Music In The Air
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Friday, January 29, 2021
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From the NBC musical comedy Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist, actors Skylar Astin and John Clarence Stewart test their knowledge of popular songs and unconventional instruments. Turns out, even a printer can be an instrument in the right hands. Heard on Ken Jeong: Mask Me Another.
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From the NBC musical comedy Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist, actors Skylar Astin and John Clarence Stewart test their knowledge of popular songs and unconventional instruments.
Transcript
OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:
Our first two contestants star in the musical series "Zoe's Extraordinary Playlist," which airs Tuesdays on NBC. And in the show, the characters' innermost thoughts are expressed as pop songs. Skylar Astin and John Clarence Stewart, welcome to ASK ME ANOTHER.
SKYLAR ASTIN: Hi there.
JOHN CLARENCE STEWART: Hello.
EISENBERG: Hello, Skylar. Hello, John.
STEWART: What's up?
EISENBERG: John, I love that you're in your car, unless that's the best virtual background of all time.
STEWART: Oh, it's definitely my car. It's definitely my car. Yeah.
JONATHAN COULTON, BYLINE: Yeah - nice, quiet place.
EISENBERG: And, Skylar, you are wherever you are. Again, unless that is the most amazing virtual background, it looks like you are in an undisclosed location.
(LAUGHTER)
ASTIN: That's right. I'm in my bunker.
EISENBERG: Yeah.
ASTIN: I'm actually - yeah.
STEWART: Blink if you're OK.
COULTON: Yeah.
ASTIN: I'm fine.
EISENBERG: OK, good, good, good, good.
STEWART: OK.
ASTIN: But I did learn that this locks from both sides, so, you know, we'll stay away from...
EISENBERG: Oh, perfect.
COULTON: Really?
ASTIN: Yeah.
COULTON: Interesting.
ASTIN: Yeah.
EISENBERG: Safety.
ASTIN: Yeah.
EISENBERG: And, John, I feel - you know, I was watching some interviews that you've done. And I feel like, you know, many actors pursue acting, but I think this is right to say that acting actually pursued you.
STEWART: Yeah. My career and my life in acting has been - I mean, from the genesis, it was my senior year in high school, following my friend Crystalette (ph) after a math class to an audition. And Coop (ph), the high school drama teacher, asked me if I sang, and I said no. And then she asked me to sing "Happy Birthday," and I said, OK. And she put me in the show. And it turned out to be "Once On This Island," and I played Papa Ge. So, like...
COULTON: Hey.
STEWART: The first thing that I ever did was this high school production that I wasn't intending to do. And it wasn't until I auditioned for Kaiser Permanente - they had an educational - a preventative educational program that traveled around to Boys and Girls Clubs and YMCAs where I played the character Juan B. Healthy.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: What were the topics?
ASTIN: Hold on. What were the other character names?
COULTON: That's a good question. Yeah.
STEWART: Juan B. Healthy - his co-partner was Crisp E. Broccoli (ph).
COULTON: OK, sure.
STEWART: Crisp E. Broccoli. And then we did one on the ABCs of asthma. And...
EISENBERG: Wild.
STEWART: Hey, hey. Here's the thing. You get in the way you get in. My thing is...
COULTON: Hell yeah.
EISENBERG: Yeah.
STEWART: The first - it was the first acting job that ever paid me. And then I thought, it's my first time inside of a community of actors that made a life of it. And it wasn't until a few other sequences of, you know, events...
EISENBERG: Yeah.
STEWART: ...That took me to New York years later, so yeah.
EISENBERG: Right. And now this - you know, we're talking about Season 2 of this series, "Zoe's Extraordinary Playlist," which I would imagine, from the point of view of an actor, is one of the most demanding television roles because you're not just acting, you're also dancing. You're also singing. There's choreography. It's not just one genre, it's every genre. It's every kind of style. And it's television, so it's moving fast.
ASTIN: Yeah. I think that that's kind of, like, the blessing of our show. And at times, not going to lie, like, frustrating because it's nobody's fault, but it's just - it sometimes feels like, oh, my gosh, could I please know what I'm doing tomorrow?
EISENBERG: (Laughter).
ASTIN: Is it dancing?
COULTON: (Laughter).
ASTIN: You know, really. I mean, it...
EISENBERG: Yup.
ASTIN: Things are changing.
STEWART: Yup.
ASTIN: Things change in the film industry. And then, you know, there's other elements of production, preproduction and post-production that we're not a part of - making demos, tracks, finalizing the playback, it's not ready. Mandy actually got pulled to a big group number, so your solo number's got to go. We lost a location, and all the dominoes that then fall there. So yes, frustrating at times, but at the end of the day, completely rewarding.
EISENBERG: We have a couple games for you. Are you into - are you ready? You have to be into it. Are you ready (laughter)?
COULTON: (Laughter).
ASTIN: We are. We're very into it.
EISENBERG: (Laughter) OK, good. All right. So you're going to be competing in this first game, so we're just going to go back and forth. And here's what's going to happen. We are going to play you YouTube clips of some really well-known songs being played on some unconventional instruments. Your job is to identify the song and maybe even the instrument being played. And we have links to all of these videos online. So John, let's see how you go with this first one to.
(SOUNDBITE OF BOTTLE BOYS' "CALL ME MAYBE")
STEWART: "Call Me Maybe"?
EISENBERG: Yes, that is correct.
STEWART: And that sounds like a - it's not a metal - it's sounds like a wood flute, like a...
COULTON: Mmm hmm.
STEWART: Whoo whoo whoo whoo whoo whoo whoo (ph).
EISENBERG: All right. So yeah, you have the mouth action perfect.
STEWART: (Laughter).
EISENBERG: (Laughter) You're blowing...
STEWART: I do what I can for the people.
EISENBERG: ...Into a...
COULTON: (Laughter).
EISENBERG: But it's not into a woodwind. It is a glass bottle. Those are glass bottles.
ASTIN: Wow.
STEWART: Wow.
EISENBERG: Yeah. Yeah.
STEWART: Color me surprised.
EISENBERG: I know.
COULTON: (Laughter).
EISENBERG: I know. That is performed by the Bottle Boys.
ASTIN: Oh.
EISENBERG: They perform...
COULTON: Aptly named.
EISENBERG: ...A lot of them.
STEWART: All but (unintelligible) (laughter).
EISENBERG: Yeah. I guess...
STEWART: How many boys are there?
EISENBERG: There's four Bottle Boys, but they have 114,000 subscribers...
ASTIN: Wow.
STEWART: Oh.
EISENBERG: ...Which is what they...
STEWART: All right.
EISENBERG: Yeah, they're real. This is real (laughter).
COULTON: (Laughter).
ASTIN: That's almost 30,000 subscribers each Bottle Boy.
COULTON: That's right (laughter).
EISENBERG: (Laughter) Yeah, exactly.
COULTON: It's a good ratio. That's a good ratio.
ASTIN: Yeah. So basically what you're saying is there's no way we'll guess the second part of the answer...
STEWART: (Laughter).
COULTON: No.
EISENBERG: Correct.
ASTIN: ...Ever.
COULTON: Yeah. You know how exactly it works.
STEWART: Oh.
EISENBERG: Exactly.
COULTON: You have it exactly.
EISENBERG: Exactly.
STEWART: Well-played, Skylar. Yeah.
ASTIN: Thank you.
COULTON: All right, Skylar, here is one for you.
(SOUNDBITE OF DANIEL NORBERG'S "BAD GUY")
ASTIN: Ah, yes, yes, brilliant.
COULTON: (Laughter).
ASTIN: Billy Eilish, "Bad Guy."
COULTON: Yes, it's "Bad Guy," performed by Daniel Norberg.
ASTIN: That is wild.
COULTON: Yeah. You will be even more amazed if you know what the instrument is that it's being played on.
ASTIN: A soprano kazoo is probably not far enough.
COULTON: Mmm hmm.
ASTIN: So what I will say is it's played on a kindergarten backpack zipper. No, I'm kidding.
COULTON: (Laughter).
ASTIN: I don't know.
COULTON: This is definitely a thing - so it's definitely a thing that you blow on. You would hold it between your thumbs.
ASTIN: OK. A piece of grass.
COULTON: Blades of grass. That is correct.
EISENBERG: Yeah.
ASTIN: OK. But that's - yeah, I think you helped me a little bit. So you might need to help John out a little more on the next round.
EISENBERG: (Laughter).
COULTON: Yeah. All right. I'll do it.
STEWART: That was good.
EISENBERG: All right, John. I'm excited about this next one. This is for you.
(SOUNDBITE OF AMOSDOLL MUSIC'S "OLD TOWN ROAD")
STEWART: (Singing) Old town road. I'm gonna ride till I can't no more. I got the horses in the back.
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: Something, something, something. That's "Old Town Road." That's Lil Nas X...
EISENBERG: Yeah, that's right.
STEWART: ...And Billy Ray Cyrus (unintelligible) the remix.
EISENBERG: "Old Town Road," that was by Amosdoll Music.
STEWART: OK. So those sounded like cats.
EISENBERG: Yeah, it's a cat keyboard.
COULTON: A cat keyboard.
EISENBERG: It's a cat keyboard.
STEWART: A cat keyboard.
EISENBERG: Mmm hmm. It's shaped like a cat's face. The keys are the cat's teeth.
STEWART: All right.
EISENBERG: (Laughter).
STEWART: Great (laughter).
EISENBERG: (Laughter).
COULTON: All right, Skylar. This is the last one, and it's for you.
ASTIN: OK.
(SOUNDBITE OF MIDI DESASTER'S "DOT MACARENA PRINTER")
ASTIN: OK, so it's the "Macarena."
EISENBERG: (Laughter).
COULTON: That is right. "Macarena" by Los del Rio, and it was performed by Midi Desaster.
ASTIN: And it feels like it's played on, like, a...
COULTON: It's an old piece of technology.
ASTIN: A printer?
COULTON: Dot matrix printer.
ASTIN: A dot matrix printer. OK.
COULTON: A dot matrix printer. Remember those?
EISENBERG: Yeah.
COULTON: They made that noise because they were just...
ASTIN: I don't.
COULTON: Well, there you go. That's why you don't (laughter)...
ASTIN: It's just a niche - it's like, for me, I'm like, look - and I lived through this. I had, you know, the floppy disks and stuff...
COULTON: Uh huh.
ASTIN: ...In grade school and everything.
COULTON: Uh huh.
EISENBERG: Yeah.
STEWART: (Laughter).
ASTIN: But I think, like, if you were - you know, if you gave me an AOL dial-up 1994, like, post-prodigy-era Internet...
COULTON: (Laughter) Yeah.
ASTIN: ...That was really where I peaked, you know? That's where I was...
EISENBERG: (Laughter).
ASTIN: ...Starting to really understand the technology.
COULTON: I gotcha. I gotcha.
EISENBERG: And I was thinking, you know, it used to be that the last place they were still there was airports. They would print out...
ASTIN: Ah.
EISENBERG: But I feel like that's long gone, too.
ASTIN: Oh, they use these in "Die Hard" I feel.
EISENBERG: (Laughter) Yeah.
ASTIN: The first "Die Hard."
EISENBERG: (Laughter) Exactly.
COULTON: (Laughter) That's totally true.
ASTIN: Or the airport in the second "Die Hard," "Die Harder."
STEWART: Bruce Willis. Let's get Bruce Willis on the line.
ASTIN: Yeah.
EISENBERG: (Laughter) Yeah, exactly.
COULTON: Yeah.
EISENBERG: He knew it. He knew it.
COULTON: Special guest.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
EISENBERG: More with Skylar Astin and John Clarence Stewart after the break. Plus, comedians Cameron Esposito and Beth Stelling will hear breaking news reports from movie worlds. And a little later, Ken Jeong. I'm Ophira Eisenberg. And this is ASK ME ANOTHER from NPR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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