August Discord Chat Session Recap! (Patreon)

Yesterday Peter & Lloyd held this month's Discord Chat session, so here is a quick recap of what was discussed for those who couldn't be there live. 

[For those unaware the chat sessions take place once a month and are usually held on the 2nd Sunday of the month at 2.30pm PT Los Angeles time]

Peter kicked things off by saying he had spoken to Zach Sherwin about being in a future battle, and he was very keen to do one. Yay! [It's been a while after all!] Pete went on to explain we had compiled and discussed a whole bunch of match-ups that had polled high on previous #Makethisbattle and YouTube polls to see what might appeal to Zach. 

One idea that excited Peter, Lloyd and Zach in equal measure was the idea of a 1v1v1 featuring "John Rambo vs John Wick vs John McClane". Three big action movie heroes who we feel have a lot of potential to make for a real fun ERB.

Peter asked for the opinions of people in the chat session and most people were excited and saw the potential in the matchup. Some preferred just a straight 1vs1 with no John McClane who they deemed unworthy. 

Which is strange considering the "Die Hard" franchise has made $1.4 billion at the box office - more than all the Rambo and Wick films combined. It's also a 1v1v1 matchup that won its #makethisbattle poll with a chunky 44% of the vote on Patreon.

I personally feel we need that more wisecracking everyman type hero of McClane just to give the whole matchup a bit of levity. It opens up more possibilities interaction wise - both lyrically and visually - and as patron 'theformerprez' said: "Lloyd as McClane just has to happen". Its also a perfect set up to get Peter, Lloyd and Zach in a battle together.

Lloyd stated that when he asked Zach what his thoughts were on portraying John Wick he replied: "My characters in order: nerd, nerd, nerd, mean rich guy, nerd, nerd, nerd, mean rich guy, Alexander the Great, nerd. It'll be fu*king awesome to play a violent badass!"

Peter is very keen to portray Rambo too saying "I can do the face and voice, no clue about the body". He said they would look into ways for him to have the muscles. Lloyd wondered if "we can ask Weird Al for his body suit from UHF?" whilst Pete wanted to explore some latex and poly foam filled muscle arms he had seen online.

Peter went on to say that ERB "actually have a decent collection of fake guns already" in the lockup which could come in handy for this match-up. Patron "Dragonsblood23" said "someone should accidentally blow up John Wick's dog midverse" and a long convoluted discussion on how best to kill a dog in a battle developed. We ended in agreement that faking the death of a dog on camera was probably not the wisest idea. (Thanks Dragonsblood! We can mark that up with your 'gotta watch First Man" idea) 

Ultimately we will see how research goes to work out whether this acton hero battle is something we want to push ahead with. Peter hasn't seen any John Wick or Rambo movies although he has knowledge of the characters. We will be opening a writing room on the Discord server for patrons to submit lyric and concept ideas for the battle. Look forward to seeing what you come up with!

We then moved on to discuss the "Jeff Bezos vs Mansa Musa" matchup which is now fully written. We have also recorded the audio for the Mansa Musa verses. We did it remotely by mailing a laptop with remote software and protools on it, and an interface, using all new plugins to track the audio real time from LA to Arizona where Scru our guest rapper portraying Mansa Musa is based. Lloyd added that "we also have got a bunch of new and smaller gear to use to record and it's all awesome; just a steep learning curve to get it working on my end".

We have been purchasing new gear partly because Covid cases and hospitalizations are on the rise in Los Angeles. Peter and Lloyd are currently not meeting up in person so any work is having to be done remotely again. Hopefully this situation will not last too long but in the meantime they are doing what they can to make things work. They will be recording the audio for Jeff Bezos this week and then starting work on the full audio mix. At some point in the future we will be setting a date to film the battle, but no idea when that will be.

The guys continue to write lyrics for "Godzilla vs King Kong" too. Lloyd said "it's coming along well". We are not sure when that battle will be released. It's just a work in progress. We intend for it to be animated so it is very hard to gauge how long the writing, recording and whole animation is gonna take. It's a situation of it will "be ready, when it's ready", but we'll update you once we know more.

Peter then allowed patrons to ask any random questions they had...

"Crabcakes" asked "Will Scru be seeing the final version of Bezos vs Musa before its released or will he be saving his reaction til after upload AND has he seen the Bezos lyrics?" A: He does know the full lyrics to both characters and we think he will react to the final version rather than see any earlier video drafts.

"CodeNano" asked "Have you guys decided on the backgrounds for musa/bezos yet?" A: Backgrounds are loosely decided.

"Raymansito" asked: "Do you have more Latin American characters in mind?" A: We have started some exploratory work on Maradona vs Tom Brady. It's all just exploring, learning, moving things.  forward. I think it has strong potential and I think we've got some good casting in mind. But, it's a long way off. ERBs are heavy boulders these days, take a long time to roll up the hill, but once they hit the peak, they start gathering their own momentum to the finish line. (Lloyd added that Zorro and Frida Kahlo are two characters he is also interested in)

"Nick Z" suggested "Bugs vs Sonic (cough)" A: Bugs vs Sonic is cool

"Doctor Octacle suggested "Bugs Bunny vs Homer Simpson" A: Bugs Bunny is great, Homer doesn't thrill me. In general doing animated characters in an animated battle is not my favorite use of the format. I like the idea of doing larger than life characters in animated battles.

"MC Fawful" suggested "Hernan Cortes vs Light Yagami" A: This is cool too

"Violet" asked "Peter, would you support Adam Sandler in ERB" A: I don't like Adam Sandler in ERB

"Theformerprez" asked "WonkaSaw is a fan favorite of many so are u guys no longer keen on it or is it just a positive idea u guys are considering" A: Wonka vs Jigsaw is heavy. The situation with Covid has me heavy enough. The pressure of doing Willy Wonka justice carries weight too. Jigsaw carries weight, seriousness, death, disease & pain. All that shit is not what I'm in the mood for. But I still like the idea, so we're not tossing it out. And right now we are excited to do something with Zach as early as possible.

"Neo" asked "what do you think of Gus Johnson as Neil Armstrong?" A: I like that. He's a suuuuuper funny dude and would bring a nice levity to an otherwise cardboard character.

The chat session then ended. Thank you to everyone who joined us live and I hope this recap was useful to those of you who couldn't make it. 

We have opened a new writing room on the Discord server for the potential battle of 'Rambo vs McClane vs Wick". And we'll be closing the room for "Wonka vs Jigsaw" on Wednesday at 5pm PT. 

Thank you & talk soon!

PS If you ever have an issue accessing the Discord server the best solution is to go into your Patreon settings and disconnecting the link to the Discord, and then reconnect it. That usually resolves all issues. :)