OCT Interview: How To Make People Laugh With Music

Regarding the process of writing a comedy song. Walk me through it. Where do the ideas come from?

Luke: For us, it’s very similar to writing a non-comedy song. We want the song to be good, and then we try to find a joke that serves the song, as opposed to vice versa. We feel like a lot of comedy music is kinda taking a joke and then taking music as a way to make that joke land. We use music and just insert a joke into that.

Vinny: We want it to seem like, if you change our lyrics to something normal, maybe for example not about a centaur that can’t find love, it will still be something you can dance to.

So it’s not something different than writing something a little bit more serious?

Peter: It’s the same creative process.

You guys are no strangers to political satire, as seen in your song 'TikTok Baby!'. Where do you draw the line between joking and preaching?

Luke: I don’t think we ever try to preach; I think we try to find the humor in everything. With that particular situation in our country, we found it funny that that was where our government was putting their priorities, so we were just making fun of that. We’re not trying to push any type of message or preach to anybody.

How do you know something is funny enough for it to be a released song?

Vinny: The first step is if it makes us laugh. If all three of us don’t laugh at the idea, then we don’t think it’s worth it to make. So that’s the first test, the first pass. We kind of find our way. It’s a long writing process; it’s just a bunch of jokes, and if we’re cracking up at it and it works, it works.

Peter: We put snippets out, see how people like it. We try a bunch of different stuff; it also has to musically itch us. Honestly, it has to sound good. We have plenty of funny songs that don’t sound good, so we don’t release them. We also have good-sounding songs that didn't make us laugh.

Vinny: Part of what we think is funny about our music is that it sounds good. The production, the quality of the song, there is too much effort for what the song is about. That's part of it.

Has there ever been an idea where you decided it crossed a line or went too far?

Luke: Yeah, we actually have written much more political songs that we as a group decided wasn’t the direction we wanted to go in. With everything we make, we just try to write it, make it, produce it until it’s done and not have those thoughts of "Oh, is this something we should release or not?" come into play until after it's done. And once it’s done and the three of us are listening to it in the car, we are like, "Not this one". That happens more often than not. We make a lot of music that no one ever hears.

Is there a song you’re particularly proud of, and why? I’m very partial to "My mom's my mom, my dad's a horse, the two of them had intercourse, I'm traumatised by their divorce."

Peter: We like that one, too.

Vinny: "The Glissando of wipes," that's a nice little line.

Luke: It’s a classic.

Peter: "Flagrant propaganda, listening to songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda," that one, too.

Vinny: "Hi, it’s me, dear diary," that’s from our new song Hug Somebody, that’s coming soon, by the way.

Lars: September 18th, right?

Group: Yes, Sir!

Luke: Don’t worry where you sit, cause the tables are round.

You went touring in Europe in the summer and are going on tour through America in October. Are you preparing differently for these audiences, or have you noticed any differences between those two?

Peter: I feel like, yeah. There is a different energy for every song; there are certain lyrics that people shout in the US, but it’s the same way around here.

Luke: I’d say it’s not a Europe-to-US thing, because we were in Eindhoven in the Netherlands last week and then we were in Munich last night. The songs they were reacting to in Eindhoven were not the same songs they reacted to in Munich and were not the same songs they reacted to in New York. It’s just interesting that with every city and country that we are going to, people react differently. And I think culturally, there is a different energy in every room based on how loud they are, how not loud they are, what they laugh at, what they don’t laugh at. It’s really interesting because we just wrote this whole show in our basements. We didn’t pressure test it on anyone; we just kind of did it. And now we’re out here doing it for all these audiences; it's cool to see how people react to it because they do react differently.

Vinny: You know one true thing? Everyone has fun, no matter where we are; everybody in our crowds has a good time. It’s a big family; that’s a connecting factor for all our fans, for the OCT employees. It’s really nice that the music brought everybody together.

Has TikTok and Instagram Reels changed the way you write or test your songs and jokes?

Luke: Yeah, we had songs that aren’t finished go viral on TikTok, and then we had to finish that song. When "Half Horse, Half Man" went viral, we didn’t have the third verse written yet, so we didn’t know how it ended.

Peter: Same with "Frictionless Wipe".

Luke: "Frictionless Wipe", same thing with "TikTok Baby!" We pretty much write a minute of a song, throw it on TikTok and Instagram Reels and see how it does, what people like and then.

Peter: Sometimes we finish it; it just depends. We have so many songs where we release a snippet, but it’s fully done.

Luke: "Hug Somebody" was finished before we started teasing it. It just depends on the workflow.

How do you decide to collab with someone? You collabed with Kyle Gordon and Grace Reiter; is it just people in the same space as you, or how does it come together?

Vinny: The cool thing about being in a comedy space and social media in general is that it’s kind of a big network, where everybody is hitting each other up. We are all super proud of each other; we like each other's work. And it’s as simple as sending a DM out if you like what they do, and if it's the same thing with them, we just ask, "We like your stuff too; do you wanna work together?" We are very fortunate to come across these really super dope and cool creators and musicians, and we make fun stuff together.

Luke: That’s how every collaboration we done pan out. We like something someone does, we see them make a video or a song, so we ask them, and if they’re down, they’re down.

Why did you decide to cover the Chinese song "Jin Sheng Yuan"? Is it purely for the bit?

Vinny: The song is incredible. We just love the song. We’re hearing it on social media, playing everywhere; we were like, "We gotta try and learn this thing". So we did

Luke: And the message of the song we resonated with. It’s all about brotherhood, being together and overcoming obstacles. You know, we wanted to step out of our comfort zone and do something more musíc foward and test where our fans will allow us to go, like creatively.

Vinny: It was a musical challenge; it is a very complex song in all aspects, so it was a fun challenge for us.

Luke: We just love the song.

And how did you organize the process of getting all these professionals together?

Luke: We went up to a recording studio in Ithaca.

Peter: Ithaca College, alumni, shoutout! And my old professor, Will Russel- shoutout- Willbur Land- that was the studio, and we were like, "Dude, we love your studio, and we’d love to come up and figure it out and make something happen."

Luke: And our friend Ben, his Instagram handle is "thereiscoredit"; he arranged the whole production, so those string parts and the horns, that was his masterwork.

What song would you like to cover next, if you can?

Vinny: Oh wow, a song we’d like to cover next?

Luke: "Ripped Pants" by Spongebob.

Peter: That song "I Wanna Know What Love Is".

Vinny: "My Shiny Teeth And Me" by Chip Skylark.

Luke: "Pokemon Theme Song".

Lars: You’re having good choices here.

What is your pinnacle of comedic songs? One whose humour you'd like to reach?

Luke: Bo Burnham is kind of the North Star for us. "1985“ is my favorite Bo Burnham song.

Vinny: "Welcome To The Internet".

Luke: There really would be no OCT without Bo Burnham, specifically his project "INSIDE"; it taught us that comedy music can be listenable as well as funny. That whole model, we just went running with that

12. What do you guys have planned next?

Vinny: We are working on a ton of stuff all the time.

Peter: We have a new track coming out September 18th, "Hug Somebody." We’re super excited about that; the pre-save is up currently.

Luke: Album 2 is on the way.

Then we come to our last question: What three songs would you like people to listen to for our THE UNSEEN playlist?

Vinny: "Kiss From A Rose“ by Seal.

Luke: "9 to 5" by Dolly Parton.

Peter: That was mine. Anything by the Backstreet Boys.

Lars: So I can choose?

Peter: "As Long As You Love Me".

Vinny: Great, great pick.

Lars: Thank you so much for being here.

Luke: Thank you for having us!

Peter: Thank you, this has been so much fun.