For all the esteem that we give the ideological importance of punk and its derivative forms, it’s filled with some real insufferable and bizarre shit. This doesn’t take anything away from our beloved basement show memories, but it does mean that we need a reality check from time to time on why this music (and their constituent cultures) can be so damn hilarious.
This is part of what Jarrod Alonge, a 21-year-old college grad from Tennessee, gets so right in his sketches. What began as a prototypical young man’s YouTube page—making silly sketches around ghost roommates and Hitler Rant memes—took on a life of its own thanks to a few videos parodying the absurdities of punk and metalcore histrionics. The most popular of these, “Every Pop Punk Vocalist,” is also the strongest. Alonge’s snapback-wearing alter -ego, lead singer of the fictional Sunrise Skater Kids (from Baltimore, that weird haven of semi-successful pop-punk acts like SR-71), galvanizes his fake audience into polarized distaste/love of one’s hometown, silly pop-punk nicknames (“Slappy,” “Crusty”), and pizza (that’s a pop-punk thing, you’ll see).
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Yeah, those things make no sense.
Right. But I’d seen all of these stereotypes when I went to the Warped Tour and just going to hundreds of shows. There was this one time where I was watching a Memphis May Fire video—and I’ve seen them multiple times—and listening to [lead singer] Matty Mullins give one of these speeches between songs. It just stuck out to me… his voice is so ridiculous, and nobody was making fun of this. The specific things are exaggerated, but they’re based on these real observations.
So where did the pizza thing come from?
Um, it’s funny you ask…apparently, pizza is a pop punk thing.
Wait, really?
I dunno, I looked on Tumblr for inspiration and saw it was a thing. A while after that, I went to a Man Overboard show and talked to [co-lead vocalist] Zac Eisenstein after the show. I was supposed to make a video with them, but it didn’t work out. Anyway, we were talking about the video and eventually got to why pizza was pop punk. And he ended up tweeting something later, something along the lines of “Cereal is now pop punk?” and then people were just catching on. I don’t know, but… pizza isn’t actually pop punk, but people think it’s pop punk?
Yeah, I sort of wondered whether that was really a thing, because all of these other things in the videos are, as I said, so specific to these worlds.
Yeah, I’d say that those videos are 20% making fun of vocalists and 80% making fun of all of the people that like this kind of music.
To be clear, though, do you really love this music?
Oh yeah, all of the people I make fun of are people that I respect as musicians. A lot of people think I hate Matty Mullins, or [The Story So Far’s lead singer] Parker Cannon or [The Wonder Years’ lead singer] Soupy. But I think they’re all fantastic.
So what‘s up next? Will you bring the characters from your videos back?
I don’t really do the “Vocalist” videos anymore, because I feel like I’ve done the same video four times in a row. People tell me, “Oh, do ‘Every Deathcore Vocalist,’” but like, they all do the same stuff on stage. But I’ve brought the characters back a few times. I’ve started calling them my alter egos now. And I’ve done a lot of sketches that had nothing to do with music, like the one with the guys from Issues. That technically had nothing to do with music, except that they were in it.
Besides the folks that you‘ve talked to or worked with, like the guys in Issues or Man Overboard, have you gotten any reactions from other musicians?
Just stuff on Twitter. I’ve gotten shoutouts from Parker Cannon and a few others. Plus, I talk to people at metalcore shows, and it seems like most people in that scene know about the “Every Metalcore Vocalist” video.
Have you become famous enough to get recognized at shows?
I hate the word “famous,” because I don’t see myself that way. But I have been, unfortunately, recognized at shows and have just started to get used to it. People think that it must be this great thing, but it’s a really awkward and uncomfortable experience to have a complete stranger quoting you to your face. I’m pretty introverted, so it’s a bit weird.
Any specific moments that stand out?
There was a moment, a while after “Every Pop Punk Vocalist” was released. It was that Man Overboard show I was talking about earlier. Friends who were going with me, they said, “Jarrod, you should totally wear the clothes that you wore in that video!” I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I went along with it. It sort of felt like I was wearing a Halloween costume. I maybe expected one person to recognize me and not say anything, but when we went there, so many people recognized me that I didn’t know what to do. We were waiting outside, and there was this guy from some band trying to sell CDs. He talked to my friends and I for a while, but I could tell he was distracted. At some point, he asked me, “Hey, are you the guy from that video?” And instantly, all of the people around us were like, “Yeah, it’s totally that guy, I knew it!” and bringing up the video on their phones, asking for pictures…and I was just freaking out, like “Why is this happening? I don’t want this!”
Do the people you meet generally appreciate the satire?
[Laughs] I mean, everybody seems to appreciate those videos. The only times I’ve seen anything negative are on the internet, usually from someone who just doesn’t get it. And that’s fine, because I honestly don’t think my videos are that funny, so it’s nice to see that other people don’t think they’re funny either. People who do like them, I just ask them, “Why?” I question their sense of humor.
So I guess you‘d question my sense of humor, right?
Yeah. [Laughs]
Sameer Rao has a terrible sense of humor, played out on Twitter at @amancalledsrao
