Royalties Soundtrack Listening Event | Darren Criss Chat (July 7th, 2020)
Darren Criss 18:02:04
wait ha
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Darren Criss 18:02:08
sorry yall
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Darren Criss 18:02:12
this is confusing me of course
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Darren Criss 18:02:29
this is new for me too friends
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Darren Criss 18:02:45
well i'm here but I can't hear shit so gimme a sec
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Darren Criss 18:04:00
well I'll just keep typing here guys
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Darren Criss 18:04:04
bro
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Darren Criss 18:04:07
wilma
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Darren Criss 18:04:15
i'm tryin
Darren Criss 18:04:57
21kxuv372ubcprrbpiefadt6i
What was your favorite song to write for the show?
They each were really fun so that's hard to say but Hate That I Need You surprised the hell outta me
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Darren Criss 18:05:30
bettic72
darren non capisco un cazzo
anchio pero sti cazzi siamo qui
Darren Criss 18:05:49
genevievephillips
point and laugh at darren
yes let's laugh at him
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Darren Criss 18:06:18
2162bkuccm7xje6yfgmuzrnyq
You inspired me to write my own songs 🥺👉🏼👈🏼
thanks for writing the first positive thing I've seen on this. That's wonderful! I hope to hear them!
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Darren Criss 18:06:43
clo :)
i love that we are all grandparents when it comes to this
thank you for using the appropriate WE pronouns ha yeah this shit is confusing
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Darren Criss 18:08:44
zcvmtsgee5mom80oxeesa4v11
Darren how do you deal with stage fright .... i’ve been preforming in front of people for a while and i i still get scared . Does it ever go away ?
i guess it depends on how big the crowd is. everybody's different but I will say any kind of fright means you care, which is a good thing! Also the thing people forget about performing, for the most part, is you can't SEE the audience, most of the time they're in the dark. That's why performing for friends or in a small space where you can see everyone is much more nerve-racking
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Darren Criss 18:08:57
Dana
Darren can we have a royalties tour once rona is over???
wouldn't that be fun!
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Darren Criss 18:09:15
emilybutcher30
darren can you start streaming on twitch please haha i love you
ha can't compete with King Urie man
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Darren Criss 18:10:06
jake2000w
Darren, I know it’s all weird right now, but do you have any idea when we might see Nerdy Prudes Must Die?
what a good question. I have no idea but I've been wanting to see that show for almost as long as I've wanted to make Royalties. The boys have been talking about that one for a while now.
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Darren Criss 18:10:16
jesiqseigle56
Can you like respond .
like yeah
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Darren Criss 18:10:27
abbyforsmark
has Darren even said anything on this?
nope nothing
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Darren Criss 18:12:39
u6iczx4gua0att2g4kd2vdzwe
Did you write each of the songs with the performers in mind or did you cast them afterwards?
great question. Except for "Also You," which was written with Jackie Tohn for Jackie Tohn, we had no idea who would sing each song. I did the demos for almost all of them and then we had to pitch actors/artists to see if they'd be interested... which wasn't as hard (luckily) as seeing if they were AVAILABLE... which many weren't given the short time we had to make the show. Hopefully we can get some of those folks on for the next season IF THEY'LL LET US HAVE ONE!
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Darren Criss 18:13:52
delfi
darren royalties is so good i'm fucking proud of you
thanks for watching it, truly. I know the Quibi thing is strange for people so I appreciate you giving it all a chance : )
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Darren Criss 18:14:04
Caitlyn A :)
if you see this kick your shoes off
I would but no shoes
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Darren Criss 18:14:27
t59glm18dkw84n64l72jcuvpc
come to the uk challenge
god i wish.
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Darren Criss 18:15:39
damn someone said "travel to UK challenge" and I meant to respond "find a vaccine challenge"
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Darren Criss 18:17:08
i can't hear any of these songs but I"m just gonna start saying random shit about them
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Darren Criss 18:17:16
first off, i really wanted a theme song
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Darren Criss 18:17:23
that was a whole thing
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Darren Criss 18:19:18
Had to cut through a lot of red tape to make sure we had that silly song in there. We were already in the middle of post production when I finally got it approved, but it had to be under 15 seconds. I wrote 3 diff versions. So glad it ended up working. Theme songs accomplish so much in such a short period of time. Establishes tone. Gives the audience an almost Pavlovian response to the familiarity of the characters... I'm happy with it
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Darren Criss 18:20:12
also the "doo doo doo" lyrics are meant to sound like "scratch vocals" when songwriters record vocals with temporary gibberish lyrics with the intent of filling them in with real ones later
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Darren Criss 18:22:29
Just That Good was a concept that started the entire 1st season, and it was one of those instant-songs where Nick and Matt told me the title and I immediately had the hook just from those words. That only happens every once in a while and I was so happy it did for that song. The tricky part was writing the rest of it, but the back half of the song with the chorus repeating that one refrain over and over- that was the melody from the get go
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Darren Criss 18:23:08
I'll get back to Break it In, kick your shoes/let your hair, and kong later... i'll just go off on this one
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Darren Criss 18:23:48
so I wanted to nod to the grandeur of everyone's favorite vampire elf, Jared Leto
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Darren Criss 18:24:05
not HIM specifically, but 30 seconds to mars' very BIG music videos
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Darren Criss 18:24:29
i dont jared is a buncha self centered nutcases like our guys in SWITCHBACK JACKET
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Darren Criss 18:24:37
* i don't think Jared...
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Darren Criss 18:25:38
anyway yeah "so much better..." comes from a lot of the 90s alt rock that I grew up on, and the mix of that sound with a bit of electronic production was an effort to contemportize it as much as possible
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Darren Criss 18:26:26
but the rhythm guitar, lots of power chords and high octaves were all harkening to my fave bands like Lit and Eve 6... but put through a strange bizzaro nickleback/creed performance filter
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Darren Criss 18:26:55
"make you come true" is obviously a very salacious play on words
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Darren Criss 18:28:27
so the only way to make it feel earnest is if we made the track itself sexy as possible. A lot of the songs, even without being written, leant themselves to a certain genre just by the title, and this one was kind of a no-brainer. Sexy mid tempo r&b. And I didn't even know we'd get Jordan Fisher to do it- who SMASHED the vocal.
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Darren Criss 18:29:42
lauraacampbell-12
DARREN CHORDS OR LYRICS FIRST WHEN WRITING A SONG?
it's different every time but for this show specifically it's always title/idea first, and then the song comes from there. But that's because we're writing a show, so we have the luxury of getting to write from a specific place. It's much harder to do that in your own life when you just want to pull a title/idea from your own experience of life. I commend people that do that all the time.
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Darren Criss 18:30:06
what's NUTS about prizefighter is...
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Darren Criss 18:30:24
it was originally a song called LONG RANGER that BONNIE MCKEE sang, who I wrote the song with
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Darren Criss 18:30:38
and in the video we had CHRISSY TIEGEN lipsynching
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Darren Criss 18:30:44
it was bananas
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Darren Criss 18:31:26
we ultimately couldn't use the song because of some complicated writers shit- not too dissimilar from the things we explore in our own show, which is just totally ironic.
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Darren Criss 18:32:56
we were so bummed that we couldn't use the song but I'm actually really really happy with PRIZEFIGHTER. I love the song, and I love how it turned out production wise. I love how much of a massive influence latin x rhythms have had across the entire spectrum of mainstream music, so I wanted try my own hand at nodding to it!
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Darren Criss 18:33:08
Lara :)!
Ahhhhh so was that the pilot song you were talking about last week?
that's the one
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Darren Criss 18:33:45
hbz3jctrg5rwwma640hahffvt
You have inspired me to learn piano I already know how to play teanage dream now
you can thank Bonnie Mckee aka Kimmy Kelly for writing that song!
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Darren Criss 18:34:01
ok then there's the k pop song
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Darren Criss 18:34:08
honestly i had no idea where I was gonna start on this one
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Darren Criss 18:34:22
full props to the brilliant CJ Baran who I wrote this song with
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Darren Criss 18:34:39
we were just toying around with very industrial-sounding samples
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Darren Criss 18:35:21
and I started singing Edvard Grieg's "in the hall of the mountain king"
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Darren Criss 18:35:33
and he was the guy that was like YEAH JUST PUT IT IN THERE
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Darren Criss 18:35:46
and i realized, oh yeah, that song is public domain
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Darren Criss 18:35:59
and kinda ties perfectly to the nature of Elia Peck and his songwriting... huh.
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Darren Criss 18:36:05
So we went for it from there.
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Darren Criss 18:36:17
based the lyrics off of what the Neals say in the room.
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Darren Criss 18:36:34
and then just wrote a bunch of ALMOST nonense lyrics about things that you could HATE that you NEED
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Darren Criss 18:36:40
things like available wifi...
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Darren Criss 18:37:01
artistinal mai-tais.... yeah I guess if you really really liked those you could HATE that you NEED them...
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Darren Criss 18:37:04
etc etc
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Darren Criss18:38:16
but the idea was to have Mariam Hale's character hardly do ANYTHING on the track, since she, as the audience sees, doesn't really have much to offer... so we just built it around this huge track with crazy lyrics that just tees up a tag for her to say without even having to sing: I HATE THAT I NEED YOU
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Darren Criss18:38:43
2235n5s2qk5hjsujbhk5ilpva
I have classes in 10 minutes, and I'm not leaving until you dedicate a Royalties song to me.
looks like you're gonna miss calss
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Darren Criss 18:39:09
"calss" ha. which is like "class" but like... different.
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Darren Criss 18:39:32
alrighty PERFECT SONG
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Darren Criss 18:39:38
i really love this song as well
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Darren Criss 18:40:02
the reveal of this song is that they keep talking about this "perfect song" they've written
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Darren Criss 18:40:26
in other words we're teeing up a pretty big expectation of what a perfect song could possibly sound like
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Darren Criss 18:40:36
the reveal of course is that the song itself is in fact just called "perfect song"
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Darren Criss 18:40:43
which is ABOUT a perfect song
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Darren Criss 18:41:07
and about TRYING TO WRITE a perfect song, and how that's not necessary when you have someone that IS the perfect song
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Darren Criss 18:41:20
when we wrapped our heads around that idea, I really loved it
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Darren Criss 18:42:10
you'll notice we reference a lot of incredible songs, almost citing them as perfect songs themselves
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Darren Criss 18:42:14
ain't no mountain high enough
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Darren Criss 18:42:55
of course leonard cohen's seminal Hallelujah
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Darren Criss 18:44:05
and of course Britney's Oops I Did It Again ha ;)
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Darren Criss 18:45:00
the Oops being a layered joke of being annoyed with oneself that they AGAIN unwittingly wrote a lyric for already massive song, but in doing so citing yet ANOTHER already massive song... if that makes any sense
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Darren Criss 18:45:27
sorry for the typos yall i'm moving fast, i'd never let this shit slide if it wasn't a casual chatroom vibe
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Darren Criss 18:46:37
emzlolly1234
Did you know you wanted there to be a romantic thing between pierce and Sara?? :))))
yes that was actually our original "pilot presentation" episode. the one with the song LONE RANGER and Chrissy Tiegen. It was a longer version of what would become episode 7. We THINK it's a romantic thing but you realize that Sara is just playing Pierce to get the song she needs. That was always the premise yes.
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Darren Criss 18:46:51
luzmargotramos
if you reply with a single dot I'd probably die
then I better steer clear of any dots
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Darren Criss 18:47:04
ALSO YOU was an amazing lightning in a bottle moment
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Darren Criss 18:47:09
FULL CREDIT TO JACKIE TOHN
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Darren Criss 18:47:22
i always enjoy giving credit where credit is due
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Darren Criss 18:48:24
and I came in pretty hot for most of the songs- concepts, chords, style... but this one literally was a simple as Jackie Sitting down and just playing "It's you I love but also you and also you and also you."
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Darren Criss 18:48:37
we all just looked at each other going, welp, yup, that's it, jackie you fuckin rule
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Darren Criss 18:49:28
the song would have ended up very differently if she hadn't brought that to the table. the original episode and song was "one true loves" which isn't nearly as good of a gag/title as "also you"
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Darren Criss 18:49:50
i ended up squeezing "one true loves" into the bridge, but of course, kept ALSO YOU as the main event
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Darren Criss 18:50:02
i will say I was also trying to spoof my brother's old band, FREELANCE WHALES a little bit
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Darren Criss 18:50:26
if you guys know the song "generator first floor" where they sing ay ay ay ay ay a lot...
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Darren Criss 18:50:35
... as a lot of bands and songs had featured at the time...
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Darren Criss 18:51:00
i wanted to put them all in one joke. where a band sang not only hey hey hey but ay and EE and AYE and OH and basically all the vowels
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Darren Criss 18:51:10
which was where the joke of,
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Darren Criss 18:51:20
a, e, i, o, and also u
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Darren Criss 18:51:21
came from
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Darren Criss 18:51:32
which i'm particularly proud of
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Darren Criss 18:51:56
ok let's talk about BREAK IT IN
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Darren Criss 18:54:16
lxucxthxrxnx_
I’m a musician myself (not that great lol) what was it like coming up with the melodic side did you play any instruments for the songs?
i played instruments on all the songs except Break It In and I Hate That I Need You, since those were all electronic. That's not to say i played EVERY instrument but I definitely played AN instrument of some kind for the others.
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Darren Criss 18:55:34
as for break it in... anyway... yeah that was a blast. Nick Lang and I collaborated with my buddy Kendo who goes by the artist name KingJet.
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Darren Criss 18:56:54
Kendo has worked on a lot of legit songs in the hip hop space. For each song I wanted to make sure there was a level of authenticity to what we were doing. I didn't wanna SPOOF the songs. I wanted the songs to sound rock solid and that it would be the LYRICAL CONCEPTS that would be the source of satire. So Kendo was a great guiding light to keep the track as authentic as possible.
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Darren Criss 18:59:47
We explained to Kendo the whole joke concept of the song, which is basically just turning the idea of toxic masculinity on its head, and he was on top of it immediately- when we told him that there's this guy that's really concerned that people think he "fucks too soft" he immediately started spitting out lyrics like the hilariously defiant "I'm the KING OF THE HARD FUCK"
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Darren Criss 19:00:35
which just killed me and Nick. It was just so juvenile that it was adorable to me
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Darren Criss 19:00:57
emzlolly1234
Darren you’ve been here for an hour? That’s the length of royalties man xxx
yeah aint it great
Darren Criss 19:02:21
sophie :)
i personally think you should try your hand at writing a drill song, a british genre of rap that centres around rapping unrelated lyrics in front of chicken shops, personally think it has the right tone for the show for a season two
drill would be siq. I mean, opening the incredible pandora's box of UK based hip hop in general is its own magical wormhole of nuance and history and regional culture. it's amazing. i'd really have to do some homework if I wanted to pull that off!
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Darren Criss 19:02:49
cd2gu4ceqx4am9otf9hzwzivs
he’s talking again guys be worried he might write another essay
ok sorry i'll stop
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Darren Criss 19:02:51
:)
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Darren Criss 19:03:03
cd2gu4ceqx4am9otf9hzwzivs
he’s talking again guys be worried he might write another essay
kidding!
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Darren Criss 19:03:39
fsheldens
when darren actually cares about us 🥺
awww i always do! I just wasn't built for internet stuff.
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Darren Criss 19:04:20
alpermehdi
speaking of nick how was it to work with nick??
the best. Nick is one of the best things that has ever happened to me.
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Darren Criss 19:04:51
chloe :)!
what would be ur karaoke song choice from the show?
mighty as kong
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Darren Criss 19:07:32
isa.kowo
How much music theory goes into your songwriting? And did you learn all of it from playing the violin? In what way does it go into your songs?
all GREAT questions. I mean, music theory isn't something you CONSCIOUSLY employ when writing something, it's just that it really helps to know the rules or music when shaping it and trying to maximize its production. And as a matter of fact, yeah, I DID learn most of it playing violin. But when I was playing violin I was ingesting music from the perspective of a student ingesting information, not as a proactive creator putting anything of my own out into the world.
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Darren Criss 19:08:07
Honestly I really didn't start UNDERSTANDING music theory until I started writing music for other people, and noticing certain things and chords and shapes had names and that they could be manipulated to accomplish certain things
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Darren Criss 19:08:35
so most of my academic musical knowledge came in my 20s when I tried to start doing it professionally
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Darren Criss 19:08:52
Nick
first instrument you ever learnt?
violin
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Darren Criss 19:09:07
andyruiz080
I'm castin' my love net wide And fillin' every hole in my schedule
ha love that line
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Darren Criss 19:09:29
missweggy
Darren are you a big queen fan ( the band lol ) 😂
is the pope catholic
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Darren Criss 19:12:00
ChloeOmelia
Now its available, would you change anything?
jesus so much. but such is the nature of creating stuff. there's a great Hayao Miyazaki quote about always having to make new stuff to escape the woe of all the mistakes you made in your last thing... I mean, that's a bit extreme, I feel like we did the best we could given the circumstance but I totally get where Miyazaki is coming from. And in many ways that's everything we do in life. Do your best, know what you coulda done better and carry on
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Darren Criss 19:12:36
dj._.quackers
who or what was your biggest inspiration growing up
the beatles. the uk. the 60s.
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Darren Criss 19:13:02
Astriddd
Your first original song was "Not Alone". I'm right?
no it was actually a song i wrote in the third grade when I got a guitar for Christmas called "Save The Whales"
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Darren Criss 19:14:29
hiiqsbo9358wvfkcjcsgsu4lb
Darren I need an answer it’s been annoying me for days. So was everyone fucking everyone in Pierces old band or was she just fucking everyone seperately??
ha that's a really great question. I figured she was just fucking everyone individually, which is why the band was so contentious but then again I'd rather let your imagination run wild...
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Darren Criss 19:15:29
jphxxk5wjnaqnhuv806wmohdt
Darren, I love your taste in music. You should share your personal playlists ... bc everybody needs to know phantom planet 😉
if i actually shared my tastes in music, or actually shared the amount of stuff in my brain at the rate that I want to share, I would never work on or create anything because i would constantly be on the internet and you'd all be over me if you weren't already
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Darren Criss 19:16:01
But yes, thank you for saying that, I love me my phantom planet oh so very much :)
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Darren Criss 19:16:18
juli.nuttini
could you please answer me I don't speak English and I'm putting ALL my effort into asking you questions I'm going to cry
wow your english is actually pretty great
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Darren Criss 19:17:08
I'd like to write a song with Howard Ashman
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Darren Criss 19:17:23
dancebaby218
Was kick your shoes off inspired by your Hedwig shoes?
nah cuz that shit was actually comfy
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Darren Criss 19:17:55
12169199549
i skipped my clarinet class because of you for the third time :) what can i say to my teacher?
that Darren says you should have gone to clarinet class!!!
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Darren Criss 19:18:34
qalektvmexab6gfwibfihwu6b
Could you please answer me. We’ve supported you for years from the uk and we’re staying up for this but it’s totally worth it because you’re amazing!! Molly x
I wish so bad I could go to the UK!
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Darren Criss 19:20:01
FUCK someone asked about Sam Farrar and I wanted to answer it but it disappeared... Sam is a homie. one of my very first songwriting sessions was with him and a very famous member of the pop universe... who if I get a season two, I'm putting in the show.
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Darren Criss 19:22:00
9nc1yow3iwnp9p3fs4gcvdnsf
what other instruments would you like to learn in the future?
i just need to spend time trying to get better at the ones I've plateaued with. I feel like I got as good as I'd ever get on the guitar when i was like 19. So I've been trying to get better during the Quarantine. Picked up my violin and dusted off that Vivaldi, started doing drum rudiments on my drum pad, and started learning new licks and scales for guitar. Stuff I never got round to doing.
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Darren Criss 19:22:27
harefraz
mr. criss sir, what is your top quarantine activity?
playing music
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Darren Criss 19:23:26
actually lies. top quarantine activity is learning Japanese. 30 minutes a day. And it's been several months. Almost got Hiragana down, still got a few characters I'm questionable with but with any luck I'll start up on Katakana in the next few weeks.
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Darren Criss 19:23:40
224abi6avvottcsacto7vx46a
What about working with Mark hamill ? Insane right
you said it
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Darren Criss 19:23:54
t7sxis7855cd329gaa6iyty8v
Any updates on American Buffalo? 🥺👉🏼👈🏼
it's opening next year!
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Darren Criss 19:24:09
for the record this is really fun I'm enjoying this guys
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Darren Criss 19:26:26
Rachael
How different is it doing a show like Royalties where you're heavily involved in the creative process compared to other projects you've done in the past?
i'd say night and day but that's an understatement. When I did Glee all I had to do was act in scenes, record songs, and go to dance rehearsal. With Royalties, it's that AND casting, doing pre production, post production, notes, meetings, notes, writing and producing songs, location scouting, blah blah blah lots of the stuff that you don't have to worry about if you're not a creator. But make no mistake I absolutely love it.
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Darren Criss 19:27:41
Aisha
learn spanish
I'll get there. I already speak a bit of Italian so I wanted the challenge of learning something that didn't use a writing system I already understood.
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Darren Criss 19:28:23
rosieellenxx_
I take Music Technology as a subject at school and we have to make a whole song with the sole sample of glass breaking...
sounds fun. loads of things you can do with that.
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Darren Criss 19:28:48
21ynx6niidf2amx5nzilihsga
What are your goals for once quarantine is lifted?
hopefully to feel like I used this very strange time well.
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Darren Criss 19:29:14
Ok I should probabl get outta here right?
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Darren Criss 19:29:41
I've talked a lot about mighty as kong in other places
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Darren Criss 19:30:00
so I'll just leave you with a story about "Let Your Hair Down"
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Darren Criss 19:30:14
which was the very FIRST song we wrote for the show
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Darren Criss 19:30:37
I had a meeting with an artist at a dive bar in the middle of the afternoon
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Darren Criss 19:31:10
let's just say I showed up to that very first writer's session very late
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Darren Criss 19:31:17
and sober ENOUGH
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Darren Criss 19:31:41
wktusw4mcjn910r3eq91zg4k5
darren did you watch hamilton??????
duh last night. so fun.
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Darren Criss 19:32:17
anyway I was so relieved that we left with that song at the end of the day. The intent was always to write two songs with the exact same concepts just with different titles
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Darren Criss 19:32:50
the chords are the same, just slightly different voicings played on slightly different instruments
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Darren Criss 19:33:29
and the idea was that whichever song was funnier, or at least whichever song would be more fun to see in a music video... would be the one that Pierce & Sara write
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Darren Criss 19:34:08
"Kick Your Shoes Off" ended up feeling more like a full music video than "Let Your Hair Down" but I LOVE that first song, and hopefully people get to hear the whole thing on Spotify since you don't get to hear the whole song in the episode
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Darren Criss 19:34:51
with lines I love like "see my cheekbones, show off my clavicle, I bet you've never seen a ponytail to magical..."
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Darren Criss 19:35:39
emilybutcher30
i love that u spelled it sara not sarah
thank you. if you don't already know it, check out Ben Folds' "Zak and Sara"
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Darren Criss 19:36:01
OK i gotta get going
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Darren Criss 19:36:12
but thanks to everyone from all over the world for joining
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Darren Criss 19:36:17
i see you and i say hi to you!
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Darren Criss 19:36:23
happy birthday to all the bday kids!
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Darren Criss 19:36:33
thank you for spending a little bit of your bday with me
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Darren Criss 19:36:39
thanks for checking out Royalties
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Darren Criss 19:36:46
hope you enjoy the music
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Darren Criss 19:36:53
and hope there gets to be a season 2!!!
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Darren Criss 19:37:08
xo to all of you. stay safe, stay inspired. - Darren
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