# Pitch Perfect Chat with Deke Sharon

An episode of [And That's What You REALLY Missed](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1645980188), 15 Jan 2026, 45 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/67adaf3b-fc3c-4c67-9613-af12015fa842/1ad2a9df-4969-471e-b21b-b3d3004703ee/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=d5f905ac-eb40-4fc6-9d03-af120160041a

Get ready for a pitching good chat with "Pitch Perfect's" vocal arranger and music director. The Godfather of a cappella, Deke Sharon, joins Jenna and Kevin with a whole lotta aca-awesome behind-the-scenes scoop from the set of "Pitch Perfect!" Including why he thought the movie was going to be a straight-to-video release, the eye-popping song that didn't make the cut, the muse behind the character of Benji, and who broke down in tears during 'aca-bootcamp!' He also chats Glee and the arrangement he feels was directly stolen (or borrowed) from college a capella recordings! Plus, for anyone who is burning to join a singing group or start one, Deke is offering to help free of charge. No joke! Listen in to get his personal email address! For fun, exclusive content, and behind-the-scenes clips, follow us on Instagram @andthatswhatyoureallymissedpod & TikTok @thatswhatyoureallymissed! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: And That's what you really missed with Jenna.
[0:04] Speaker 2: And Kevin an iHeartRadio podcast.
[0:09] Speaker 3: Welcome to and That's what We Really miss podcast. Today,
[0:12] Speaker 3: we have a very special guest, Dieke Sharon. He's the
[0:15] Speaker 3: musical director and arranger for Pitch Perfect. And not only that,
[0:19] Speaker 3: he is the godfather of a cappella or the father
[0:23] Speaker 3: of contemporary a cappella. What an incredible journey career, shedding
[0:31] Speaker 3: all the joy and light on acapella, creating the competitions,
[0:37] Speaker 3: and he shares it all so like this man.
[0:40] Speaker 2: Truly, if you liked Glee, like show choir as it
[0:43] Speaker 2: is today is because.
[0:45] Speaker 4: Of this man, yes yeah.
[0:47] Speaker 2: And if you liked the singing and Pitch Perfect, same
[0:50] Speaker 2: collegiate show choir is because of this a cappella singing
[0:53] Speaker 2: is because of Dieke Sharon.
[0:54] Speaker 4: We pound down.
[0:55] Speaker 2: We wouldn't be here without him, like I had no idea.
[1:00] Speaker 2: Please listen to him. Regale us with this story because
[1:02] Speaker 2: it is nuts.
[1:03] Speaker 4: This is deep.
[1:04] Speaker 1: Chair.
[1:05] Speaker 4: Hey guys, Hello.
[1:06] Speaker 1: Hello, Such an honor to be here and meet you both.
[1:10] Speaker 4: Oh my god, Blackwise. Yeah, truly you the king. Yeah,
[1:15] Speaker 4: you are the king of acapella.
[1:17] Speaker 1: I'm honored that you even know who I am, and
[1:21] Speaker 1: that you follow these.
[1:22] Speaker 2: Things you you know, I think through pitch perfect and
[1:28] Speaker 2: learning about you, realizing how without you I am also
[1:33] Speaker 2: not sure we would be here because you are the
[1:37] Speaker 2: godfather of modern acapella, like you basically invented what all
[1:45] Speaker 2: of us have come to know and love and then
[1:47] Speaker 2: also perform. So can you tell us how like you
[1:52] Speaker 2: got into this whole acapella world?
[1:55] Speaker 1: So when I was born, I would bounce my head
[1:57] Speaker 1: on my pillow and sing myself to sleep before I
[1:58] Speaker 1: could talk, So it was like an acapella headbanger, like
[2:02] Speaker 1: you know, pre linguistic and then saying in church choir.
[2:06] Speaker 1: At age five, age seven, joined the San Francisco Boys Course,
[2:09] Speaker 1: and by age nine I was the youngest member ever
[2:11] Speaker 1: in the concert group, doing operas with Bavaratti and touring
[2:14] Speaker 1: in the fourth grade to All Alaska. It was like
[2:16] Speaker 1: super fun, so like I had all that classical underpinning,
[2:19] Speaker 1: but it was really when I was at summer camp
[2:21] Speaker 1: and you know, like doing the campfire and someone's strumming
[2:25] Speaker 1: a guitar and singing, and then the counselor next to
[2:28] Speaker 1: me just starts improvising a simple harmony A third above
[2:31] Speaker 1: you know, sounding carfical style, and I was like, first
[2:34] Speaker 1: moment of shaft of Light, like, wait, what's that you
[2:37] Speaker 1: can do that? You can just make up harmony, you know,
[2:39] Speaker 1: I'm like nine years old. And then I did every
[2:45] Speaker 1: musical and I did every performing opportunity I possibly could.
[2:48] Speaker 1: And it was freshman year in high school when we
[2:51] Speaker 1: did the music Man and I was lead in the
[2:53] Speaker 1: barbershop quartet that I was like, okay, this is special.
[2:58] Speaker 1: You know, you weren't done loop in classic role in
[3:02] Speaker 1: an amazing musical. And then an a cappella group came
[3:07] Speaker 1: to my high school, the Tough Spielzebubs, the actual model
[3:10] Speaker 1: for the the Troublemakers in the Pitch Perfect movies, and
[3:13] Speaker 1: that was the Big Blues Brothers John Belushi Shaft of Light,
[3:18] Speaker 1: you know, doing down the middle of the aisle moment,
[3:21] Speaker 1: and I was like, this is unbelievable. So I go
[3:25] Speaker 1: off to school. I'm actually I applied to Toughs and
[3:29] Speaker 1: doing conservatory music to get into the w W program.
[3:32] Speaker 1: Got into both, started doing both, walked into my audition
[3:36] Speaker 1: and nailed it. I sight saying, almost flawlessly, whatever I
[3:41] Speaker 1: got it. I was over zealous. I was too into it.
[3:45] Speaker 1: We're talking about the late eighties. It was not cool
[3:47] Speaker 1: to really like, now you fanboy fangirl like, oh you
[3:51] Speaker 1: love anime? Oh you love you know, hot wheels like whatever,
[3:54] Speaker 1: like that's that's totally cool. So I actually had the
[3:58] Speaker 1: audition three times. The second time I convinced my roommate
[4:02] Speaker 1: to audition, he was like none, and then he got
[4:05] Speaker 1: in and I didn't If all this sounds familiar from
[4:07] Speaker 1: moments in the movie, yes, I'm building up to the
[4:10] Speaker 1: fact that, yes, the character of Benji in the movie
[4:12] Speaker 1: is based on me. Oh anyway, the third time I
[4:17] Speaker 1: went to audition, I realized, like I just like, I
[4:20] Speaker 1: have all the talent, I think, but and I need
[4:22] Speaker 1: to do this one hundred percent. But yeah, how's this
[4:25] Speaker 1: going to work? So I walked in the room and
[4:26] Speaker 1: I acted like I didn't care, and they're like, what
[4:29] Speaker 1: soulo you going to sing deecon? I was like, I
[4:31] Speaker 1: don't know, just pick a song, I'll sing whatever, and
[4:34] Speaker 1: literally like went through the audition. It was bold, but
[4:37] Speaker 1: it worked. And then next time around I became music director,
[4:41] Speaker 1: and then that's when the real craziness started, because pretty
[4:47] Speaker 1: much everybody back then was singing from the same repertoire
[4:49] Speaker 1: of maybe fifties. You know, they were singing it's hard
[4:52] Speaker 1: to say about yesterday. Boys to men and they were
[4:54] Speaker 1: singing for the longest time, Billy Joel and they're singing,
[4:57] Speaker 1: you know, Crosby Stills, a Nash. Don't worry how if
[5:00] Speaker 1: it was already almost all a cappella, that's what people say.
[5:03] Speaker 4: They weren't stretching themselves.
[5:05] Speaker 1: No, And what did I want to sing? I wanted
[5:07] Speaker 1: to sing Pink Floyd and led Zeppelin and you know
[5:11] Speaker 1: the Who and all the great music that was pumping
[5:14] Speaker 1: out of people's dorm rooms. So every every Tuesday, coming
[5:17] Speaker 1: back from the newly Conservatory, I passed by Tower Records,
[5:21] Speaker 1: and when when I went in there, there was a
[5:23] Speaker 1: big like wall and it had the top forty and
[5:27] Speaker 1: I watched it every week to see songs going up
[5:29] Speaker 1: the top forty. Because I wanted to arrange a song
[5:32] Speaker 1: that like would like, arrange it that night and then
[5:36] Speaker 1: teach it Wednesday, Thursday nights everybody in the group, and
[5:39] Speaker 1: then Friday, Satday goes singing it and blowing in his
[5:41] Speaker 1: mind by doing a song it's just coming up the charts.
[5:43] Speaker 1: It was the song in Your Eyes from the movie
[5:46] Speaker 1: Say Anything with Joey Cusack in the boombox over his head,
[5:50] Speaker 1: and I was like this, if we could do this,
[5:53] Speaker 1: everyone's heart would melt. And if it's not clear already,
[5:55] Speaker 1: male collegiate a cappella group is basically, you know, a
[6:00] Speaker 1: mating ritual, right, It's just mating ritual. And that's what
[6:04] Speaker 1: I wanted to do, like we need to have the
[6:06] Speaker 1: brightest feathers. And so I sat down to try to
[6:10] Speaker 1: arrange the song in Your Eyes and I couldn't do it,
[6:12] Speaker 1: Like there was no way to shoot me to wop
[6:14] Speaker 1: your way through this world music song with all this
[6:18] Speaker 1: percussion layers and synthesizers. So I just got out a
[6:22] Speaker 1: piece of orchestral staff paper and just started to write down, like, Okay,
[6:26] Speaker 1: I hear a talking drum, how do you do that
[6:27] Speaker 1: with your voice? And then there's a shaker, so what
[6:32] Speaker 1: do you do that? And then there's a high had
[6:34] Speaker 1: what's that song? And I just started making up all
[6:37] Speaker 1: these parts and then synthesizers in the background, like it's
[6:39] Speaker 1: not just ooh, it's like and all this stuff. And anyway,
[6:45] Speaker 1: that was the birth of vocal percussion brought it into
[6:47] Speaker 1: the group. They thought it was crazy. I was like,
[6:49] Speaker 1: can we just please learn it? Because it wasn't like
[6:51] Speaker 1: a four part song with a couple splits and a soloist.
[6:55] Speaker 1: Each person in the group had their name by a
[6:57] Speaker 1: different line. And they looked at it and they were like,
[7:00] Speaker 1: bring us a lot of crazy stuff, but what is this?
[7:01] Speaker 2: Because I'm always trying to push the boundaries, I can't
[7:04] Speaker 2: even imagine. It's like we know this now because it's
[7:07] Speaker 2: become so popularized, but like you sort of just making
[7:10] Speaker 2: it up, like what that looks like to receive for
[7:13] Speaker 2: them being the receiving end of that for the very
[7:15] Speaker 2: first time with no it looks.
[7:17] Speaker 1: Like people, it looks like this. It looks like like,
[7:20] Speaker 1: you know, seriously looking straight down your nose, like you're
[7:23] Speaker 1: out mind, what are you doing with this? And what
[7:25] Speaker 1: was so funny is we performed it and I like
[7:28] Speaker 1: buried it in the middle of the same you know,
[7:29] Speaker 1: like let's just like try it out. And when we uh,
[7:34] Speaker 1: when we've done and the song was over, the audience
[7:37] Speaker 1: was just dead silent for like too long, and I
[7:41] Speaker 1: was like, oh no, and then it was straight out
[7:44] Speaker 1: of a movie. Every one of the audience leapt to
[7:47] Speaker 1: their feet, screamed their heads off, and it went thing,
[7:52] Speaker 1: it's funny, is there? Yeah? And then I just started
[7:54] Speaker 1: like leaning into this and let's figure out how to
[7:57] Speaker 1: use your voice to create this wall of sound spectr like,
[8:00] Speaker 1: completely rethink the way in which you approach acapella so
[8:04] Speaker 1: you can do any song. And honestly, the alumni the
[8:08] Speaker 1: Beilzwebs told me you're ruining the group. You're destroying the attrition
[8:12] Speaker 1: of this group whatever. I was heartbroken because all I
[8:14] Speaker 1: wanted to do was impress the people who didn't let
[8:16] Speaker 1: me in the group, you know. But I was just
[8:19] Speaker 1: like I beg to differ. And then when it was
[8:23] Speaker 1: time for me to graduate, I was like, I think
[8:25] Speaker 1: this is like could be the most wonderful thing and
[8:27] Speaker 1: everyone will sing and so many more people be engaged
[8:29] Speaker 1: with music and everything like this is just me. And
[8:31] Speaker 1: people are like, Okay, but what are you going to
[8:34] Speaker 1: do for money? And I was like, but it could
[8:35] Speaker 1: be really big and you'll see or whatever. Even my
[8:37] Speaker 1: high school choral director said, it's like Deeke's trying to
[8:39] Speaker 1: make a career at a professional pictionary, Like this is
[8:42] Speaker 1: one of the little Dallians that people do. But there's
[8:45] Speaker 1: no way this could ever be a thing. So you know,
[8:48] Speaker 1: twenty years later, overnight success.
[8:50] Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly exactly, but you kept going.
[8:55] Speaker 1: Well, I the thing is, I looked at my life
[8:58] Speaker 1: before before you know, Pitch Perfect and Broadway Musical and
[9:02] Speaker 1: Transit the first and only all ropela musical, and then
[9:05] Speaker 1: television shows I used to sing off where we launched
[9:07] Speaker 1: Panetomics and all this before any of that happened. I
[9:09] Speaker 1: just looked at my life and I created the first
[9:11] Speaker 1: a cappella group with designated percussions called the House Jacks,
[9:14] Speaker 1: and and we're touring around all over and I'm like
[9:17] Speaker 1: working in schools, and I started a publishing company, and
[9:20] Speaker 1: I created the competition that is in the movies, the ICCA.
[9:24] Speaker 1: In fact, I wanted it to be. I wanted a
[9:26] Speaker 1: march madness of an a cappella. So instead of the
[9:29] Speaker 1: NC DOUABLEA, I created the N double CA the College
[9:33] Speaker 1: a Cappella. Now it's international, so it's ika like the
[9:36] Speaker 1: worst acronym ever, but you know, whatever you get what
[9:40] Speaker 1: you get. And I just looked at my life and
[9:42] Speaker 1: I was like, I'm so happy I'm doing this thing
[9:44] Speaker 1: I love. And there are people who find joy in it,
[9:46] Speaker 1: and then.
[9:47] Speaker 2: Everything just blew up and went, yeah, I think that's
[9:50] Speaker 2: so especially that you've created also, like you just said,
[9:53] Speaker 2: all these places where people to have an outlet to
[9:56] Speaker 2: do this and to compete and to be with other
[9:59] Speaker 2: people who are also interested in the same thing, especially
[10:02] Speaker 2: when it sounds like you were facing so much opposition
[10:05] Speaker 2: even internally, like when you were first starting out to
[10:08] Speaker 2: do it.
[10:11] Speaker 1: Yeah, like what is this like this spitting and rhythm thing,
[10:13] Speaker 1: like what do you want us to do? Doom cop
[10:15] Speaker 1: doom cop? No no, no, not quite that. Let's go
[10:17] Speaker 1: more to you know, like and and just having to
[10:20] Speaker 1: figure it out as you go. But the audience were
[10:24] Speaker 1: the test and backstage, I mean, already the group had
[10:28] Speaker 1: a great tradition already the group was trying to do
[10:30] Speaker 1: modern songs on the radio and things like that, but
[10:32] Speaker 1: there really were boundaries, and we just we stood backstage
[10:36] Speaker 1: proment on stage, We're like, they don't even know, let's
[10:38] Speaker 1: show them something new. Let's let's you know, blow people's minds.
[10:41] Speaker 1: And it was actually really lovely. This past weekend, I
[10:44] Speaker 1: was in in the Baltimore area working at a school
[10:47] Speaker 1: and doing a school festival, which I love doing when
[10:49] Speaker 1: I have time, and not one, but two different people
[10:52] Speaker 1: came up to me and said, like I sang in
[10:55] Speaker 1: another group, like what it was at Cornell? And when
[10:57] Speaker 1: was it Penn When when you were and they be
[11:00] Speaker 1: also bubs and I just knew you were going to
[11:04] Speaker 1: go on to great things. I was like, Wow, how
[11:06] Speaker 1: did you know that? Looking after it, yeah, totally exactly
[11:11] Speaker 1: like tell everyone in the world. Yeah, but it was
[11:14] Speaker 1: really it really is just a passion. That's where it
[11:17] Speaker 1: came from, one hundred percent. And if it never got big,
[11:19] Speaker 1: that didn't matter. I just needed to do it.
[11:21] Speaker 2: I mean, you also just clearly have a gift, Like
[11:23] Speaker 2: it is so hard to be able to arrange these
[11:26] Speaker 2: things and to come up with those parts. I think
[11:28] Speaker 2: people who can arrange music in general are just freaks
[11:32] Speaker 2: in the best way possible.
[11:33] Speaker 4: And I'm just an awe that you know you could
[11:37] Speaker 4: figure that out.
[11:38] Speaker 2: And then also I mean, yeah, we were talking about
[11:40] Speaker 2: it in Pitch Perfect, which we'll get to, which is
[11:42] Speaker 2: like sure, the arranging of it all and seeing how
[11:46] Speaker 2: it's trickled down into like people doing it today and
[11:48] Speaker 2: show choirs and things, and how much like that type
[11:52] Speaker 2: of arrangement has inspired kids has to also feel insane
[11:56] Speaker 2: for you to now, look, I.
[11:58] Speaker 1: Feel tremendous, and I'm going to say something that's going
[12:01] Speaker 1: to sound really strange to people who are listening. I
[12:04] Speaker 1: could have had a cappella incorporated. I could have created
[12:07] Speaker 1: one company and owned all the publishing company, the competitions,
[12:10] Speaker 1: the sheet music, the festivals, everything. But I knew that
[12:15] Speaker 1: if I did that, it wouldn't grow as quickly. So
[12:18] Speaker 1: I created a whole bunch of things and gave them
[12:21] Speaker 1: away and literally said, here's a great idea, why don't
[12:23] Speaker 1: you go do this. Here's another thing. Let's started a
[12:26] Speaker 1: nonprofit and I started, you know. And so I wanted
[12:29] Speaker 1: a huge decentralized community, which we have so that if
[12:33] Speaker 1: I disappear, it'll keep going. And I wanted there to
[12:37] Speaker 1: be the ability for anyone to do any kind of music.
[12:41] Speaker 1: What's happening now is high school and college groups that
[12:44] Speaker 1: like you know. For about fifteen years, I had a
[12:46] Speaker 1: virtual monopoly on this style of arranging, and I had
[12:48] Speaker 1: a staff of people who worked for me in all this.
[12:50] Speaker 1: And then I wrote a book with a great guy
[12:53] Speaker 1: up in Canada, Dylan Bell, called a Cappella Arranging. I
[12:55] Speaker 1: was like, you know the whole, like give him man
[12:58] Speaker 1: of fish, teaching men to fish. I wanted every we
[13:00] Speaker 1: want to be able to do their own arrangements so
[13:02] Speaker 1: that then the latest song, like you know, pop deeven
[13:06] Speaker 1: Hunters comes out, we wanted to go and then they're
[13:09] Speaker 1: doing it this weekend, and every other song from the
[13:11] Speaker 1: entire show is being done by other groups and then
[13:13] Speaker 1: anything and everything. So I go to these festivals and
[13:17] Speaker 1: no one's singing the same song and all of it
[13:20] Speaker 1: is fresh and new. And because I also wanted if
[13:23] Speaker 1: you look at barbershop music, it had like its day
[13:25] Speaker 1: in the sun and then kind of calcified. And the
[13:28] Speaker 1: same thing with do op, like there was a period
[13:30] Speaker 1: of time maybe a decade and whatever. We've been act
[13:32] Speaker 1: this now since the early nineties, so we're looking at
[13:34] Speaker 1: several decades of it continued to grow and roll forward.
[13:37] Speaker 1: And that was my dream. So it won't end, so
[13:40] Speaker 1: it won't be this little blip stylistically, but it'll be
[13:43] Speaker 1: a constant gift and energizer to inspire the freshman class
[13:49] Speaker 1: walking in the door, Hey, I want to sing. I
[13:51] Speaker 1: love that song.
[13:52] Speaker 4: Incredible.
[14:01] Speaker 3: We just recapped pitch perfect and it is so good.
[14:08] Speaker 3: But I'm curious, like, how did that fall into your lap?
[14:12] Speaker 3: Obviously some you know, Benji was created after you were
[14:15] Speaker 3: inspired by you, So like, at what point in the
[14:18] Speaker 3: procedue you come in and how did you get scooped
[14:21] Speaker 3: up and involved in all?
[14:23] Speaker 1: So it all started with a writer named Mickey Rapkin.
[14:27] Speaker 1: He wrote for GQ, and he wanted to write a book.
[14:29] Speaker 1: So he decided to do it about the college a
[14:31] Speaker 1: capella world because he sang in a group at Cornell
[14:35] Speaker 1: and he was like, you know this like little subculture.
[14:37] Speaker 1: Like these kind of books are like doing well nonfiction,
[14:39] Speaker 1: kind of funny, behind the scenes, quirky show these you know,
[14:42] Speaker 1: show this community. And so he reached out to me
[14:45] Speaker 1: and I was like, I'm an open book. Let's go.
[14:47] Speaker 1: And so we came and we spent a day together
[14:48] Speaker 1: and I told him everything, all about my story and
[14:50] Speaker 1: all the nerdy stuff that became Benji and all the
[14:52] Speaker 1: like building the community and and frankly, I think there's
[14:55] Speaker 1: some of me and Becca as well. But the idea
[14:57] Speaker 1: that like you know, a person can go and change
[15:00] Speaker 1: the style and sound and make it modit. So so
[15:04] Speaker 1: he wrote this book and the funny thing is he
[15:08] Speaker 1: was following a group from the University of Oregon DVC
[15:11] Speaker 1: who changed women's acapella. They took it from being like, well,
[15:15] Speaker 1: we still need to be nice girls on stage to
[15:17] Speaker 1: wearing black slacks and black shirts with thin red ties
[15:22] Speaker 1: and they sang like yeah by usher and they were
[15:24] Speaker 1: just like anything the guys could do, we're going to
[15:26] Speaker 1: do it better. You know where he'd be like Juji
[15:28] Speaker 1: Rogers backwards in the heels and they crushed. They went
[15:31] Speaker 1: all the way to the finals. Everybody was like, they're
[15:33] Speaker 1: totally going to sweep this whole thing. But it was
[15:35] Speaker 1: actually one judge who turned out to be a female
[15:38] Speaker 1: judge who taught at Juilliard who just hated them, so
[15:41] Speaker 1: she put him in like fifth place, and so then
[15:44] Speaker 1: they came in second and they didn't win. And Mickey
[15:47] Speaker 1: was so upset because he was like the entire story
[15:49] Speaker 1: arc for his book and following this group and all
[15:51] Speaker 1: this because he followed three groups, and one of them
[15:53] Speaker 1: was the Tough Spiels of Boobs as well my whole group,
[15:56] Speaker 1: and then one was the helm who's who made a
[15:58] Speaker 1: little cameo in the first movie, and so he just
[16:03] Speaker 1: felt like, oh, well, my book doesn't really have that
[16:05] Speaker 1: great payoff at the ending, but they still released it
[16:08] Speaker 1: and then it really didn't go anywhere. And then I
[16:10] Speaker 1: read an article in Verie that said that an actress
[16:12] Speaker 1: had optioned the book and I thought, like, well, that's
[16:14] Speaker 1: never going to get made. Everything gets option nothing. And
[16:18] Speaker 1: I was actually in the middle of working on the
[16:20] Speaker 1: sing Off, which actually came to Sony because Sam Weisman
[16:24] Speaker 1: and his producing partner Numeier had a script about it
[16:29] Speaker 1: a male collegiate acapella group and they really wanted to
[16:31] Speaker 1: make this movie and Sony was like, no, but what
[16:33] Speaker 1: about a reality show? Kind of like like yeah, So
[16:38] Speaker 1: they made the sing Off and then I got ripped
[16:40] Speaker 1: into being a part of that the first year just
[16:42] Speaker 1: to be like assistant arranger. And by the end of
[16:44] Speaker 1: the first season they made a producer because they were like,
[16:46] Speaker 1: actually know what you're talking about? Well everything, Yeah they
[16:50] Speaker 1: didn't know. Yeah, Yeah. Anyway, I'm working on the show
[16:54] Speaker 1: and I get this phone call that's like high deek,
[16:57] Speaker 1: my name's Elizabeth Banks. I'm an actress. I don't know
[16:59] Speaker 1: if you know who I am, but we're going to
[17:01] Speaker 1: make this acapella movie and do you want to be
[17:04] Speaker 1: a part of it. Everybody says like, you're the guy,
[17:06] Speaker 1: and I said, like, hi, Elizabeth Banks, Yes, I know
[17:09] Speaker 1: who you are. Yes, let's make an acapella movie. I
[17:11] Speaker 1: mean it was really that silly. Yeah, But the like
[17:14] Speaker 1: bittersweet part of it is I had to go to
[17:15] Speaker 1: the producing the executive producers of the thing off and
[17:19] Speaker 1: just let them know, like just let you know, like
[17:20] Speaker 1: this movie's been greenlit, and how many college acapella movies
[17:25] Speaker 1: are really going to be made, you know at that point.
[17:27] Speaker 1: So that definitely was a little bit of a bittersweet moment.
[17:30] Speaker 1: But there was the ground floor sitting around the table
[17:33] Speaker 1: with a couple of people picking songs.
[17:34] Speaker 4: I mean, it was how special.
[17:37] Speaker 2: I mean that was one of the things too of
[17:39] Speaker 2: having been on a show that tried to do that.
[17:42] Speaker 4: We did a lot of mashups. Some worked, some didn't
[17:46] Speaker 4: you know.
[17:46] Speaker 1: That's a given, no, no, no, nobody's perfect. You seen Pitch
[17:48] Speaker 1: Perfect three, Don't you know what.
[17:53] Speaker 2: Went into you know, the decision making of picking some
[17:56] Speaker 2: of those songs because every and obviously it's a movie,
[17:59] Speaker 2: so like the TV show, we're doing twenty two episodes
[18:01] Speaker 2: a season. You're trying to field time and throw everything
[18:04] Speaker 2: at the wall A movie. I imagine you have the
[18:06] Speaker 2: time to be more intentional about what you're doing and
[18:09] Speaker 2: planned for it, and.
[18:10] Speaker 1: We did, but we didn't have the money, Kevin. We
[18:13] Speaker 1: did not have this money.
[18:14] Speaker 4: That had huge songs.
[18:16] Speaker 3: And I was like, this is a very small budget
[18:18] Speaker 3: for a.
[18:18] Speaker 1: Very very small budget to give you a couple couple
[18:21] Speaker 1: of scenes behind, you know, behind the scenes. We really
[18:25] Speaker 1: wanted to use in your Eyes because that's part of
[18:28] Speaker 1: my story, and Kate Cannon put it in the script
[18:31] Speaker 1: and it's like she created this whole like like liking
[18:33] Speaker 1: movies scene and it would have been, you know, all
[18:35] Speaker 1: this great stuff between backan Jesse. But Peter Gabriel wanted
[18:40] Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars to use a song and that
[18:41] Speaker 1: was like two thirds of the entire music budget. That
[18:44] Speaker 1: was a no fly zone. So it's like, well, what
[18:46] Speaker 1: other classic movie song could be used? And that's where
[18:50] Speaker 1: Don't You Forget About Me came from. And another example
[18:54] Speaker 1: is we start the song, we start the whole movie
[18:56] Speaker 1: Please Don't Stop the music, which is a perfect song
[18:58] Speaker 1: to start with. We couldn't afford to pay for the
[19:02] Speaker 1: Michael Jackson part of the song. Yes, so when you
[19:05] Speaker 1: hear the song at the beginning of the movie. You
[19:07] Speaker 1: never hear any of the mama saying mamasamama. Yeah, that's
[19:10] Speaker 1: so central to that tune because we just were too poor.
[19:14] Speaker 2: And a lot of songs okay answers A big question
[19:17] Speaker 2: I had because I didn't know rights wise, can it
[19:22] Speaker 2: could be separate like that, because I would assume that
[19:26] Speaker 2: for publishing, the Rihanna song is just tied with the
[19:30] Speaker 2: Michael song because that is the song.
[19:32] Speaker 1: You would think that. I don't know how they disentangled them.
[19:35] Speaker 1: Maybe they were like, can you do us a special
[19:37] Speaker 1: solid and Yeahore like yes and yeah. It was all weird,
[19:40] Speaker 1: and a lot of it then was just you know,
[19:42] Speaker 1: we need a song for the Bellas to sing that's
[19:45] Speaker 1: like a ballad and it's heartfelt and they think they're
[19:47] Speaker 1: being so emotional, but it's actually still kind of cringey.
[19:49] Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, I totally know. I saw
[19:52] Speaker 1: the New Hampshire Notables sing that in nineteen ninety. It's
[19:54] Speaker 1: eternal playing by the Bengals and everybody's like, yes it is,
[19:59] Speaker 1: and that song cheap, so check right there. Yeah, And
[20:02] Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff in the riffoff was just
[20:04] Speaker 1: like what songs can we get and how can you
[20:06] Speaker 1: build how can you build these these mashups around around
[20:10] Speaker 1: these inexpensive songs. So it really was. And also I
[20:13] Speaker 1: will say Jason Moore definitely had his ear to the
[20:15] Speaker 1: club scene because you know, something like Bulletproof being in there,
[20:19] Speaker 1: and a couple of songs were not anywhere on the
[20:23] Speaker 1: charts yet and ended up because you know, when you
[20:25] Speaker 1: when you wrap a movie, it doesn't end up coming
[20:27] Speaker 1: out for almost a year, right, So he just was
[20:30] Speaker 1: way on the early end of some of those. So
[20:32] Speaker 1: there's some great serendipity as.
[20:33] Speaker 2: Well that that riffoff scene is so satisfying because how
[20:40] Speaker 2: you built all those songs together and how every single
[20:45] Speaker 2: group coming in has a distinct voice through their style
[20:48] Speaker 2: of singing and style of music that they're singing.
[20:51] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. And a shout out to
[20:53] Speaker 1: Tom kitt I was not the only arranger on the movie.
[20:56] Speaker 1: And actually we also need to talk about Ed Boyer,
[20:58] Speaker 1: or my partner in crime the scenes on Pitch Perfect,
[21:01] Speaker 1: who was very much the man creating the music for
[21:04] Speaker 1: the Adulton Warblers and all these great scenes that happened
[21:08] Speaker 1: in season two. When I think all the producers of
[21:11] Speaker 1: Glee were like, Hey, that a cappella thing is pretty good.
[21:13] Speaker 1: We should get one of those. That was awesome. But
[21:16] Speaker 1: Tom kitt has a Pulitzer Prize for writing next to Normal,
[21:20] Speaker 1: and I know he's a friend of Jason Mooores, and
[21:23] Speaker 1: so he was he was the one to do first
[21:26] Speaker 1: crack and put the pieces together, like how do you
[21:28] Speaker 1: get this word to end? And I remember talking to
[21:31] Speaker 1: Jason and saying, like, Jason, there's nothing about this that's possible,
[21:34] Speaker 1: Like you couldn't even just speak lyrics to a song,
[21:37] Speaker 1: and I'm gonna cut you off and I'm going to
[21:38] Speaker 1: start a different lyric on the same theme on the
[21:40] Speaker 1: same war, Like you couldn't even talk it and make
[21:42] Speaker 1: it work. But he's like, it's hollywoodn't worry about it.
[21:45] Speaker 1: So it worked out great. But in the second movie,
[21:46] Speaker 1: it's actually much more doable by meeting the beat, by
[21:49] Speaker 1: keeping a constant anyway, you know, all of those things together.
[21:54] Speaker 1: But then the real challenge was how do you get
[21:57] Speaker 1: into a song in you know, three four five seconds
[22:01] Speaker 1: and make it seem as though it's being improvised, because
[22:03] Speaker 1: that's the key. So you have just like a little
[22:05] Speaker 1: bit of a solent, then the base quickly comes in,
[22:07] Speaker 1: then a line of harmony, and then another one, and
[22:09] Speaker 1: so all of that. It was really it's a very
[22:12] Speaker 1: delicate balance to get enough of the song together so
[22:15] Speaker 1: that it feels full, but not like, okay, that's just
[22:20] Speaker 1: you know, I mean, a bunch of people in a
[22:21] Speaker 1: high school room and all of a sudden they burst
[22:23] Speaker 1: into perfect harmony, and like, where did the trumpet come from? Like? Right,
[22:27] Speaker 1: you know what I mean, the movie Magic, Glee, Magic, right, exactly,
[22:31] Speaker 1: totally Glee, I'm teasing you guys. Yeah, but the key
[22:34] Speaker 1: with those scenes and Pitch Perfect is yeah, they needed
[22:37] Speaker 1: to feel natural, and the whole element of the movie
[22:41] Speaker 1: is that is the is the fact that these people
[22:44] Speaker 1: are making all the sounds.
[22:45] Speaker 2: Yes, And I think that was wildly successful, you guys are,
[22:48] Speaker 2: because obviously that's something that we didn't always get on Glee.
[22:54] Speaker 2: So it was really nice and satisfying to see that
[22:57] Speaker 2: in Pitch Perfect, where I appreciate it all felt so organic,
[23:01] Speaker 2: and I feel like musicals in general, musical movies in general,
[23:04] Speaker 2: have a really hard time getting in and out of
[23:06] Speaker 2: songs organically, and obviously the nature of what Pitch Perfect
[23:11] Speaker 2: is about there's more allowance for that, but I just thought, yeah,
[23:15] Speaker 2: it worked so well and actually it felt real.
[23:17] Speaker 1: But it's still like, you know, you start Mickey with
[23:20] Speaker 1: the stomping and the clapping and you had to, you know.
[23:22] Speaker 1: And even when we did Bumper in Berlin and there's
[23:24] Speaker 1: a scene where you have Adam, Adam Devine and flew
[23:26] Speaker 1: Lah in an empty dumpster and they need to do
[23:29] Speaker 1: Sweet Child of Mine, and you're like, okay, it's only
[23:31] Speaker 1: two guys want to do the guitar, and then the
[23:34] Speaker 1: other one's going to be banging on the walls of
[23:35] Speaker 1: the dumpster. So you use whatever you can to try
[23:39] Speaker 1: to create the moment. And most of all, the thing
[23:44] Speaker 1: that I thought was I was really worried about. Honestly,
[23:47] Speaker 1: I thought the movie is going direct to DVD and
[23:48] Speaker 1: nobody would see it because it was so small a budget.
[23:50] Speaker 1: And I mean I have stories about that too, but
[23:53] Speaker 1: just capturing the joy and the spirit and the magic
[23:57] Speaker 1: of what a cappella is because food, when you do
[24:00] Speaker 1: it in a room with people, it's it's magic. I mean,
[24:04] Speaker 1: think about the holidays when you hear carols and people
[24:06] Speaker 1: are singing and all of a sudden, your heart is
[24:07] Speaker 1: just full, right, But then you see a if your
[24:10] Speaker 1: caroller's in a little screen on YouTube or acapella whatever,
[24:13] Speaker 1: and it just feels so small and distant and doesn't capture.
[24:16] Speaker 1: So how do you create that moment? How do you
[24:19] Speaker 1: create that warm fuzzies? But it's going to be a
[24:21] Speaker 1: screen that was I thought that was the biggest challenge.
[24:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean did you feel like, you know, because
[24:29] Speaker 2: of your career up to that point, you had sort
[24:33] Speaker 2: of seen it all, you had done so much, and
[24:35] Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you're doing a movie with a
[24:39] Speaker 2: studio about collegiate a cappella groups, Like were there just
[24:44] Speaker 2: every day on set.
[24:45] Speaker 4: We're having like what is happening? How is this real?
[24:48] Speaker 1: No? I wish Kevin it was the second Making the
[24:53] Speaker 1: second movie was a dream come true. Elizabeth Banks is
[24:55] Speaker 1: a phenomenal director. She's so like, she's just clear, this
[25:00] Speaker 1: is what I want. I like this, I don't like that.
[25:02] Speaker 1: Really wonderful human being. Absolutely love working for her and
[25:05] Speaker 1: with her. The first movie was very much let's just
[25:11] Speaker 1: gravel roll a duct tape and try to make.
[25:13] Speaker 4: All this stuff happen.
[25:14] Speaker 1: Yeah, and not to tell too many scenes behind, but
[25:17] Speaker 1: just to give you an idea of how low budget
[25:19] Speaker 1: this movie was. The first day, Adam Devine comes up
[25:22] Speaker 1: to me, the guy who plays Bumper, Yeah, and he
[25:24] Speaker 1: comes like, Deeke, I'm so excited to be like working
[25:26] Speaker 1: on this movie. But I've never done a cappella and
[25:27] Speaker 1: my voice is totally trash because we just shot the
[25:30] Speaker 1: finale of Workaholics outside. So could you get me like
[25:32] Speaker 1: a voice coach to work with? And I'm like, Adam,
[25:34] Speaker 1: i am on it. Called all around the entire state
[25:37] Speaker 1: of Louisiana. Found the best voice coaches right there in
[25:39] Speaker 1: Baton Rouge at LSU. Laiah Chase talked to her on
[25:43] Speaker 1: the phone. She's like, I'll do it for thirty five
[25:45] Speaker 1: dollars an hour. I'm like, thirty five bucks an hour.
[25:47] Speaker 3: That's amazing.
[25:48] Speaker 1: Ran up to Jason Moore and he was like, you
[25:51] Speaker 1: to talk to the producers. Oh wow, said twice a
[25:54] Speaker 1: week for thirty five dollars an hour. When in the
[25:56] Speaker 1: producer's office they shut the door. I got a twenty
[25:59] Speaker 1: five minute lecture on how we have to save money
[26:02] Speaker 1: on the movie and the ability to send him once
[26:04] Speaker 1: I literally walked out of that room. And this is
[26:06] Speaker 1: the very beginning of aka boot Camp, like the month
[26:09] Speaker 1: before I walked to that room and I was like,
[26:11] Speaker 1: this movie is good as suck and No Go because.
[26:18] Speaker 4: Aka boot Camp.
[26:19] Speaker 1: Acapella boot Camp. I mean it was really it was
[26:21] Speaker 1: a month of you know, kind of think of like
[26:23] Speaker 1: the way they created a sense of camarade, rain and
[26:27] Speaker 1: stuff before they shot the big chill, like let's get
[26:29] Speaker 1: everybody to gather and makes up and happened. We basically
[26:31] Speaker 1: had an entire month of music core running scenes, so
[26:36] Speaker 1: they got a sense of like so and they built
[26:38] Speaker 1: that feeling of like we're the trouble Makers where the
[26:41] Speaker 1: bellas and all of that, but in another huge castle
[26:44] Speaker 1: and hurdle or whatever is I got all the bells
[26:48] Speaker 1: in a circle on the first day and put him
[26:49] Speaker 1: in a ring and I and one of them came
[26:51] Speaker 1: from the acapella world. She'd been in two seasons of
[26:53] Speaker 1: The sing Off and Kill Jacole. She's one of the
[26:56] Speaker 1: two is like, we've literally been here the entire time,
[26:58] Speaker 1: right the other the other nine Like I said like, hey, so,
[27:02] Speaker 1: how many of you have sung a cappella? No hands
[27:05] Speaker 1: went up, Like I'm like okay, that's okay, I can
[27:09] Speaker 1: work with anybody whatever, Like I'm gonna throw them a
[27:11] Speaker 1: softball question, how many of you sang in choir in school?
[27:15] Speaker 1: No hands went up, And that's when the blood drained
[27:17] Speaker 1: from my face. And then want to put her hand up,
[27:19] Speaker 1: and she said, does a semester in middle school count?
[27:22] Speaker 1: And just imagine having to not just teach people how
[27:26] Speaker 1: to be the best female acapel group, you know, using
[27:29] Speaker 1: all these complicated arrangements and fails whatever, just teaching them
[27:32] Speaker 1: how to blend and sing these hard parts like it was.
[27:38] Speaker 1: I'm not exaggerating. Almost all of the Bella's at some
[27:41] Speaker 1: point in that first month because we were I was
[27:43] Speaker 1: teaching music and they had like doing group lessons and
[27:46] Speaker 1: individual lessons, and then we built a studio right there
[27:49] Speaker 1: and recorded them on site because they like they had
[27:52] Speaker 1: to lip sing to their own voices and it was
[27:54] Speaker 1: all like a process. Almost all of them cried at
[27:57] Speaker 1: some point. I was a nice guy, the well like, no,
[28:01] Speaker 1: you can do this.
[28:02] Speaker 4: But pressure is just so it's murderous.
[28:06] Speaker 1: And then so it was so hard for them. And
[28:11] Speaker 1: the trouble makers were fundamentally much better than the bella
[28:14] Speaker 1: Is because the the treum makers were mostly like guys
[28:18] Speaker 1: from local college groups and then two leads from Broadway,
[28:22] Speaker 1: so do the mask. They just just I knew how
[28:25] Speaker 1: to work with that. That was that was much easier.
[28:27] Speaker 3: What is a studio recording of an a capella group
[28:33] Speaker 3: look like? Is it? Each instrument goes in or each
[28:37] Speaker 3: person goes in and records the instrument, and then you
[28:39] Speaker 3: put them together?
[28:41] Speaker 4: How do you sing? And how do you.
[28:42] Speaker 3: Sink those up? Like that is a crazy way to
[28:46] Speaker 3: record a song.
[28:47] Speaker 1: It's crazy as you can set yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
[28:51] Speaker 1: So you can have a MIDI track, you can. In
[28:56] Speaker 1: our case, we got demo recordings done and then they
[29:00] Speaker 1: saying along to the demo in a lot of cases,
[29:03] Speaker 1: which also especially in the second movie, like how to
[29:06] Speaker 1: like teach them to sing their parts? But the first movie,
[29:10] Speaker 1: I didn't know how each of them learn and each
[29:12] Speaker 1: of them is very different. Two of the bardon Bella's
[29:15] Speaker 1: I will not mention their names have their own music
[29:17] Speaker 1: notation system of like different colored arrows and lines, like
[29:23] Speaker 1: it's already been invented about so like he nailed it
[29:26] Speaker 1: with the five lines. It's not perfect, but this is
[29:28] Speaker 1: what we use anyway. So they just say, everyone, this
[29:32] Speaker 1: person learns by ear, and this person learns by by
[29:34] Speaker 1: Colin response mimicking and this person wants to sheet music.
[29:36] Speaker 1: And it really was just like I barely slept. I
[29:42] Speaker 1: really did. And then just before you know, filming or whatever,
[29:47] Speaker 1: it's like the clouds parted and it was like, Okay,
[29:51] Speaker 1: the music's gonna work because without the music, there's no movie, right.
[29:55] Speaker 1: And I told Eloseabeth Banks on the first day, I said, listen,
[29:57] Speaker 1: make is much fun of a cappella as you want.
[30:00] Speaker 1: You know, nobody used to say aka this, and I mean,
[30:02] Speaker 1: it's so stupid, but now we do now because why
[30:04] Speaker 1: wouldn't you funny? But I said, but if people are
[30:07] Speaker 1: not either, see, it's cheering for the music, Like we
[30:09] Speaker 1: don't have a movie.
[30:09] Speaker 3: Right, yeah, it's just a yeah. So now the the
[30:14] Speaker 3: movie is done, it's been it's being released. At what
[30:18] Speaker 3: point did you think before we have something here? Like
[30:22] Speaker 3: we knew the music was good, but like, did you
[30:24] Speaker 3: know did you guys have any kind of inkling?
[30:26] Speaker 1: No?
[30:27] Speaker 4: I don't want it came out it was a hit.
[30:29] Speaker 3: What is going through your mind?
[30:31] Speaker 1: And when it came out it wasn't a hit. I
[30:33] Speaker 1: have to admit I didn't go to the to the
[30:36] Speaker 1: movie premiere because you know, I missed enough time at
[30:40] Speaker 1: home with my young kids and my daughter, do you
[30:42] Speaker 1: want to fly down to l A and see movie premiere?
[30:44] Speaker 1: And she was like, no, Daddy, So I called him
[30:47] Speaker 1: and he's like, I'm sorry, I can't make it. And
[30:48] Speaker 1: then I took her out for frozen yogurt so to
[30:51] Speaker 1: try to be a good dad. I was definitely still
[30:53] Speaker 1: out on that. But oh, believe me that it came
[30:56] Speaker 1: to the second or the third, right, Oh, you better
[30:59] Speaker 1: the first ones in the door, in the last one,
[31:01] Speaker 1: photos of Everybody and whatever. But when the first film
[31:06] Speaker 1: came out, it was a limited release in just a
[31:08] Speaker 1: few theaters. It really was a very small release. And
[31:13] Speaker 1: the movie came out in twenty twelve, is it but
[31:17] Speaker 1: in like October? But it came and went from the
[31:20] Speaker 1: theaters in like a month or so. It was when
[31:22] Speaker 1: it hit DVD. When it went into DVD, then it
[31:26] Speaker 1: took off like a rocket. And of course the cup
[31:29] Speaker 1: song fueled a lot of that, and it was the
[31:32] Speaker 1: best selling soundtrack of twenty thirteen. How often does that
[31:35] Speaker 1: happen that you're the best family soundtrack of the year
[31:37] Speaker 1: after you was? And it was just a slow burning
[31:41] Speaker 1: and it just grew, grew, Guru Guru grew, And I
[31:43] Speaker 1: think I just got word that we hit double platinum.
[31:46] Speaker 1: So now it has officially sold incredible million copies. And
[31:50] Speaker 1: then the cup song was like six seven eight million
[31:53] Speaker 1: or something crazy. And I remember talking to people who
[31:55] Speaker 1: worked on like Rock of Ages with you know, from
[31:57] Speaker 1: the musical with like Tom Cruise Take six, and they
[32:01] Speaker 1: were like, we were working on that soundtrack and we
[32:03] Speaker 1: had all the money and all the budget we needed
[32:04] Speaker 1: and all that stuff. We were so sure that was
[32:06] Speaker 1: going to become a huge hit. And and they were like,
[32:08] Speaker 1: and you did it with this this little film Lame
[32:11] Speaker 1: Miss was also that year. Yeah, you had Russell Crowe
[32:14] Speaker 1: and everybody you.
[32:14] Speaker 4: Know up against you.
[32:16] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[32:16] Speaker 4: All that was the engine that could.
[32:19] Speaker 1: Yeah, totally the little engine that could.
[32:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like there's some and now in hinds
[32:24] Speaker 2: now in hindsight, like Glee looks like this big behemoth,
[32:27] Speaker 2: But when we were first doing it and doing the pilot,
[32:31] Speaker 2: it was like who's going.
[32:32] Speaker 4: To watch a show about show choir in high school?
[32:35] Speaker 1: I totally remember, I mean it was that was like, Okay,
[32:38] Speaker 1: this is definitely my demographic, right, But it was the
[32:42] Speaker 1: little engine that could. And I think, you know, first
[32:45] Speaker 1: of all, I always believed if people only knew and
[32:48] Speaker 1: had an opportunity to experience this kind of singing popular music,
[32:51] Speaker 1: people singing in harmony, they just fundamentally would love it.
[32:54] Speaker 1: And that's that's ultimately what happened with Glee and with
[32:59] Speaker 1: pitch perfect people. I mean, and you know, we'll get
[33:02] Speaker 1: on my soapbox for a second. Everyone used to sing.
[33:04] Speaker 1: If you go to prehistoric times before there was language,
[33:08] Speaker 1: almost certainly humans were like birds, crickets, whales, dogs. We
[33:11] Speaker 1: communicated through tone, and we sang. And everybody even used
[33:15] Speaker 1: to sing, from field hollers and work songs and sea
[33:17] Speaker 1: shanties all the way up to like the upper echelons
[33:19] Speaker 1: of society. Everyone's saying, if you wanted music in the holidays,
[33:22] Speaker 1: you had to make it. It's when recorded music came along,
[33:25] Speaker 1: and generation after generation fewer and fewer people make music.
[33:28] Speaker 1: More and more people think they're tone deaf, and they're not.
[33:30] Speaker 1: By the way, people who are tone deaf talk like
[33:32] Speaker 1: this at one pitch. So if anyone ever comes up
[33:34] Speaker 1: to you and says I'm tone deaf, you're not exactly exactly.
[33:40] Speaker 1: So I think there's just a great deal of pent
[33:44] Speaker 1: up sublimation when people hear this kind of harmony, and
[33:48] Speaker 1: they also feel like that sense of connection to a tribe.
[33:51] Speaker 1: Like our ancestors, they lived in small traveling groups of
[33:55] Speaker 1: a couple dozen, maybe up to fifty, and that was
[33:58] Speaker 1: their family, that was their unit, and we've lost that.
[34:01] Speaker 1: People working in companies and they don't know their neighbors,
[34:03] Speaker 1: they don't know people they work with, changing locations and
[34:05] Speaker 1: jobs all the time, and they feel really unmoored. So
[34:08] Speaker 1: this vocal harmony hits multiple parts of the human psyche
[34:14] Speaker 1: very powerfully, and so I wasn't surprised that Glee took off.
[34:18] Speaker 1: Plus a couple of those early arrangements were copied straight
[34:21] Speaker 1: from college a capella groups, so I'm certain, well, it
[34:28] Speaker 1: don't stop believing very much. Sounds like the recording that
[34:31] Speaker 1: was on the Best of College Acapella album by the
[34:34] Speaker 1: unc Cleffhangers, like you can hear in the maps like
[34:37] Speaker 1: a sizer, and it's the same thing, some fun stuff.
[34:48] Speaker 2: With the explosion of like you worked on a TV
[34:50] Speaker 2: show about a cappella singing. There was Glee that was successful,
[34:54] Speaker 2: then pitch Perfect started a whole franchise that was successful
[34:57] Speaker 2: as somebody who I feel like is the arbiter you
[35:00] Speaker 2: know of this contemporary take on a cappella, Like, how
[35:06] Speaker 2: do you feel? I guess reflecting upon you know, the
[35:09] Speaker 2: different types of success that this now whole field has
[35:13] Speaker 2: had and for generations who have now been exposed to
[35:16] Speaker 2: it and love it.
[35:19] Speaker 1: I would say like it's the best we possibly could
[35:24] Speaker 1: have hoped for. Because the music that came out of
[35:28] Speaker 1: Glee was so fun and so wonderful and you still
[35:31] Speaker 1: hear it played and streamed during Quliday times and song
[35:34] Speaker 1: you know what I mean, and you still like it.
[35:36] Speaker 1: Just went back through and watched all the seasons. It's
[35:38] Speaker 1: just like so fun during COVID and like just get
[35:41] Speaker 1: you know, wrapped up in all those fun, warm fuzzies,
[35:43] Speaker 1: just like you did when you when you watch the
[35:45] Speaker 1: show first time around. I think I think that also
[35:50] Speaker 1: if you look at like, oh, remember when like cheerleading
[35:52] Speaker 1: was having a moment like bring it on or whatever,
[35:54] Speaker 1: all of that stuff was kind of just like a
[35:57] Speaker 1: little quick, little blip like a year or two and
[36:00] Speaker 1: a cappella had a and vocal harm just had this
[36:02] Speaker 1: huge decade really from because the sing off hit before
[36:07] Speaker 1: Pitch Perfect is we're talking about two thousand nine, twenty ten,
[36:10] Speaker 1: all the way up until COVID when the whole world
[36:13] Speaker 1: ended in twenty twenty. So we're talking about basically a
[36:16] Speaker 1: decade of being flavor of the month, which is more
[36:19] Speaker 1: than you could ever ask for. And now now things
[36:22] Speaker 1: are like kind of picking back up, and I don't
[36:24] Speaker 1: know that there's going to be, you know, a big
[36:26] Speaker 1: giant another a cappella show on TV anytime soon. Obviously
[36:30] Speaker 1: still out there throwing ideas out, teaching him, but everybody
[36:34] Speaker 1: knows what it is exactly. Yeah. I went to create
[36:37] Speaker 1: this career of acapella. Nobody even knew what the word was,
[36:40] Speaker 1: and if they did, they thought it was like Gregorian
[36:42] Speaker 1: Chit or maybe barbershop or maybe do want, but mostly
[36:46] Speaker 1: nobody knew. And now all of those styles of music
[36:49] Speaker 1: call what we do acapella, Like barbershoppers say like, well,
[36:51] Speaker 1: you're acapella and we're barbershop. I'm like, no, no, no, no,
[36:54] Speaker 1: Acapella is a big tent. You're also a cappella you know,
[36:57] Speaker 1: two king singers like, it's all achapella. It's just where
[37:00] Speaker 1: the modern version of it, which is what do wop
[37:03] Speaker 1: was in its day, and that's what barbershop wasn't its day.
[37:05] Speaker 1: It's just a new way of using your voice.
[37:07] Speaker 2: I mean, it's just it's really amazing to see how
[37:11] Speaker 2: it's come, how far it's come since the early nineties
[37:13] Speaker 2: when you were meeting opposition for wanting to do things
[37:18] Speaker 2: a different way, and how now it's just part of
[37:21] Speaker 2: like pop culture vernacular that everyone from us to Jen
[37:26] Speaker 2: Alpha knows what a cappella is and that's thanks to
[37:31] Speaker 2: you and.
[37:32] Speaker 4: You know and a lot of people.
[37:34] Speaker 1: I mean, here's the thing, Like it was my I
[37:37] Speaker 1: had this idea, and I really tried to take this
[37:41] Speaker 1: new idea, this lightning in a jar, and spread it
[37:44] Speaker 1: as quickly and as far afield as I could, and
[37:47] Speaker 1: then lots of people ran with it. You know, lots
[37:49] Speaker 1: of people saw it and said, hey, this is fun,
[37:51] Speaker 1: this is wonderful, let's go. And so people sometimes say like, wait,
[37:56] Speaker 1: are you a celebrity? And I say, have you ever
[37:58] Speaker 1: heard of me before? And they say no, what I say,
[38:00] Speaker 1: there's your answer. And I don't look at myself as
[38:02] Speaker 1: as being some you know, multi important person. And it's
[38:07] Speaker 1: not about me. This never was about me. It's about
[38:10] Speaker 1: trying to knit back together the fabric of society, trying
[38:13] Speaker 1: to spread harmony through harmony, which is my motto. When
[38:16] Speaker 1: people sing together, they understand the common humanity we have.
[38:20] Speaker 1: And so much in our political infrastructure, so much in
[38:22] Speaker 1: our media is about creating the other and pointing fingers,
[38:25] Speaker 1: and you know, red states versus Blue states, and left
[38:28] Speaker 1: versus right, and conservative versus liberal, and all of these
[38:33] Speaker 1: monikers that serve to divide our public. But we need
[38:38] Speaker 1: each other. That's the beautiful of the American experience and
[38:41] Speaker 1: that's the beauty of the world as well. And nothing
[38:44] Speaker 1: teaches this value better than vocal harmony. And yes, sports
[38:48] Speaker 1: teams are great, but you always have a winner and
[38:51] Speaker 1: a loser. You do vocal harmony, right, you always win.
[38:54] Speaker 4: Wow. And that's why you're the mayor of Acapella.
[38:58] Speaker 1: And that's why I'm there. Come on, kids, let's go
[39:00] Speaker 1: build a snowman. Yeah. No, I mean it is. It
[39:03] Speaker 1: is very much what I love to do. And I
[39:06] Speaker 1: work with people at all different levels and constantly go
[39:08] Speaker 1: around the world and keep keep spreading this Johnny Appleseed.
[39:12] Speaker 2: I think I very I hope people who are listening
[39:14] Speaker 2: to this, who have ideas that they want to catch
[39:17] Speaker 2: on like this, like, take a look at how you
[39:20] Speaker 2: sort of had a decentralized democratization of this whole thing
[39:24] Speaker 2: from the very beginning. How it was to spread it
[39:27] Speaker 2: as quickly as possible to as many people as possible
[39:30] Speaker 2: so they can have their go with it. And I
[39:32] Speaker 2: feel like that is not often the case when people
[39:36] Speaker 2: are starting creative endeavors like this, and I think it's
[39:39] Speaker 2: we've seen the fruit of that and how successful that
[39:43] Speaker 2: can be. So I hope, you know, people going forward
[39:46] Speaker 2: can learn from that model because I think it really
[39:49] Speaker 2: has set a beautiful precedent.
[39:51] Speaker 3: Thank you.
[39:51] Speaker 1: I appreciate that, and rarely is that ever said. So
[39:54] Speaker 1: thank you, Kevin Jenna, thank you so much. And now
[39:56] Speaker 1: I'm going to do some of you because it gets
[39:58] Speaker 1: totally crazy. I'm going to give everyone my email address.
[40:01] Speaker 1: It's Deek at deeksharing dot com. And why am I
[40:04] Speaker 1: giving that out Because if you want to sing, I
[40:07] Speaker 1: will help you sing. I don't care where you are
[40:09] Speaker 1: in the world.
[40:10] Speaker 3: Wow.
[40:10] Speaker 1: I will help you find a singing group, any age,
[40:12] Speaker 1: any style. If you want to start an a cappella group,
[40:15] Speaker 1: I will help you start a group and I'll send
[40:16] Speaker 1: you free arrangements. This is what I do, no charge
[40:19] Speaker 1: at all, Like I make enough money when I go
[40:21] Speaker 1: around at festivals and things like that. I'm totally fine.
[40:24] Speaker 1: But what really matters is if you have this little
[40:28] Speaker 1: burning in your stomach and you feel like, wow, it's
[40:30] Speaker 1: so fun When I watch Glean, I love singing along
[40:32] Speaker 1: and I really just I wish I could have that
[40:34] Speaker 1: experience in real life or Pitch Perfect or Pentatonics or anybody. Well,
[40:38] Speaker 1: I will help make that a part of your life.
[40:41] Speaker 1: And kids when they sing in school, when they sing
[40:43] Speaker 1: in a harmony group in school, I mean this has
[40:45] Speaker 1: been studied. They're bullied less, they have a built in
[40:47] Speaker 1: group of friends. They stay in school longer, they get
[40:49] Speaker 1: they have more friends. Like, the lifelong outcomes are enormous.
[40:52] Speaker 1: And now for adults in the UK, singing an a
[40:55] Speaker 1: choir is literally being prescribed by doctors. All my studied
[41:00] Speaker 1: and seeing how many positive benefits. Your blood pressure goes down,
[41:04] Speaker 1: your pulse like, and people start to breathe and have
[41:07] Speaker 1: their heart rates align when they're singing acquired together. Wow,
[41:11] Speaker 1: whatever style of music you like, whatever, Sharon dot com,
[41:14] Speaker 1: I will help you find a.
[41:15] Speaker 3: Group so generous and kind, just speaks to how much
[41:20] Speaker 3: you love this craft and this you know, piece of
[41:25] Speaker 3: art that you continue to spread. So thank you.
[41:29] Speaker 4: Before we let you go, you have a question.
[41:31] Speaker 3: We always ask all of our guests, and we usually
[41:34] Speaker 3: ask what is the feeling like Lee leaves you with?
[41:35] Speaker 3: But we'll ask you what is the feeling that Pitch
[41:37] Speaker 3: Perfect leaves you with?
[41:41] Speaker 1: Tremendous overjoyed relief and satisfaction that I think it's the
[41:49] Speaker 1: largest calling card and moniker to introduce people to this
[41:55] Speaker 1: style of singing, and it does it in such like
[41:59] Speaker 1: an easy, joyful way that that disarms people. I mean
[42:04] Speaker 1: a little story. I was doing a like one of
[42:06] Speaker 1: those like radio interviews with an Australian morning show and
[42:10] Speaker 1: it was the afternoon and I was for opening a
[42:13] Speaker 1: Pitch Perfect too, And I was in like one of
[42:15] Speaker 1: those little studios in San Francisco and no one was
[42:17] Speaker 1: in there was in the afternoon. It's just me and
[42:19] Speaker 1: some guy look like he's an FBI agent. And I said,
[42:22] Speaker 1: you know, I h I said, like hell sir, like
[42:25] Speaker 1: how come here in here? And he goes, well, I'm
[42:26] Speaker 1: gonna be on CNN talking about drone strikes and the
[42:29] Speaker 1: Obama administration whatever, I'm like, oh, very well, he's you
[42:32] Speaker 1: in here, you know, young man or whatever he said,
[42:34] Speaker 1: and I said, oh, I'm gonna I'm here talking about
[42:37] Speaker 1: Pitch Perfect too, and he goes, it's perfect. That's my
[42:39] Speaker 1: favorite movie. My wife like, it's all I want to watch.
[42:41] Speaker 1: And my wife just says like, give it a rest, Hunt,
[42:43] Speaker 1: and I'm like, that's just I'm like, I'm looking at
[42:45] Speaker 1: this dude and I'm like, wow, if we hit him,
[42:50] Speaker 1: it's there's a soft spot in everyone. So yeah, So
[42:54] Speaker 1: CNN Drone Expert.
[42:55] Speaker 4: Uh, that's amazing.
[42:56] Speaker 1: Joy, Yeah, everywhere. That's that's the feeling.
[43:01] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thank you so much for coming on here
[43:04] Speaker 2: and spending so much time with us.
[43:06] Speaker 4: We were very very excited to speak to you, and I.
[43:09] Speaker 1: Am so appreciate.
[43:12] Speaker 3: Sharing.
[43:13] Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for all you guys do. And I love
[43:16] Speaker 1: this podcast. I love that you guys do the deep
[43:18] Speaker 1: dive and give people I can insight into the creative
[43:20] Speaker 1: process and into the fun and into the relationships and
[43:23] Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. That's that is something I
[43:26] Speaker 1: think a lot of people don't understand, and I think
[43:28] Speaker 1: it all just seems so far afield, But it's also
[43:32] Speaker 1: a job, and it's also people working together. And it's
[43:34] Speaker 1: also you have to get up on Tuesday morning and
[43:36] Speaker 1: you don't want anyone.
[43:36] Speaker 4: I mean, it's all ye, like you said, just some
[43:39] Speaker 4: duct tape and you hope it will.
[43:40] Speaker 1: Work exactly well, Gleeve very much, work perfect. And I'm
[43:45] Speaker 1: so glad they're both in the world.
[43:47] Speaker 4: Yes, me too, wonderful, Yes, thank you.
[43:54] Speaker 1: Absolutely you guys keep doing your thing too. Thank you.
[44:00] Speaker 4: What a ray of sunshine.
[44:01] Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, it tracks, it.
[44:05] Speaker 4: Tracks, It really does, like it couldn't be in better hands.
[44:08] Speaker 4: The godfather of the Godfather of acapella, like.
[44:12] Speaker 3: Just spreading joy and being so joyful himself and so
[44:15] Speaker 3: kind and lovely, and you just really can tell how
[44:19] Speaker 3: much he really loves this to do that for free,
[44:23] Speaker 3: Like there's no agenda, there's just the intention of spreading.
[44:27] Speaker 2: You can tell in the music, Jenna, you can tell
[44:30] Speaker 2: you did, you can tell.
[44:33] Speaker 4: What a gem. Thank you Diek so much for spending
[44:35] Speaker 4: so much time with us.
[44:37] Speaker 2: Go look up deep Share and everybody truly godfather of
[44:40] Speaker 2: acappella And that's what really miss Thanks for listening and
[44:45] Speaker 2: follow us on Instagram at and that's what you really miss.
[44:48] Speaker 4: Pod.
[44:49] Speaker 2: Make sure to write us a review and leave us
[44:51] Speaker 2: five stars.
[44:52] Speaker 4: See you next time.

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