's my f***ing box. It's my f***ing box. It's my f***ing box. Okay. It's my f***ing box. It's my f***ing box. I think that's good, Chris. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. We won an Emmy for that. Me and this guy. It's printed on the Emmy. But shout out to Catrice Barnes, who is very sadly no longer with us, but she was an amazing, amazing music supervisor over at SNL, and she made a lot of that beat. Yeah, she sent me those initial, just the chords. Yeah. Oh, yeah. She just sent me this kind of skeletal thing, and I think it was kind of, it was actually, was she the resident composer there at SNL? Yeah, so the way it would work is that SNL, if you had any kind of, it was amazing, because for people that didn't write lyrics normally to any kind of song or whatever, there's tons of music that's being used for SNL and original music and things like that. So writers would be able to just write lyrics of what they thought it should be and try to make it rhyme, obviously, and make it feel like a song, but they wouldn't have to figure out how it's going to fit musically or on a melody of the song. And then they would take it to, say, Patrice, and she was there on Tuesday nights when people were writing, and she would literally just bang out. They'd be like, I want this in the tempo of this or this style of music, and she was so well-versed in everything. We were basically like, we want this Color Me Bad, like R&B, like 90s. She would bang out the chords, and then obviously, I was always promoting you. I know, I know. And not just, obviously, for hip-hop, because you were getting more and more proficient with constructing songs and you taught yourself piano. I mean, I, you know. Yeah, but you hear, that's about the extent of my skills at that point. Those horn, I mean, it's pretty bad if you actually perk your ear to it. Ace is way more judgmental of this than I am. I'm like, that's kind of fire. But yeah, she sent me those kind of rudimentary chords, and then I kind of just built all the drums and all the horns around it and the bridge section and all that. And you guys were just like, man, make it sexy. You know, we want it to be real boys to men, Jodeci-type, like white boy sex stuff. I was like, I got you. I mean, those guys are just so wildly stupid. Just even seeing the dance moves that they had. And honestly, it was so fun to do with Justin because he comes from that era of loving because we loved all that Jodeci, Agetown. Did he write the melodies? How'd you guys come up with the actual melodies for that? I wasn't there for that. Yeah, I mean, you're going to be surprised to hear this, but Justin Timberlake is super good at writing music. And I've also never met anyone more confident in my life. Like, like, like, like the minute we were done with it, he was like, that's a hit. And we're like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. What? That's a hit. And he was like, and he was like, the whole time was like, oh yeah, straight to the top. I was like, yeah, it was wild. You know what's crazy about that song is that I never got paid for that. Like, no, I'm not joking. You know what's funny? And, and that, and it, we had no idea it was going to blow up that much. And it was around Christmas time. It was, I didn't even initially get the joke. Like three and a half minutes of a whole song. Like how are you going to make this work or whatever? And of course, then I saw it. They're so visual. A lot of the time, they'll tell you an idea of a joke and you'll be like, all right, okay. And then you see it visually and you're like, oh my God, this works so well. But I remember when it aired, it was like just popped off and it was really early days of YouTube. And actually, Justin Bieber's song, Baby, was the number one viewed song on YouTube. And this song was, when it went online, it went out for like three days and it was tied. For the number one song on YouTube and then NBC, because they're like, wait a second, I think we need to monetize this. They pulled it for about a year and then it went back on iTunes for like a 99 cent download a year later. But anyways, this man, at Christmas time, we were at Mari's house and he like took me into another room and he's like, hey man, I know you didn't get paid for this, so check this out. I'm not joking. One $20 bill, two $20 bills, three $20 bills. My man paid me $60 for that. I was like, I'm going to go buy a nice shirt at the mall. But somebody made millions off that shit. It wasn't us, man. Oh, Jeff Zucker. Made money. Yeah, no. I mean, I never got paid for Lazy Sunday. No, I don't. I had to join a union because I was like, oh, wait a minute. I think I need to be protected. I think at the time I was like pumped on the $60. I was like, yes, let's go. I'm going to hit the mall. By the way, when you texted that, like that was the story. I was like, I got to go to the bank and give him some more money. I was going to give it to him. to him here i'm like i'm not gonna i'm not gonna give him any more money um i'm so sorry that leads into the next one right it leads into oh yeah what are we at are we well uh i think we might be a boombox well just play it we'll play the next one and we'll see what it is because i'm not sure what that was yeah what is the next go ahead imagine in your mind a posh country club the stuffy old money where the poor get snubbed the spread is bland sauerkraut and boiled goose there's no way these people will ever cut loose but then i'll walk in the room hold my boombox high and what happened next will blow your mind , everything got out of control, the music was so interesting, everyone got out on the floor, it was a bunch of old white people dancing, a big apple where people never dance, spirits go down while profits expand, the cops or the dealers who's got the juice, the street vendors peddling their boiled goose, so many types of people they'll never get along till i bust out my boombox and play this song the music washed away all the hate and society started advancing every demographic was represented it was a rainbow coalition of dancing everyone was wearing fingerless gloves i saw a spanish guy doing the bartman okay that's great chris thank you thank you i just love it's so it's so specific to have a line like i saw a spanish guy doing the bartman it's like that's really indicative of our growing up in the bay um uh you tell us about that one i mean that was again like all this stuff i think the cool thing about especially those early years was it was so small it was just like i did that with this kid my my good friend drew campbell who was just like this drum and bass kid and he was doing a lot of trance music and we had this like this album which was like kind of like a mix between big rap beats and and trance stuff that we tried to give it to a million people like what is this music and actually neil brennan i remember from uh from chapelle show when he heard this he was like bro why did you give them that beat and i was like nobody wanted this but andy really liked it and yeah that was just an early mashup of that so so was was a mother lover it was from that same time and shout out uh to drew campbell because he also did almost i think all of the music for uh bash brothers we've worked with him forever he's made through it throw it on the ground too yeah he's he's like yeah like he's he's been in the camp for a very long time yeah he's the guy uh yes we go straight into a mother lover then yeah yeah yeah oh these are these are a bummer for my kids i genuinely think you should close their ears okay yeah let's oh my god by the way just wait wait pause thank you thank you uh my mother hates this song like absolutely hates this song which is like so disappointed there's been a lot of disappointment in my family but like but this is uh anyway let's our mother our mother yeah that's right you in the way she'll be so disappointed damn i forgot it too this could have been avoided what the hell are we gonna do my mom's been so alone ever since my daddy left cold no one to hold it tight life has put her to the test i know just what you mean my mom's been so sad and great my dad can't satisfy her in the bedroom ever since he passed away hold up you thinking what i'm thinking i'm thinking i'm thinking too slow up what time is it though it's time for a switcheroo we both love our moms women with grown women needs i say we break them off show them how much they really mean because i'm a mother lover you're a mother lover we should each other's okay great great uh thank you thank you another hit you know to add on to what you were saying our mother was horrified and actually my distinct memory of this was we like a month later we're in a hotel in miami because you guys were shooting i'm on a boat and we received as i remember a letter an actual written letter from our mother and like my brother was saying our parents came from this hyper political leftist thing and it was just this scolding and she was just like you guys obama is gonna be elected and it's time to step up these you know immature jokes penis and i was like i'll just do the music this man this man is the one with the whatever it's amazing how many things oh great great we'll talk about it later say just listen to the podcast um oh my god okay this continues after this uh yes um uh wow what were we just talking about just our mother oh yes yeah yeah no it's actually really funny because like there's there's been so many things she's been like she so wants she wants the best for us for sure and when i like made a children's book she was like that's what you should be doing why do you have to like mcgruber why why is that uh and but you know to bring it back to this movie that i just made that uh the over your dead body i have not seen someone laugh at like ultra violence like how did she like she loved it it was shocking and my mother-in-law as well it was like like horrifying stuff yeah she doesn't hold her tongue for sure anyway fucking hypocrite um uh okay well so uh so there's been so many other things we we've worked on but i did want to play this before because i'm paying attention to the clock here we have a little timer here but the thing that actually made me want to get back into like feature film stuff and i did a spin-off of a sonic the hedgehog show called knuckles i did a very weird episode of of that show uh which is eight minutes of it is like a musical i didn't want to play a little bit of that because asa made all the music for that and it was a really fun thing and and this really prompted me to want to get back into making a feature because it was it was a bigger episode i had more money on this episode than i did for the feature that i just did for like an eight day shoot um and it was just really fun and and we'll play that and hopefully that's entertaining to you guys let's see wait i'm not in the show am i prepare yourself way because if you want to learn where knuckles true strength lies you must see this quest through his eyes you must become him this is going to be wait i'm knuckles i mean i'm knuckles hey wade go make this weirder than it already is got it good now on a glorious quest hello wade jack for glory what with his hands of stone and these that never buckle come and witness the tale of the warrior knuckles uh what is jack sinclair doing here clearly you two have unfinished business ah yeah no fair point he does have me locked up in a giant cage right now a proceed and now we begin our quest when a hero was only a lad he was trained by the greatest his dad had the technique and also the guts he prepared to kick multiple butts but the giant owls they did come they had one mission to kill everyone knuckles and dad didn't know what to do yes they were doomed the owls they clawed and they kicked they hooted and flew into fits they set fire to the town and burned it to the ground i'm so freaking upset i can't sing about it father you can't leave me i won't son i never let's stop it there let's stop it there i would love to play that entire thing because it builds so crazily it gets so weird michael bolton's in the end of it it's like it's so buck wild and it was so fun to do and then asa also uh sings the voice of this demon later but i want to be able to get to questions and things like that so we're not gonna do that but if you want to talk about like like this also relates to uh over your dead body pop star uh uh mcgruber but ace's other half in electric guest is matthew cornbread compton i don't know why is his name cornbread i have no idea he's he doesn't have an interesting story for it either he's just like he's a southern kid so like okay you know all right he liked cornbread i guess but he composes a lot of stuff and he's he's done some he did he did uh palm springs as well he helped on that like but he's worked with us forever so he composes with you oftentimes and and you guys have done a lot of other like tv stuff and right like like yeah and i remember when you came to us with this you're like oh we're gonna do this like rock opera and we had actually some years before our pop had not retired but he had left his job and there was this big kind of like farewell party and we did this song like roasting him that was kind of like a song that was kind of like a song that was kind of a rock opera it was just all about how he was a tyrant to work under that really and that was so special moment for us but uh it was basically the same thing it was like a very similar beat so that was kind of my like inspiration oh that's funny that's funny when we made this we didn't know how this was going to be aired with this roasting of my dad and it was the who's who of san francisco elite like like it was like an auction with like really like well-to-do people we were like uh we made this fucking video uh roasting our dad i remember actually playing it for andy and i was like i don't feel like it's mean enough and he was like it's pretty mean yeah i was like yeah no we destroyed him for sure it was really really funny i do want to get our father up here real quick we as a special guest we're gonna have that tony taccone come on up it's a family affair daddy can we get him a mic so tell us about how great we are i'm so sorry uh i do want to ask a specific question which is we've talked about this on the pod and i know you maybe listen occasionally i don't know okay the question is is that when we got snl at one point you were like oh thank god i was like what you were like oh i thought this was going nowhere like i never said that is not true we never said that oh yeah okay um what was your opinion i mean you know you have kids and they're playing with legos one day and you think what is this kid gonna end up doing and in my case these were not children who were particularly um oh no right exceptional he bags on us so hard for school okay so so i went into yorma's bedroom one time he's like a sophomore in high school and i was like dude your grades could be so much better you're you're smart you know you have the capacity to be really an excellent student and he said dad have you seen the kids who get straight a's no way okay and that was the end of that and then i mean with ace's uh high school experience uh the single biggest memory i have was the police coming to our house and pasting a poster gluing a poster onto the front door which said this house is being surveilled like seriously and like that was like okay what are they gonna be doing for jobs and a profession um but and of course looking back on it i mean they were raised in an artistic environment my grandfather was an artist my dad was an artist and in our family we were sort of schooled with the idea that art is the highest aspiration of humankind and that was an incredible gift incredible long-term gift and these guys were exposed to that you never you know want your kids to grow up into this field but but they kind of ended up having no choice because they were surrounded by it all the time and they're also both uh fortunately both brilliant guys so it it worked out there's there's a um drawing that i made in third grade that is uh superman flying into a toilet and it says i want to become an actor because my dad is a director and i'm sure at the time he was like this is hilarious my kid's going down the toilet but like the fact that you framed it it's it's in our house right now yeah and this is where i'm where we're at um speak on this kid too dad like like well i mean i i think uh well just it's worth sharing one story about sibling rivalry so both of these guys were born at home and there's a picture actually of yorma when ace is literally coming out of the shoot and yorma is there going macaulay culkin and so you know oh my god you have a baby brother it's so amazing it's beautiful and you're gonna love him more than anybody else in the whole world and then a week later we go to the hospital to get the checkup and you know they're having this wonderful bonding experience in our minds and we get out of the car when we get home and yorma runs into the house like ahead of us we're like oh he's excited to be home we're carrying it so we come in the house and yorma is pissing in ace's bassinet like pissing in like like this is like a rooster gone mad this is my shit it was like okay okay so they're maybe not they're gonna have some trouble um as the years go on so and that's why he got sixty dollars i remember also uh when the lonely allen was first uh these guys were unique because they went to junior high together and they had this pact that they were going to get together after college and work together we were like yeah like that'll ever happen who does that they did and they came to me and they said listen we don't have a computer can you front us on this so i said well what's your business plan and they sat there and they kind of explained to me what they're going to do and i said okay and then when i remember going up to berkeley reps prop department and robbing the prop department of stuff for um awesome town actually we ended up doing that oh wow yeah we ended up robbing the prop department you guys were picking out wigs right and all that stuff we got seventy thousand dollars to make awesome town and it was supposed to be seven minutes long and i think it's like 18 minutes long but like that's how we did it and we're like oh my god we're gonna do this we're gonna do this we're gonna do this it was all just beg borrow steal right perky rep i guess yeah that's right oh my god and that but with this guy um i would say this is gonna sound odd but of all the members in our family who have pursued a creative life i think this guy is the only guy who had to be an artist i think the way his brain is structured okay let that soak in because i could have been a lawyer no no no dollars but i'm the real no no no born to do it no well i had no other choice no i i i just feel that he had a particular um just predisposition for it that felt like it was sort of in it at a pre-conscious age bombing out of school getting you evicted which i did all those that did happen lent themselves to the only path i had also the the party that you got him evicted for nate heller was at my brother-in-law so it's all pretty full circle bearer it sounds a lot more traumatic than it was anyway it was a great party though you want to take some questions from your oh yeah yeah let's do it stay up here though oh okay oh they're already up here okay what's your favorite lonely island song uh oh i i know what it is it's i ran so far um and when we talked about oh look it it goes off when you when you answer it um also just talking about samples and beating samples that we've talked about this before but i've sampled apex twin for that and i didn't tell nbc that it was a sample and then they had to pay a hundred sixty thousand dollars for that sample and then they kept every every beat that i made after that they were like is there a sample i was like jesus i learned my lesson all right uh what's the process of working with andy sandberg look like kind of moody sometimes but he's worth it he's worth it uh let's see wait i got a question i have a question for you that i actually wanted to know because i don't know who in the audience saw this man's movie last night but i yeah yeah that was the first time and i'm not gonna lie to you everyone my family's seen it like four times and all the edits and i had never seen it and i was genuinely like oh damn i was i was blown away and i was wondering was there anything in the early like lonely island days that technically that you learned that you know made its way to yes you know when that book came out with like the whole 10 000 hours of like all early lonely island stuff that we did at the show like i learned editing from akiva the computer that my dad helped us purchase i learned final cut three and then it went up to seven before final cut imploded but i learned final cut three and then it went up to seven before final cut imploded but like i learned editing from akiva and then we edited every single one of the shorts that we did at snl often together in different rooms and then we would join file but like we put in thousands of hours and we got our 10 000 hours doing that often at like five in the morning like i say this a lot but like i had a moment in snl where i'm editing something at i don't know if it was a or whatever it was but i'm editing at five o'clock in the morning i literally my body starts shaking because i'm so tired and i fell on the floor and went to sleep and i was like okay but all of that goes into like there's a dedication that i got from those guys so yes all those 10 000 hours of like going into especially like in that movie there's so much that goes into like jump scares and and horror and like that is so similar to comedy and how comedy is like you're always trying to stay one step ahead of i always say with like lonely island stuff the dumber the joke the faster you tell it because you just want to be quicker than the audience or like surprising and fun you know so like all of that went into to the movie i would Yorma and Asa, as siblings, what are some ways you Irritate each other. And also, what are your ways of getting over a fight? We've had some fights. Yeah, we've had some fights. Remember when we got in a fight at that restaurant in front of everybody? That was crazy. I was there. You left me there to actually negotiate with it. That's right. Yeah. That's because we tried living together. That was the problem. Well, okay. I have a different perception of this. Get out of town. Different perception than this. Wait, what was yours? Was this the one, though? Because we had one at Smokehouse. Oh, yeah. That was pretty dropped in. I don't think we are over it, is the short answer. Yeah, exactly. Next question. Okay. Audience have listened to and loved your work with the legendary Michael Bolton in past songs and creation. Who is another musician that you would love to work with? Who would you love to work with? Oh, my God. There's too many. Biebs? Bieber? I mean, shit. It's so crazy to even say that because I'm like, oh, shit. We worked with him. Yeah, you guys have worked with him. Everybody. I was going to say Kendrick, but you guys worked with Kendrick Lamar. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A song called YOLO, which was, by the way, before we showed all of those videos, that was the one song I could play for my child because it doesn't have cursing in it. It was Kendrick Lamar. Do you have anybody else that you would actually like to work with? I mean, you know, we occupy kind of different lanes, I think because of my association with you guys and that I was lucky enough to. I was lucky enough to do all that early stuff. People still hit me up for comedy stuff like, yo, do you want to make my comedy album? And I'm like, I am not. That was just a random slew of years where I was involved in that. He says that, but he's a very, very funny person. Oh, well, thank you. Here, do your impression of Michael Jackson for a second. Oh, my God. Just do it real quick. I couldn't. Okay, well. No, but people still like, I mean, I think I got I was lucky enough to. I got a lot of like gigs like for American Dad. I do all their kind of like musical stuff. And there's been a bunch of shows I did like, you know, Portlandia. We did the Simpsons. The Simpsons hit me up to make a beat. I was like, I like Lady Gaga was going to do it. Yeah. And I had just performed naked in front of Lady Gaga, too, at the show. You can look up your dances. So like, so then I was like, oh, no, you should work with my brother. And then I remember going in and seeing like it was Matt Groening and you and Gaga. And I was like, hi. Nice to see you again. Anyway, that's too complicated to explain. But it's crazy. Like you've worked with Gaga. You've worked with I like he's worked with The Weeknd. Like you. Yeah. Yeah. I did. Yeah. I did like the music for his HBO show, The Idol. And I've gotten a lot of things kind of through you guys. But what I'm quote serious music or non-jokey stuff occupies like a different lane. So and I produce a lot of bands and different acts in that stuff to Portugal, a man. And is it a song called Feel It Still? Which was quite popular. But no, I've been lucky. But I don't have like I feel like you guys, especially because of the SNL years, you guys just so many people came through that building that it was just like the who's who of anybody for kind of the like we didn't even talk about Julian Casablanca. It's like we were we were so into the strokes and like to have that dude come in and like be deferential was like so weird. Oh, yeah. I remember I remember when you guys when did boombox like you guys rented this house in Encino. And I just showed up there one day and he was like playing tennis with Danger Mouse. And when he got off the court all sweaty, he was like, oh, you did boombox. Like, what's up? And I was like, oh, my God, you're in the strokes. This is crazy. Jorma, you've said that Akiva taught you how to edit. What's the biggest editing lesson you've learned from him? Let me just say one thing about Akiva. I've said this on the on the podcast before, but there was a moment where he was so up in arms about a lip flap being off on a music video thing. He was so mad. He was so mad about it. He's like, it's way off. It's way off. Dude, I think made me go back and forth. But it's like a five minute back and forth, back and forth. And he's like, now it's good. And I was like, that's one frame. It's one frame out of like 24 in a second. But I will say that's what I learned from him is like a level of dedication and never, ever letting it out of your sight of like trying to make it better, trying to make it better, trying to make it better. But having said that, psycho. Let's see. Jorma, to this day, what's your favorite line that you wrote? God, favorite line. Oh, I do like in Throw It on the Ground. My dad's not a phone. Duh. Yeah, I like that. OK, well, what's the funniest short scene or moment you produced or written? I think I'm always in the camp of like the latest thing is the thing I'm the most into. This is Zadie. Wiley, do you want to come up too? It's a family affair. This is Zadie. She's in her own short. I've been talking about this on the podcast, but she and Wiley are in. So a home movie that we've been doing is an epic adventure. Joseph Campbell tale called The Sparkly Crown. Zadie named it as well. And these guys come up with great ideas for it. Will Joe Montana ever come back? Hands down the best part of Bash Brothers. Thank you. Yes. Yeah, sure. Let's have him have his own spinoff. Oh, we have 56 seconds. I think we'll probably just have to wrap it up. You guys, this is my whole family. My wife is over there. Thank you guys so much for coming over your dead body. April 24th. I keep saying thank you. Really give it up because it'll make it sound better. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Love you guys. Thank you.