Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
Hello, and welcome to House of R. I'm Joanna Robinson, and joining me today, two very special guests. Jessica McKenna is here. Hello. Rishikesh Hirway is here. Hello. And we are so thrilled to be talking about fictional musical bands. I'm so excited.
Jessica, before we get started, I want to ask both of you, what do you feel like your bona fides are for being here as part of this particular episode?
Oh, great. No, that's great. I think that I exist exclusively in fake music, I would say. Doing, I'm like a musical comedian, and most of my music is, I would say, pretending that I know how to be musical while wrapping itself around to accidentally having to learn a lot about music over the past, like,
decade or so I write music and I improvise music but really born out of a desire to pretend that I know how to create music and and then that pretending became true like you're living the dream yeah you know it's true it's a real fake it maybe maybe make it hey thank you so much thank you and your bona fides
I'm a singer-songwriter.
You are.
I put out a bunch of albums over the years and then had a long period when I wasn't putting out anything and making any music, but I started a music podcast called Song Exploder where I interview other musicians about how they make songs. Yeah. And then I started making music again and now I'm doing both.
Can you talk about what your current project, your current album that you're touring for?
I just put out a record called In the Last Hour of Light. And it's the first album in 15 years. And yeah, I've been touring, doing album release shows. But it's kind of like half band concert shows where I'm playing with my full band. But it's also kind of half a book tour because the album is kind of a memoir.
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Chapter 2: What are the guests' qualifications for discussing fictional bands?
And I wanted to treat it like a memoir. So I've also been doing like a book talk style conversation or like Song Exploder style conversation about the making of the album before we play.
Excellent. Jess, what are you currently working on that you want to tell folks about?
Currently in rewrites in year six of an original musical. My comedy partner, Zach Reno, and I, along with David Wayne, wrote a musical that was originally conceived as a feature, and then we decided to pivot it to stage, and we did... more than a workshop, less than a show. It was a show. It was a show, yeah, here in Los Angeles in February at the Chaplin Studios.
And now we're doing some rewrites, re-breaking some songs to, yeah, I guess, send it to Broadway. I'm saying it here, so now it'll happen.
You guys have someone in common between the two of you, Josh Molina, right?
I tried to get Josh to let me get in to see that show, and I could not get a ticket.
I'm so sorry. It was a hot ticket. It was. You should have come to me.
Now you have the closer hookup. Sounds good. All right. So we're going to get into fictional bands and the Vampireless Dot right after this.
This episode of House of R is presented to you by Target. Call in all trainers! The Pokemon and Target Collection celebrating 30 years of Pokemon is almost here, and the lineup is kind of incredible.
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Chapter 3: What current projects are the guests working on?
And it actually sounds to my ear really great. What do you guys think of his musicality here?
Yeah, definitely. And also that just adds to like the authenticity. I think it's you don't want like it's super overly processed. That's when you start to get in an uncanny valley of like, is this even a human? Well, but I think immortal cords probably would have a little more, you know, grit to them. Yeah.
I think also like there's a confidence in the talk singing.
Yeah.
You know, it's like I don't need it's the opposite in some ways of musical singing. You know, it's just like I can do whatever I want. I feel like it goes well with the character and the era. It makes sense to me.
Yeah, the inspo's for the Rockstar List ad are many. Here we go. David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Bjork, Freddie Mercury, Mark Sandman, Franz Liszt, Otis Redding, Moses Sumney, Douglas Dare, Red Cross, Lang Lang, Iggy Pop, Saint Vincent, Prince, Florence Welsh, Jim Morrison, T-Rex, T-Rex got me really excited, Gustav Mahler, Bread and Flowers, Fiona Apple, Serge Gainsbourg,
Electric Light Orchestra, The Suite, Nick Cave, Raleigh Ritchie, who is Jacob Anderson, who plays Louis, Benjamin Clementine, Chapel Rowan, Gustavo Dudamel, David Lee Roth, Ryan Katner, John Cale, Jeff Magnum, Paul Westerberg, and Daniel Hart, the composer. Any of those stick out as particularly intriguing to you?
I mean, Gustavo, let's go. Sorry to get real LA specific. Well, he's moving or he has moved.
I think he's... Moved?
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Chapter 4: How does the conversation transition to fictional bands?
He's incredible. So I was a huge fan of his before his work on Interview with the Vampire. He did great work on all the David Lowery films. I'm a huge Pete's Dragon head, among other things. But his work in The Green Knight, his work on that one is so amazing. So I was a fan of him as a composer.
And then the composition, the score that he has done for the first few seasons of Interview with the Vampire, incredible. That intro that starts the, you know, it's like almost like an orchestra warming up sort of sound that starts the episodes, incredible stuff. And then, yeah, and then he's written these incredible, Amazing songs. When the first song came out, I was worried.
I wasn't sure how this was going to go. I saw The Queen of the Damned the last time we tried to get a rock star list at in a film. This is a very celebratory podcast. We're here to celebrate things that we love and not crush things that we don't love. But that was, by all reports, not a successful film. I rewatched it recently and I was like, yeah, this just doesn't work.
If the music doesn't work... In this season. If it is not believably catchy, then the whole season doesn't work because it's built around a rock tour.
Yeah. Definitely. I just feel like also it's one of the traps of like having music represented in media is if you hang too much on how good the band is supposed to be. Right. Or how good a single song is supposed to be. Like I found myself like drawn more to stories about like a...
finding what we sound like stories, because I think that just gives you a lot more latitude to not every song has to be like the best song ever.
I know we're not talking about musicals here, but it's like, it's such a sad issue I have with Hadestown, a musical that I mostly really like, but I'm like, a whole plot point is, and then Orpheus came up with the greatest song ever heard, ever of all time, and it's, oh! It's like, no, no, we don't buy it.
And so I think it's like, yeah, it's a tough trap if you know he is successful or like this tour is a monster hit. That's a way harder bar to clear versus does this song just have to sound like an era, feel connected to the character, you know, like...
I don't want to get too far ahead, but there's lots of ways that we use artists in fictional bands where maybe they're on a downside, maybe they're on a comeback. They're finding their sound, which I think is narratively a strong choice to make sure that you're not putting too much pressure to invent the greatest song you've ever heard. Right.
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Chapter 5: What are the key fictional bands mentioned in this segment?
Is it just instrumental?
It's instrumental.
Wow.
Yeah, and it's so nice.
That's really cool.
Yeah.
All right. All right. My pick is It Ages and Dates Me. I'm picking the beats from the animated show Doug.
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Chapter 6: How do the guests describe their favorite fictional band performances?
Yeah. They have two hits that I will always remember. I almost picked this for best song.
Is it Killer Tofu? Of course. Ooh-wee-ooh, Killer Tofu. Wow.
Yeah.
No? No.
Chapter 7: What memorable songs are highlighted from fictional bands?
Oh, wow. And then there's, I need more allowance. Why? Because I do.
That's a different song. Yeah. But you both knew exactly where to come in.
Well, that's the earworm part.
I think that might be all you hear of those two songs are just the hook. But the beats, they're the Beatles.
Chapter 8: What insights do the guests share about the emotional impact of music in film?
But like, you know, they're the beats. And spelled like the vegetable. Yeah, spelled like the vegetable.
Gotcha, gotcha.
Yes.
This is a Nickelodeon show.
Yeah.
Yeah. I'm both old and didn't have cable.
This is, okay, I had cable, but we didn't have like HBO or Showtime or something like that. And I'm discovering this as I, every time they call me on to do the rewatchables and I watch a movie, I'm like, wow, there are boobs in this. And I watched the like TNT cut or the USA cut and I didn't know how many boobs were in this movie. So we all go through our own things.
Jess, what's your answer here?
Well, also really quick, the music in Doug, like the intro music is... It's great. It's really good. It's like a acapella sounding opening. It's great.
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