On Saturday, April 10th, my radio show had the immaculate pleasure of interviewing the greatest DJ's/interpretive dancers of all time, Super Mash Bros.
Yes, this was kind of a big deal. In fact, it was such a huge deal that it was even too much for Howie Mandel
Here's your starting lineup. warm-ups included. and yes, we all got a pair of those sweet rip-off pants:
Ethan Dawes: Super Mash Bros, Justin Beiber worshipper
Nick Fenmore: Super Mash Bros, Miley Cyrus a capella extraordinaire
Lance Pauker: resident idiot
Evan Karr: Yes, New Mexico does exist
Erin Landy: row, row, row, your boat
Alright, i'll stop joking around and get to the good stuff. awwwwwwww, here it goes:
I introduce everyone and proceed to talk about how pumped we are, citing that if the interview was a party, we'd be on the top of banisters tearing down the Gryffindor flag and such. Nick totally catches my vision.
Lance: So, were gonna ask these fine sirs a few questions. So first of all, where’d you get your start?
Nick: It’s funny, we get that question a lot. And uh, people are always kind of let down
The entire room chortles after that last remark. Whatever happened to those things, chortles? they were the best snack food.
Nick: It was just a bunch of dudes hanging out one day just messing around on laptops and a buddy of ours actually dared us to start making music because he thought we couldn’t be as good as girl talk, so we made an album and then it kind of spread like wildfire on the internet
Evan: is that a challenge to girltalk?
Nick: I mean, we're huge girl talk fans, but we try to carve our own little niche out and try not to compare ourselves too much for him..... For the average person who doesn’t know who we are yea,, we sound like girltalk
Ethan: we need to come up with a better inception story. Like a peyote trip through the desert or something
Lance; Like in zoolander?
Ethan: yea like, they come to peace through whatever drugs theyre doing… theres and an orgasm…
Nick: Only if I could be the little tribesmen guy.
I am obviously thrilled, as Zoolander is probably the best movie of all time. And even though the radio booth is quite small, it is not a center for ants.
Evan: Ok, so you guys have got some crazy song title names
Lance: Yea, big fans of those
Nick: just wait till the next ones
Evan: Yea, anyway, are these just random bits of genius you guys come up with?
Nick: The majority of them probably come out of this guy right here (gesturing to ethan.) He is a master. They’re all inside jokes with are friends, they all have to do with someone we know.
Ethan: Clearly the music we don’t take ourselves very seriously. We just want kids to be able to laugh from it. I think its safe to say we’re the first group who has a song title that involves a twitter
Nick: and animal rights
Lance: are you guys gonna be on the hills?
Nick: the hills is done. We released the album and then like two weeks later they were like “aand were not doing the show anymore.”
Ethan: Yea, someone e-mailed me and were like, yea were really interested in doing an interview. And then when I told him we hadn’t actually gotten on the hills he was like nevermind
I hate AIM abbreviations more than smartfood white cheddar popcorn (just awful), but LMFAO would be a good fit here. Yes.
Evan: solid sign of American pop culture these days
Lance: Yea, so I have a little question. how do you happen to get all these artists in the same studio recording all at one time? Its crazy..
Nick: Well, basically I call Ludacris, and luda hits up Lil Wayne, and then Lil Wayne somehow has a connection to the vengaboys, and then we just go from there
For the first time in the interview, Ethan brings up his favorite human being on the planet, Justin Bieber
Nick: Yea, we hear that guy is impossible to reach
Ethan: he just does waay to many drugs
Lance: Great role model for the kids
Ethan: yea, huge
Evan: Thanks lance, we all need role models
This would have been the perfect time to insert a joke about Paul Rudd and that dude who plays stiffler. Eminem would have been disappointed that I didn't cash in on my one shot, one opportunity
Lance: If you look on your facebook everyones all like “whens your next album coming out blah blah blah” Maybe you guys get annoyed at that, I don’t know. But I guess what we wanna ask is can you guys give us any insight to the album? I mean, we were talking before and we’d love to see a combo of james taylor and miley cyrus mashups.
At this point, I vividly picture Miley Cyrus singing "Carolina in my mind." Cringe.
Nick: yea, we are shooting for the summer. Probably The later summer. Right in time to go back to college is what were thinking…. I mean I hope so. We have a goal, but were college students just like everyone else and we get lazy
Ethan: and drunk
Erin: Can you give us a taste?
Ethan: like a capella?
Nick: Okay, (to Ethan) I’ll sing the miley part and you sing…
Laugh riot at the Hyatt: engage
Nick: Track titles I think will be at their all time best for sure. We’d love share them but the suspense will be wonderful.
Ethan: Hopefully the tracks will be as good as the titles
Nick: We have to live up to that, for sure
Lance: So, whats your vision for what you guys are, what you guys wanna be, what you guys wanna do with this project?
Nick: We started off really just having fun and I think that’s been whats keeps us all together. When people try and critique us artistically, yea we spend tons of time working out creative thought here and there and trying to make music that’s thoughtful, but at the end of the day were just trying to make people dance and have fun… and when people try and label us this and that, its like, were really just dudes DJ-ing music. I mean were not that much different than any other DJ except we have worse ADD and bad song selection
Ethan: we feel like a lot fo our success is definitely due to the internet for sure and just word of mouth. Were trying to just give kids as much to take in as possible. Even just apart from the music itself. From every show were doing now were putting out a video- you’ll see a Georgetown video hopefully by next week
Erin: On youtube, or Dvd, VHS?
Ethan: I think were going with beta....No cause its like our audience, and were completely gratified, and were really trying to just, you know, feed the animals
Feed the animals was an album released by Girltalk....subliminally, feed the animals can be coded for "everyone's got something to hide but me and my monkey"
Lance: you guys have certainly helped my music education, I mean, candy by mandy moore is now one of my favorite songs…
This is completely true. no lie, ballin.
Lance: so I guess, the last question, its probably the most important. Backstreet boys or NSYNC
Ethan: I’d say, O town
Everyone reacts favorably to that terrific snipe by Ethan
Erin: I just did a talent show, and performed that in front of at least seven people
Having never performed in front of people before, Ethan is shocked
Ethan: At least people? theres at least 7 people in this room?
Nick: you know what, I’m partial to Justin Timberlake so I’m gonna have to go with N’sync. And Lance bass had quite a beautiful comeback in the pop culture world. And Justin on Saturday night live is another level
Ethan: Lance Bass tried to go to space, right?
Erin: Basstronaut, yeaaa
Lance: Yea, I was always called lance bass
Ethan: Yea, that sucks
The basstronaut title confuses Ethan as to whether or not Lance Bass was in the backstreet boys or N Sync. Lance Bass, obviously crushed by his undetermined identity, starts to sing "quit playing games with my heart."
Nick proceeds to dig into my itunes, which is the biggest honor since before I made the roll and went out of control. Luckily, I have what he is looking for, 99 red balloons by goldfinger.
Nick: Its your boy fen from super mash and you’re listening to 99 red balloons on...
Ethan: W...G...TB
Interview officially done...some highlights from the rest of their visit
-Blink 182's the rock show was on Fen's barmitzvah CD.. Ethan had an olympic themed bar-mitzvah
-When Ethan was 13 years old, whenever he answered the phone, people thought it was his mom
-Fen has the radio voice of our generation, although he disagrees
-Super Mash bros. discovers DJ Jewboy- a match made in heaven
Evan asks if there is any specific genre of music they look to mix with
"Mainly gospel," replies Ethan
In preparation for the show later that night, they have to leave to go do a sound check. This is not confirmed, but reports are that the speed of sound was 10 years delayed due to the presence of third eye blind.
They leave. sniff.
Lance: “how expletive cool was that?”
