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[0:00] Joe Iconis: Hi, I'm Joe Iconis.

[0:02] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And I'm Jennifer Ashley Tepper. On today's episode of The Album Podcast, we're going to be talking to you about a song called "Building a Fort" as sung by the wonderful Harrison Chad. We're going to talk about the history of the song. It was written for a musical that I was formerly writing that I'm no longer writing. So it's sort of like a trunk song, but I think that it has connections to a bunch of other tunes that I've written. It feels like it's kind of, you know, related to "Be More Chill" and "Love & Hate Nation" and "Punk Rock Girl" and lots of my shows that feature sad young people.

[0:51] Joe Iconis: "Building a Fort," the latest in the sad young people cycle.

[0:55] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: "Building a Fort"? Yeah. Why do I always think it's called "Build a Fort"?

[1:11] Joe Iconis: I have gone back and forth, but on the album, I decide "Building a Fort."

[1:18] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Okay.

[1:19] Joe Iconis: On the album, I decide "Building a Fort." "Building a Fort," which is a song from a musical.

[1:26] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. This is what, you know, some of these songs, I was, I'm considering if people ask me about them in interviews, I'll just lie and say that they're not from anything or not cut from anything. But I feel like on this podcast, I'm excited to not lie.

[1:35] Joe Iconis: Well, I hate to break it to you, but this song was outed as part of a musical because when the New York Times reviewed Joe Iconis and Family, they really liked this song and they talked about it in their review.

[1:49] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Oh yeah, you're right. Well, people forget that kind of stuff.

[1:54] Joe Iconis: Of course, of course. They forget the good reviews.

[1:57] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I don't forget.

[1:58] Joe Iconis: But yeah, so this song was from, myself and Joe Trace wrote a musical version of "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" and we got fired. And we wrote, so it's a whole musical and I got a whole score of the musical. And most of the songs are songs that you could never perform out of context because they're so clearly from "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," the musical. But this one is one that always felt like, oh, this is like a little bit broader and this is a song that I think, you know, people can relate to and sort of applies to multiple situations.

[2:33] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah, and I always liked it a lot. And this character is, you know, this song actually is like a very sort of, you know, weird, you know, cousin to "Michael in the Bathroom" in that it's, you know, a character who's had a fight with his best friend and is feeling alone and has, you know, decided to, like, remove himself from the situation. And in the case of this, he decides to, you know, build a fort in his parents, I guess it's a basement or rec room or something.

[3:13] Joe Iconis: Rec room. The old days. New York was better then. But, you know, it's the idea of, you know, being a kid and using what you have around you to construct a fort is something that, you know, I certainly did when I was a kid. And I, you know, and I think that, like, it's something that I did just in, like, you know, playing and being like, oh, you know, it's fun. But also, like, sometimes you can, you know, you literally want to, like, build a little, a little, you know, cell for yourself.

[3:55] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Well, I guess then it's also Lonely Kid songs. If you're going to do this as a cousin of "Michael in the Bathroom," it dates back to the Lonely Kid trio and things to ruin. "Dodgeball," "Albuquerque," anyway.

[4:07] Joe Iconis: Son of a Gun.

[4:09] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And "Son of a Gun."

[4:10] Joe Iconis: Yes. Yeah. I mean, and it's like, and it's both, like, lonely and like a self-imposed exile. You know, it's this, like, the world has done me wrong and I'm going to remove myself and just be by myself because that's what you want me to be anyway. You just want me to be all, all by myself alone.

[4:24] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah.

[4:25] Joe Iconis: And so, and I wanted to write something that felt like, like a, you know, it's like a 90s folk song or something. It's a, it's, or maybe not even 90s. It feels, it feel, the music feels, it's really simple and it's kind of campfire-y, but it, it feels kind of older than the kid is. You know, there's nothing about it that feels like contemporary. It feels kind of like a, like sort of timeless throwback.

[4:50] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And the, you know, the intention there is that it's, it's this little kid with, you know, little kid problems. But his sadness, his feeling of isolation is very adult. It's very much the same thing that, that I feel, you know, when I'm, when I'm, you know, depressed or anxious or whatever.

[5:06] Joe Iconis: And so I think the music is a way to kind of connect this thing that on the surface can just seem like, oh, it's a little kid, you know, crying about some little kid garbage. And it, it can, it can connect it to a, you know, a sort of more adult issues. And that's always, you know, in my stuff when I, where I've written about young people, I always say it's like, you know, young people just don't have the vocabulary that, that older people do, but what they're feeling is exactly the same.

[5:35] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And it's like the, you know, what feels like a massive deal to a kid that, you know, as an adult, you might look at it and think that's so silly, how cute, but it, it doesn't mean that it's not, doesn't feel like the end of the world to the kid. And that, that feeling of like, you know, if you're a kid and you're, you know, and you, you, you're having ice cream and you drop it on the ground, it feels like the world is crashing down. We know it's not, but it feels like that. And that's the way it feels to the kid. My world is over is the exact same way that it feels like when you're, you know, 30 or 40 and, and you break up or you're getting thrown out of your apartment or, you know, whatever you, the world is over.

[6:15] Joe Iconis: It, that feeling is the same. The circumstances change and the vocabulary changes, but the feeling is the same feeling. And so that's what the song is. I think a sort of a kind of, you know, subtle manifestation of, of that.

[6:34] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And this is really the only song from that Wimpy Kid musical that has gotten pulled out and done separately, right?

[6:39] Joe Iconis: Yeah. Yeah. You know, I did, uh, the only other song that's ever been performed publicly is the title song, uh, which I love that title song.

[6:44] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I really like it too.

[6:52] Joe Iconis: That's it. Um, the, you know, and that's a song that it's, it's, yeah, it's like literally it's like, it's, he's singing about himself as being a wimpy kid.

[7:02] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Uh, yeah. And life ain't easy for Wimpy Kid.

[7:07] Joe Iconis: Uh, it's just never not, you know, from "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," but we did this concert at, at the musical theater factory, the former porn studio, uh, in 2015. And it was, it was after "Be More Chill" had closed at Two River Theater. And it was yet another time in my life when I was feeling really sort of angry and frustrated about, um, you know, my life and career. And it just felt like I keep making these shows and they keep getting to a certain level. And then, you know, the New York Times says they're terrible and then nobody cares about them anymore. And, and how many times I keep doing this, you know, in my career.

[7:43] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Um, and I mean, the answer to that is like, I guess forever, but at the time I was kind of like, what the hell am I doing here? And so, um, and I had just, and I'd just gotten fired from "Wimpy Kid." And, and so we did this concert and I, uh, the, the musical theater factory is kind of, was kind of like a black box. It was a very sort of classic black box stage. And I was like, I want to fill the whole room with, um, discarded pages from the, the project I just got fired from.

[8:16] Joe Iconis: And so like the script of that show and the score was just all over. And so if you see pictures of that musical theater factory concert, and that's the first time that I ever did "Try Again," there's just thousands of pages of paper that I put all over the place. And so the audience, when they came in, they had to like literally wade through, you know, crumpled up paper. And most of that was from my, my aborted musical.

[8:41] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I had forgotten that.

[8:42] Joe Iconis: Yeah. Oh my God. I'm glad we have pictures of the musical theater factory. Cause it kind of sounds like a fairyland that we made up.

[8:49] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. I mean, it was a fairyland, but we didn't make it up.

[8:52] Joe Iconis: Yeah, that's true.

[8:53] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah.

[8:54] Joe Iconis: Um, and then at that concert though, was, um, uh, Jerry Green.

[8:55] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I know it was there.

[8:56] Joe Iconis: You ended up producing "Be More Chill." I remember that part. I like had to dial it back and like really go through it when it ended up occupying the place in the story that it did.

[9:04] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: But wow.

[9:05] Joe Iconis: Yeah.

[9:06] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Um, so yeah, so it was just to say that we did, we did that "Wimpy Kid" song there and I don't know if we did "Building a Fort" there, but yeah, "Building a Fort" is the one that's kind of like hung on. And on the album, it's sung by Harrison Chad, who I have known for a long time. I first met him when he was a student at Brown and I was very starstruck because he, uh, was obviously in "Carolina Change" as a very young man. And I was like, I can't believe I'm meeting, I'm meeting Harrison Chad.

[9:31] Joe Iconis: Um, and, uh, I thought he was so great. And then he ended up being the first play, first person besides Jason Sweet Tooth Williams to play this character of Brandon in "The Black Suits." Cause we did a production of "Black Suits" in, in 2012 was the, it was Barrington. And so it was the first time we were doing it with all new actors. And that's when Ben Platt did it and, and, um, Jason Haidt and, and Will Rowland and Harrison Chad. And so I just love Harrison. He's an amazing actor. He's so funny. He's, and he's such a good guy.

[10:09] Joe Iconis: Uh, and he just, you know, I, I imagine it'll be like this until he's an old little wizened man, but he just sounds like a kid. Like his voice has this youthful exuberance to it that is so stinking charming. And he's a, I mean, you know, he's a man, he's like a, a very, you know, a handsome strapping man, but he has this voice that's just, it's just youth.

[10:31] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And it's like, and in that way, he, um, I think he's like a, a sort of, he has a weird connection to Annie Golden because they both are, are actors who they're amazing actors and they do all different types of stuff. And Harrison, you know, he's a great singer and like, he can sing various sort of traditional musical theater stuff and he can do, you know, rock stuff really easily. It all sounds authentic. And, and his voice has so much personality to it as Annie's does. But the thing that it always has is youth. And Annie Golden has that and Harrison has it.

[11:04] Joe Iconis: And it just felt like he has that, you know, um, the, he has like the, the gravity and the, the, um, and the innocence that, uh, feel correct for, for "Building a Fort."

[11:16] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Totally. I never thought of it that way. I sometimes wonder, cause I knew Harrison from the "Carolina Change" cast recording and from getting to see it before I knew him, like, if we would be able to tell that was him on the cast recording, if you met him as an adult, whose voice had changed, but I really think you could, for all the reasons you just said, I think so.

[11:29] Joe Iconis: It still sounds like him. It's just there.

[11:31] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. Even, uh, even puberty did not rob him of that.

[11:34] Joe Iconis: Of his innocence.

[11:39] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Um, yeah, I love this song. It's a great track on the album. Thanks.

[11:43] Joe Iconis: Hey, thanks so much for listening or watching to my podcast. Uh, do me a favor and go to wherever you just listen to or watch this thing and subscribe or like, or give us a great rating or review and then head to bpn.fm slash album to find out even more information about this podcast, more ways to watch more ways to listen and check out my album album. Thanks so much for hanging out.

[12:07] Joe Iconis: "Album Podcast" is executive produced by Liz Armstrong produced by Dori Berenstein, Alan Seales, Kim Garris, and the rest of the team at the Broadway Podcast Network. Be sure to visit bpn.fm slash album for both audio and video versions of this podcast and to listen to "Album."