As far as Saturday Night Live staffers go, The Lonely Island kick some pretty ill rhymes. The three-headed monster that is Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone and Andy Samberg, the crew’s biggest star, split the difference between the Marx Brothers and The Beastie Boys and, on Turtleneck & Chain, their second full-length record, they feel like they may have perfected the cocktail.
“We were always focused on brevity, but now that’s become like an obsession because if a joke’s stupid, at least it’s guaranteed to be short,” one of the guys says on an anarchic speaker phone conversation that makes it impossible to distinguish who’s who.
“A comedy song really has no business being longer than about two and a half minutes,” says someone who’s a member of The Lonely Island. “With a comedy record, that’s about as much as the audience can stand.”
The troupe has been performing together since they got their first laugh at their Berkeley, Calif., junior high school. Lifelong music fans, parody raps became their calling card and, in 2005, they made a much-admired video for the rap song Ka-Blamo! The clip earned them a job writing for MTV and, when it was seen by Jimmy Fallon, led to a mentor who would take them to Lorne Michaels and the Saturday Night Live writing room.
“Saturday Night Live gave us a venue to launch things from,” a Lonely Islander says.
“It did more than that,” responds another. “It was our first real job.”
At the time, the internet was becoming an essential marketing tool for even (or, perhaps, especially) the most established shows on TV. The Lonely Island quickly made good on their opportunity. Their digital short Lazy Sunday introduced them to the world.
“That right there is the difference in our lives,” says a member of The Lonely Island, and it would be an introduction that the group wouldn’t let be short-lived. FollowingLazy Sunday, they expanded their repertoire to include celebrities, and their next breakout video clip was Dick in a Box, featuring Justin Timberlake, which won an Emmy Award (and has been viewed on YouTube more than 26 million times).
“Cross-pollination really works with what we do because it places our music in the real world,” says a Lonely Islander, who mentions their influences range from Will Smith to Steve Martin to The Smothers Brothers to Raekwon the Chef.
“It’s just so much funnier to have Akon say, ‘A woman let me put my penis inside of her,’ than to hear it from one us,” says a member of the group.
“Yeah, from us, it’s expected,” someone else says. “From Akon, you never know.”
The new disc features unexpected turns from Snoop Dogg, John Waters, a red-hot Michael Bolton, Rihanna and Nicki Minaj. There are already nine videos that the friends shot for their album — in addition to rapping and writing, they also direct their own work, something they transferred to the large screen in the 2007 film Hot Rod — but they’re equally proud of a page taken from the De La Soul records of the early-’90s: the skit.
“We really like the old-timey stuff you hear on the old radio shows,” a Lonely Islander says.
“Yeah, there’s stuff on this record that you’d never hear on Saturday Night Live,” adds another. “We try to remind ourselves that the reason we’re doing this is to have fun goofing around.”
“Of course,” says another member of The Lonely Island: “We also want to get paid.”
“We were always focused on brevity, but now that’s become like an obsession because if a joke’s stupid, at least it’s guaranteed to be short,” one of the guys says on an anarchic speaker phone conversation that makes it impossible to distinguish who’s who.
“A comedy song really has no business being longer than about two and a half minutes,” says someone who’s a member of The Lonely Island. “With a comedy record, that’s about as much as the audience can stand.”
The troupe has been performing together since they got their first laugh at their Berkeley, Calif., junior high school. Lifelong music fans, parody raps became their calling card and, in 2005, they made a much-admired video for the rap song Ka-Blamo! The clip earned them a job writing for MTV and, when it was seen by Jimmy Fallon, led to a mentor who would take them to Lorne Michaels and the Saturday Night Live writing room.
“Saturday Night Live gave us a venue to launch things from,” a Lonely Islander says.
“It did more than that,” responds another. “It was our first real job.”
At the time, the internet was becoming an essential marketing tool for even (or, perhaps, especially) the most established shows on TV. The Lonely Island quickly made good on their opportunity. Their digital short Lazy Sunday introduced them to the world.
“That right there is the difference in our lives,” says a member of The Lonely Island, and it would be an introduction that the group wouldn’t let be short-lived. FollowingLazy Sunday, they expanded their repertoire to include celebrities, and their next breakout video clip was Dick in a Box, featuring Justin Timberlake, which won an Emmy Award (and has been viewed on YouTube more than 26 million times).
“Cross-pollination really works with what we do because it places our music in the real world,” says a Lonely Islander, who mentions their influences range from Will Smith to Steve Martin to The Smothers Brothers to Raekwon the Chef.
“It’s just so much funnier to have Akon say, ‘A woman let me put my penis inside of her,’ than to hear it from one us,” says a member of the group.
“Yeah, from us, it’s expected,” someone else says. “From Akon, you never know.”
“We really like the old-timey stuff you hear on the old radio shows,” a Lonely Islander says.
“Yeah, there’s stuff on this record that you’d never hear on Saturday Night Live,” adds another. “We try to remind ourselves that the reason we’re doing this is to have fun goofing around.”
“Of course,” says another member of The Lonely Island: “We also want to get paid.”
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