We are The Gregory Brothers, the creators of 'Auto-Tune the News' and 'Songify This.' We traveled around the world to make songs with musicians from foreign countries. It's our new show called Song Voyage - AMA!

Do you plan on continuing auto tuning the news during this current administration? Additionally your auto tuning about the legalization of pot is brilliant.

yes, we do! all the videos we made in the SONGIFY 2016 we see as being part of the series really...but excited to go back to Songify the News where we have to weave together a couple pieces. // did you see Junkie Einstein's non-autotuned take on legalization? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Urx21kpsB40

hey folks, michael, evan, & andrew (me) are gonna be answering questions - michael is /u/shmoyoho, evan is /u/evanisloveevanislife

i'm going rogue with my own proof

bold

How many Sriracha shots did you guys do before this AMA

the first episode of Song Voyage is about Vietnam so we thought we had to have banh mi for lunch

What is your favourite songify that you've ever made? Do the most popular ones happen to be your favourites too?

songify the news 3 was a highlight for me because all of the topics kinda wove together and then we made it into this wild fugue, and also because joe biden talks about telling his wife to fire shotgun blasts off a balcony. but like michael said, hard to pick favs even though i kinda did. (STN 5 bonus for redditors: includes Edward Snowden)

In the correct political climate, when do you foresee one of our congressmen coming back home and building a turtle fence?

When the rattlesnake fence lobby stops blocking it?

I dunno if a snake can go over a fence or not...

REDACTED MANATEE JOKE

why build a fence for turtles when you can build a fence for men? /u/PneumaticPtarmigan is referencing Pete Hoekstra in Auto-Tune the News #10, one of best eps ever https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qizNQKzatXA

I love your song "Hello Again" (and of course dig the guitar playing by Corduroy Cat).

I get a distinct Beatles vibe (maybe because of Hello Goodbye) - but maybe it's just me.

Can you talk about what influenced the creation of the song?

thanks! like the rest of humankind i'm a huge fan of the band The Beatles and the song Black Beatles. (i'm assuming you mean Hello Again is like the song Black Beatles. /s /jk /lol )

some of my favorite songs to write are the ones that are harmonically complex but melodically/lyrically simple like that one--and writing in a different style than the usual poppy stuff is like exercising a different muscle. what i'm trying to say is that we now have disproportionately muscular thighs.

BUT I DIGRESS- the inspiration for me was the melody flying into my (& andrew's) head and then staring into the middle distance and thinking about old friends / more-than-friendses

i had written the first verse of this i think on the way back from a TERRIBLE TRIP to JFK International airport, and after it languished for a while because i wrote this really bad chorus to it Michael volunteered to help me turn the song that had started well but turned sour back into being sweet, which imho is really hard to do.

So, did someone finally call Sean Hannity ?

no

oh wait oh wait, nm, someone did, here is a video of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9de0npGME6E

Hey guys, big fan (from Australia - currently wearing nothing but my jocks)

I'm curious at the start were you more of a 'serious' band, and was there any tension in the band when you took a more comedic route (particularly as the comedic stuff took off)?

Cheers!

we do have an EP from 2009 of non-autotuned songs. it did not cause a lot of friction when we switched over to doing YT stuff, because we found it very fun. we have all kept working on other musical projects too tho.

the australia episode of Song Voyage will be up in a couple weeks! it's awesome.

Does any part of the Milk Thug mythos have some basis in reality? How does Micheal really feel about skim milk?

Stoked for the Song Voyage, looks awesome!

yes-

(1) i despise skim milk; get it out of my face

(2) when the milk is gone, i feel like my spirit and power is drained

so, yeah, there's enough there for a tv movie to say 'based on a true^{thingmaybelolyeahrightayyy}

is skim milk even milk

What is your favorite sport? Why is it /r/ultimate?

first of all chris, big ups on having your reddit username be your name that is BOLD. 2nd, my fav sport is ultimate. 3rd, because there is no other sport in which the object of the sport flies using bernoulli's principle. i haven't played in a while though because i have broken both my knees so it is not so smart to run a lot. :'(

bc all 3 of us play ultimate

we can wreck some chumps in a 3v3 pick-up park game

Do the Gregory Brothers have a preferred board game to play together?

evan & I have been known to play Dominion against each other on cross country flights. if we are in a bigger family setting Anomia is a big winner.

What producers and musicians do you love and/or draw influence from in crafting those organically raised, unbearably torrid beats?

we check out the iTunes charts to see what current sounds are like a lot. if we're writing something specific will try to match sounds/vibe. if we want to hear what the charts will sound like in 2 years we just listen to Kanye's latest album. // personally at home been spinning Frank Ocean's Blond/e, Childish Gambino's new record, Sufjan on repeat.

What was the rough timeline for that episode? Planning, writing, shooting? A month? 6 weeks? How'd you find the two rappers and the motorcycle guy?

we shot this episode in 5 or 6 days. the whole trip took was a little under 6 weeks to 6 countries to make 6 episodes. we were able to do it so fast mostly because of great planning by our fantastic co-creators, Portal A, who produced the show. They were in touch with all the musicians in advance so we were able to plan the song some in advance as well. Although there were lots of hotel recording sessions. Gotta call the front desk and ask for extra pillows.

holy shit that's a crazy schedule

you must've gone through 17 to 34 pairs of flip flops

tbh don't wear flops when you're carrying camera gear and running around, but also i own awesome flip flops that can take a lot of wear and tear

Huge fan! I think you're all very talented, and I'm glad you're around doing what you're doing! I always wondered... Do you all live together, or do you just have an "office"? Thanks!

Michael & I used to live together in the apartment you see in our earliest videos. We all used to live together, except for Sarah, because we didn't know her yet, when we were tiny brothers in VA. and now evan & sarah live together because they are married. but the big loft you see in our videos is our office.

Do you feel like your political leanings influence the music to a large degree?

And what news show would you say is the most neutral?

the news show that is the most neutral is c-span 3, closely followed by c-span 2, closely followed by c-span. // our political leanings probably influence what clips we pick? but we are usually trying to just pick news stuff that has the absolute value of ridiculousness, we not trying to mock one side or the other.

Oh, I forgot to ask most important questions: 1) Has Senator Einstein got his right to consume his God given pharmaceuticals back? (And how did his dentist's appointment go?)

2) Is the gorilla still angry over "the machines"?

i'm pretty sure that Senator Einstein doesn't care about the law of the land, and if arrested on possession charges, would argue his god-given right to do whatever he wanted so persuasively that the jury would whole-heartedly go in on jury nullification and let him off scot-free.

I remember a video where you songifyed a martin luther king jr speech but i cant find it anywhere, is it still up?

we had to take it down :'(

here is a reupload: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbmUXhZlYHc

What was the Comedy Central show you did a pilot for w/ Scharpling about?

it was a sort of day in the life look at The Gregory Brothers pre-youtube success - making videos, working odd jobs, playing music. we all lived together in this amazing portlandia-esque loft that now weirdly i live right next to in real life. Scharpling was awesome to work with and we were, of course, bummed it didn't get picked up, but very proud of what we made. I still call into the best show sometimes, but AP Mike will never let me through. One bonus from pilot is we made this video for it and then just posted it to our channel when it didn't get picked up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4DAkW4VwfA

It sounds like it was really just a version of the Monkees in a way, just for a Youtube generation. Also tell Mike you'll give off the URL to APMike.Bandcamp.com and he'll let you through.

that is often how we pitched it - "the monkees for the year 2012." i think we can't crack thru to AP Mike because Dudio has turned him against us too hard. We grew up in Virginia with Dudio, so we know the true story behind his real nickname, "slaw dog," and he's told AP Mike all these terrible lies about us to make sure that AP Mike will never let our calls through.

Where's the gold at?

i would like to know where the gold's at.

Who are you excited about collaborating with in the future? Any big plans for future songifications?

we working on one now we tryna get out before Christmas. it's gonna be fun and different. don't wanna spoil the surprise.

Love you guys. Einstein 2020.

I've gotten the impression that there is a big community of YouTubers in LA. I remember a few YouTube personalities talk about moving there. It's nice to have you guys and others (Barely Productions comes to mind) in NYC. Would you say there is a "community" of YouTubers here?

Thanks!

if Einstein runs in 2020, will be running to the left or right of Donald Trump? can't tell anymore. There is a great community of YouTubers in NYC, and although it's smaller than the one in LA, we love living here!

What do you take/smoke before making an auto-tune?

i suggest watching 10+ hours in a row of c-span / fox news / msnbc / donald trump rallies to put yourself in an altered state

Hey guys! I had the pleasure of meeting you back in 2011 on the Digitour, and you were all so kind! Anyway, what was it like working with Weird Al on the third debate song?

it was basically a dream come true because he is a hero to all musicians and all comedians. he was an incredible pro, knocked the singing & the video out beyond anything we could've expected. we also owe Nice Peter of ERB a huge shoutout because he shot it all because it had to be done in LA.

1. Merry Holidays

2. Super excited about the new show, just about to watch it!

3. Are you aware that "Nobody's drinking Pepto-Bismol right now" is the single greatest edit you've ever done?

4. Crunchy Nut - thoughts?

1. thx

2. enjoy!

3. donna brazile talking about emails making me shed spontaneous tears

4. almond?

Tears of nostalgia, joy or deep sadness?

sadness

For collabs, who usually reaches out to whom? (e.g. Darren Criss, JonTron, Blondie, etc.)

it has gone both ways! sometimes we find out that someone is a fan of ours, sometimes we run into someone and fanboy all over them and they somehow agree to be in a video. as an exception, actually, one time someone slipped on a banana peel and just FELL into one of our videos.

Was at Bonnaroo '11 and saw you guys perform live. Unfortunately the projectors showing the synced viral videos seemed to burn out and never recovered throughout your performance. First of all, kudos on playing your show regardless (the show must go on!) as the music still was spot on. I always felt like I missed out on an absolutely genius intramedia experience. Are there plans on making a live show like that on tour or maybe as a Netflix special?

oh man. this was a disastrous performance. when we showed up to perform at the Comedy stage, which was basically all stand-up comics other than us, the sound guy was really surprised that we had instruments and backing tracks. there were almost no monitors on stage, and because it was inside a tent, there was this insane reverb and slap back and anything we heard had this weird delay and echo on it. basically we couldn't hear anything and then the video projector and backing track broke. whoops. we still do this show live a couple times a year, mostly at VidCon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-IGe-jWdk8