This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Alan Seales: Welcome to the Theatre Podcast. Intimate, personal conversations with the industry's biggest names. I'm your host, Alan Seales, and our guests today, guests, plural, three of them, Keith Habersberger, Alex Lewis, and Huey Stonefish, comprise the comedy musical theatre band called Lewberger. And they became besties both personally and professionally. They tell that story. It's funny. They are such a cool combination of amazing, like conceived music. The music itself is phenomenally well composed and put together. So they're this great combination of amazingly conceived and produced music with extremely funny lyrics. The lyrics are actually amazingly good. So you pair that with the music and it just sounds like this amazing, amazing thing that everything they do just comes out top notch.

And case in point, their new album, Lewberger & The Wizard of Friendship, is a cast recording of their successful sold-out off-Broadway run that they just concluded. And on this album, they've got special guests that are gods in the improv world like Wayne Brady and Alex Brightman. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Before we get into it, you know the drill. Find me online on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, all the places. And now everybody, please enjoy this episode with Keith, Alex, and Huey, aka Lewberger. We have an amazing trio of guests today for the episode that comprise the amazing, talented, and super handsome comedy band, Lewberger. Lewberger is Keith Habersberger, Alex Lewis, and Huey Stonefish.

Not Stonefish, Stonefish. That's three words. Thank you. Who got standing ovations, one, a standing ovation on America's Got Talent and were finalists on NBC's Bring the Funny. Their viral songs have been heard by bajillions online on TV and been described as the illegitimate love child of Lonely Island and Flight of the Concords. Keith is a member of the internet sensation's The Try Guys, boasting also bajillions of subscribers and their own production company. Alex is an actor-comedian who can be seen on several TV shows and movies, like All About Nina, as well as the Valley Girl remake. Huey is an Emmy award-winning songwriter and a music producer-educator with a nonprofit, bringing arts education to his hometown of Syracuse, New York.

And as they continue to sell out shows across the U.S. and Canada, their original musical Lewberger and the Wizard of Friendship just finished a celebrated sold-out off-Broadway run for which the cast album, featuring some improv royalty, I might add, is about to drop on June 23rd. Keith, Alex, and Huey, welcome to the Theatre Podcast.

[3:02] Huey Stonefish: Oh, what a lovely introduction. Thank you.

[3:06] Alan Seales: You are very welcome. And Huey, I want to go back to something that we were talking about before I wrote my intro. I don't know yet if I'll keep it in part of the episode or not. You were saying that you were just about to buy a new guitar because you gave an old one to a fan. And I jokingly were like, oh, you just gave away your instruments. But then you actually gave a legitimate serious answer of like paying it forward and trying to bring music to people. So touch on that for a second.

[3:34] Huey Stonefish: I did. Yeah. I'm very excited to be buying a new bass right now for my instrumental collection. I love playing the bass. And yeah, I have something actually that I have a new record I'm working on that my co-producer on that record, Kev Lou, recommended to me a couple of years ago when I was looking to sort of upgrade some of my gear was he suggested I see if I have any fans or supporters who are looking for instruments. And so I reached out and saw if anyone needed a bass and someone said they did. And so we met up in a safe public location and I gave him the bass and signed it. And I've done that a couple of times now. And I just, you know, musical instruments, it's not it's hard to sell them and it's a great thing to give.

And I just love to be part of people's musical journey. And, you know, our fans are such a big part of our journey. That's why we were able to go do Wizard of Friendship. That's why we were able to make the Wizard of Friendship album. That's why we're able to go on tour. So we're so grateful to them. So this is just a way that I can personally give back some gratitude for our fans.

[4:28] Alan Seales: That's lovely. And it seems like the three of you are all just so friendly and loving and inclusive. Right. And so what we've been seeing everything on TV and on Internet with your bajillions of followers and everything, you just seem like you're having genuine fun with each other on stage and online and whatnot. So I'm sure you've told the story a million times, but I need to hear it where like, how did you meet and why all of a sudden, like you all have your own individual projects. Why do you continue to work together as a trio?

[4:58] Keith Habersberger: I'll just briefly say we all met in high school and we were all doing the drama club and we just sort of went our separate ways. But since high school, we've always just dreamed of being in a comedy band together.

[5:08] Alex Lewis: That's not true. No, Alex and I met at a networking event. We both talked about how much we just loved doing comedy music. We wanted we were looking for another partner, writing partner. So we joined together and we felt that there was something missing with just the two of us. We found Huey one way or another. He was sort of the perfect fit. And it's one thing when you can immediately vibe and make comedy music with each other, but when then you can right after rehearsal turn to each other and be like, hey, man, can I just like talk about something that's on my mind? And that person is willing to just hang out and talk through, you know, a life issue or moment. You know, it just seemed like the three of us got along.

And I think our benefit is that we're three different people who have a lot of different things going on, because all of those things always educate you about what it is that we're doing here. And yeah, we have a lot of fun together because I don't know how you don't have fun doing comedy music. It's just almost is like an alternative definition for the word fun. Right. You're singing, you're goofing off, you're dancing, you're making jokes. People are both at a concert and at a comedy show at the same time. You know, most comedians don't get to do the same material forever, but every band does. So we kind of get to do funny songs that people know the jokes for forever. What a cool experience.

[6:27] Alan Seales: I guess, Alex, for you, why comedy? What is it that's drawing you to the comedy side of music? Because you can, I mean, all of you can do so many different styles, but what is it about comedy specifically?

[6:41] Alex Lewis: Well, I'm just not handsome enough to do not comedy. I'm too weird looking. I've got a giant nose and really curly hair. Nobody would take me seriously if I didn't do comedy. So that's the nice thing. You know, people look at me and just if I'm walking the streets, I'll just laugh at me generally. Like, that's just kind of how I live my life. So it just seemed like a natural place to go. I can sing. So, you know, I figured put the two together. No, I am. Alex is very handsome. It's just fun. Alex is very handsome for anyone who's only listening to this. However, what he said about how people react on the street and continue to only listen. It is true that people do react crazy. He's a very handsome gentleman.

[7:22] Huey Stonefish: That's very kind of you, Huey, and my mom thinks so, too. But we know I I think I just I've always enjoyed me personally. You know, I comedy is what I've always enjoyed watching the most as far as musicals in general and as far as content in general. Comedy is my favorite thing. I think, you know, becoming a comedian and starting to study it, you definitely get like a love hate relationship with comedy and it can be, you know, the most fulfilling and exciting thing to watch. It can also be the most heart destroying, like boring thing to watch. And we've experienced both aspects of that. But, you know, I it's fun to take observations or just things from your life and or things not from your life and create funny things and make people laugh, like making people laugh is, you know, very fulfilling for all three of us.

And, you know, I it's another thing about laughter, especially when it comes to live performance, is if you're performing live and you make someone laugh, you can actually feel that within you, as opposed to, you know, if you're doing like a drama or something like that, there's there's less if there's more conspicuous, like how the audience is feeling at any given time. So, you know, feeling the laughter and feeling the applause out of that is very exciting. And it's just something I've personally and I think the three of us have probably all wanted to chase ever since we started doing comedy.

[9:00] Alan Seales: Do the three of you each have a specific education in performing or music or both? Like what where what kind of begot the other?

[9:08] Keith Habersberger: Yeah, we all do have a pretty separate but equal sort of performance background. I went to school and I have a theater degree, but I initially spent the first two years both doing theater and playing French horn in a wind symphony. So I played French horn forever. I currently play a lot of brass instruments. Huey graduated from Berklee School of Music. He's a songwriter and he's been doing tons and tons of gigs. Alex has been performing. You know, he's one of those musical theater kids from the womb sort of things. Been in millions and millions of productions. And so between Alex's musical theater experience, Huey's more traditional music writing experience and my stage improv. And I mean, we all have improv experience, stage improv and playing a wind instrument as being one of 70 musicians on a stage where every person's only playing one little part. I think we have a great, well-rounded music and performance background that allows us to bring a lot of different things into our stuff.

[10:14] Alan Seales: So hold up. You have a degree in musical theater, but you don't know any musical theater songs.

[10:19] Keith Habersberger: I have a degree in theater.

[10:24] Alan Seales: Oh, just theater. So you know many monologues.

[10:29] Keith Habersberger: Yeah. I mean, I went to a school that, I went to Illinois State, which is actually like a realism and Shakespeare theater school. Those are the things they do really well. I'm not good at those things necessarily, but ISU also has one of the best college improv groups in the country. I was in that group and then I toured with an improv group out of college and did all the improv and sketch side of things. And that's where I learned to do video production. That's how I ended up going through the world of BuzzFeed and Try Guys and all that as well.

[10:52] Alan Seales: What's the BuzzFeed background actually?

[10:52] Keith Habersberger: Oh, I worked at BuzzFeed for four years. I was one of the earliest people in their video department. I was there when there were only 20 people in the entire BuzzFeed video team and worked there, created the Try Guys there. We were the people who made taste tests format on the internet really amongst millions of other raw formats. So I grew up in the school of creating and stuff at BuzzFeed. So lots and lots of history in viral formats and all that stuff. And now Try Guys, it's its own company and we make a lot of stuff. But yeah, I started there and Alex worked there and Huey has done stuff featured when we worked at BuzzFeed as well. So we've been working in the viral stuff landscape for like eight years in one way or another.

[11:47] Alan Seales: That's insane and very cool too. And Crossover, Alex Brightman is in your cast album.

[11:57] Keith Habersberger: Yes. For along with Wayne Brady and Deshaun Wesley, two just amazing individuals finding of their own accord. And I talked with Alex, I've known him for a couple of years and I interviewed him when Beel Juice was on Broadway the first time before the pandemic, if you remember that.

[12:13] Alan Seales: Yeah, of course. And wait, you remember that long ago? And something that, I think he was the first like really uber comedian.

[12:25] Keith Habersberger: I hadn't met previously, hadn't known personally until that point, that opened my eyes to the fact that comedy's fucking hard. And you have to take it extremely seriously to be good at it. And so, like, the interview was very straightforward and very serious about, like, here's the method, here's what I'm doing, here's how I'm taking it and dissecting it. And it sounds like the three of you as well are kind of following that same path, because there's the funny guy in the conversations, when you're out in social settings, and then there's people who can write funny things and aren't that sort of, you know, funny, the class clown, more or less, right? And so, when the three of you met, I guess Keith and Alex, you met first, like, were you making each other laugh first? And then you were like, hey, we should do something with this. And then, but we're only 90% funny. We need Huey to make us 100% funny. Like, what's the formula?

[13:24] Alex Lewis: Well, I do agree with those percentages. Huey is 10% of the funny.

[13:26] Keith Habersberger: No, go ahead, Keith.

[13:36] Keith Habersberger: I mean, what I would say is that our formula specifically for our comedy music is that the lyrics are very dumb, very silly, very jokey, but the music is incredibly seriously produced, which makes the jokes way funnier. I mean, Alex Ryman does a really wonderful job in Beetlejuice of singing everything so wonderfully, and he occasionally gives you, like, a peak that he can sing beautifully. But most of the time, he's singing with this gravelly, crazy voice. But when he shows you that he's capable of so much musicality, suddenly, it's so much funnier. And his ability to jump between genres and his ability to sing, his history with how much work he's put into being a good musician makes him so much funnier.

And the same way, when you hear our album, if you were listening to the lyrics, you'd be like, wow, this is just really well-produced music. But once you start listening to music or the lyrics, you're like, oh, wow, this song is stupid. It's that much funnier that we're taking a song called I'm a Dick, which is a song about a sausage coming to terms with the fact that he's actually a penis. But it's as beautiful as a lament in Les Miserables. So that makes it way funnier. And I'd say that all of us have Class Clown in us. But all of us also take what we do very seriously.

[15:02] Hughie Stone Fish: Yeah, one thing that Keith says about our concerts that I think is really, it's a good sort of map for who we are, is a lot of the times our shows are like, me and Huey are on two sides of a ship, like a boat. And we're both doing something that's making the boat rock. So we're taking it, the show is a boat. It's rocking. And Keith is up in the crow's nest, just screaming, wait, you need to stop rocking the boat or we're going to capsize.

[15:36] Keith Habersberger: Yeah, it's sort of like controlled chaos, but I'm not sure who's in control.

[15:42] Alex Lewis: Yeah, that's what I was going to point out. There's like the structure of like the lead singer or whoever it is. It doesn't seem to be like you are an ensemble band and you share in everything. And it's part of the strength that I think makes Lewberger so successful.

[15:59] Keith Habersberger: We're going to take a short break. Stay tuned for more of the episode.

[16:02] Alan Seales: It's interesting, Keith, what you were just saying about taking the music so seriously, because when I was listening, I've got a sneak peek of the album I've been listening to. And I actually wrote down one of my favorite lyrics that I was like, I love these guys. The lyric is, we wrote a song about vaginas and that does not define us. I was like, that is a rhyme scheme that I can get behind and I love it. And but you're right that I was appreciated at the beginning when I was starting to listen to your point. I was like, man, this is really good music. It's actually good music. It's not like a comedy album of somebody up there with a guitar acoustically, which could be good. No offense to that, but you know what I mean?

[16:52] Keith Habersberger: Yeah, it's a hugely produced full orchestration of a cast album. And because of that, I started to let that fade into the background of my psyche and was really focusing on the words. And that's what made them funnier, because I could appreciate them that much more. So you did your job. You did your job well from this reviewer.

[17:13] Keith Habersberger: Thank you.

[17:14] Alan Seales: All right. So you're together, you've found your 100% funny formula. And then, like, where then does America's Got Talent come in? Where does NBC's Bring the Funny come in? Like, is there a turning point like that where you're like, oh, now we have to take ourselves seriously as a comedy band?

[17:34] Keith Habersberger: I think the first time we really probably because, you know, we'd been doing, you know, this show in the back of a comic book shop for years. And I feel like the first time we really started to, like, go, okay, we can really focus on trying to get on big things like that is we got to open for Garfunkel and Oates back in 20, I think, 2016?

[18:01] Alex Lewis: Yeah, it was 2016. Maybe.

[18:03] Keith Habersberger: Yeah, it was the Cabo Del Mar Music Festival at this, like, San Diego race ground or, you know, like racetrack or something like that. And it was a giant music festival, like Fall Out Boy was playing, Aerosmith was playing. And we just, like, I remember the day before we saw another comic go up. We were in, like, the comedy tent opening for Garfunkel and Oates. And we saw another comedic musician go up. And he, like, totally bombed. He just totally bombed. And I remember thinking, okay, this could kind of, oh, God, this is, you know, this could be the end. But then we went up and we only had 15 minutes. And we, like, had them sort of eating out of the palm of our hands. I mean, we had such a blast. And it was just this, like, raucous 1800 seat venue with, like, tons of people. And I feel like that was sort of a turning point right there for the three of us. Anyway, Huey, what were you going to say?

[19:03] Hughie Stone Fish: No, I mean, I was just going to say, I think that's all very accurate. And really, you know, we had been doing this, the three of us, this trio for a while, playing all around L.A., starting to build some of our, you know, a lot of fan base and following. And then we started doing one-take music videos. And that was a big turning point for us. We were like, we need to have something online that's creative and fun, but also isn't going to cost us a million dollars or $200,000, I guess, stupid idea, you know, talks about that. But this was before stupid idea that can show our creativity and also, like, uses what we have, which is a camera and some friends we can call up and pay like $150 to shoot three music videos for us.

So we put those online and those one-take videos were a big impetus to getting us on Bring the Funny. It showed the production team there sort of what, you know, we might be capable of, like what we did with the phone. And they were like, cool, if we put them on TV, what could happen? So that really helped to launch us a little bit. And then we got to Bring the Funny. We were finalists. And then our tours really took off. And then recently, as you mentioned, we were on America's Got Talent. We performed with Terry Crews. He came on our podcast. We had our podcast. So those things, you know, the TV, the touring, the viral videos, the touring back on TV, and now the Wizard of Friendship. It's been a great process for us.

[20:18] Hughie Stone Fish: With everything. And I knew once we, because we did Bring the Funny first. And what that show was, was they were like, we wanted to bring in comedians who we know were good. We don't want this to be American Idol, where it's a gigantic audition, where anyone can audition. They specifically reached out to us because of those little one-take musicals we talked about. And when they reached out to us, I was like, oh, yeah, we could do this. But I was very hesitant of just like going on American Idol. They really want to own everything about you. And I didn't want that. But luckily, that specific production really was focused on giving good comedians good exposure and not trying to take advantage of them.

And we got very far in that and met Jeff Foxworthy, who truly kindest guy, really supportive. And once we started performing for A Legend of Comedy and him and Keenan Thompson, and they're like, wow, you guys are legitimately very good. And even after the taping was over, they would come over and say, no, you're like, actually very good. It gave us more confidence to start taking some bigger risks and swinging bigger. And then we started touring. And even our first tours were just in the Southern California area. And they weren't bringing in 300 people. They were bringing like 60 to 80 people to these little comedy clubs. But now through everything we've done, we were able to sell out 400 seat theater in Vancouver or stuff like that.

So we're definitely in a great period of growth. But it's because we're very strategic about having a very specific TikTok format, having a musical that we produced, having albums that we produced. We have a special on Amazon Prime. So we have sort of planted all the seeds in different areas. And we're starting to be able to harvest some of the work, I think.

[22:04] Alan Seales: Well, speaking of Lewberger and The Wizard of Friendship, obviously, there's musical theater background in your lives. And Alex, it sounds like, I mean, you know the songs. You can play all of this. And did this come out of your headspace? Or at what point were you like, yeah, we just got to throw our hat in there to get on Broadway or off Broadway because of what reasons?

[22:32] Alex Lewis: Well, I think a lot of it came from just the idea that we, you know, one thing that Lewberger sort of struggled with externally for a long time was people being like, what are you guys? Are you a band? Are you a comedian? And blah, blah, you know, this constant not understanding of what a comedy band is. But I think in the past probably year, we've sort of identified, OK, we're a musical theater act is what we are. We live in the world of musical theater, which is great for us because it allows us to do basically any genre because any genre can be in musical theater. And it just gives that clarity to the people who are like, oh, I like this, but I don't really understand what it is. We're doing musical theater.

That's what we do. So when we put out our first comedy special, it was more of a concert, which is great. And it's awesome. And that's what we do on tour a lot of the time. But I think just for the next comedy special, we really wanted to put our stamp on it and go, look, we are a musical theater act. We're going to write a musical about us and about our friendship and take our songs and make them the sort of backdrop for that musical. And that's what we did. And so that's where it came from. And we were certainly inspired by a lot of the originality of comedy specials that were coming out of 2020, which really kind of enlightened us as far as like what a comedy special can be. It doesn't need to just be a concert.

It doesn't need to just be somebody, you know, you got Bo Burnham inside. You've got our buddy Danny Jollett put out a crazy like special that he filmed in a bunch of different locations. And, you know, even, you know, just there's been some real innovation in comedy specials in general. So we that's I think we just want we can still be that comedy band that we are, but incorporate the musical theater that we've now come to really identify with.

[24:37] Alan Seales: Do you write your concerts as full end to end stories? Because normally I just saw a concert concert the other day, and the songs themselves don't have any through.

[24:51] Hughie Stone Fish: The Wizard of Friendship is a musical, and when we tour it next spring, it will still be a musical. Some things will change. We'll not be able to take the amount of people and stuff necessarily as we can when we're in a single location for a month. The actual normal Lewberger, normal, I don't think anything about our show is super normal, but our comedy concert that we do around the country, while there's not a specific storyline that gets you from the top to the end, there are fairly scripted, although also improvised, segues between songs. So, there are scenes that set up the scenario of the next song. So, while it's not like a story like Peter and the Wolf, perhaps, it's a story of the three of us.

I mean, that's like the best thing I can think of is like, when is there a story with a concert? There is a story of us getting from thing to thing. You don't know what Peter and the Wolf is? I feel like I used to watch it. What happens? He's a boy king. Peter and the Wolf is when the entire symphony has each instrument represents an animal in this story, and there's normally a narrator that tells the story, and then they talk about a certain animal, and the flutes have like, and it's a great show. If it's ever at your local symphony, go see it. It's an old, old thing, but it is like, in some ways, it is very funny, but a lot of it's just sort of a dramatic. It's like a child story, but it's really well done with an orchestra.

I digress. Our show has comedy scenes that connect the songs, but it definitely is more seeing a concert sing song to song to song, but what makes it theatrical is that we have choreographed dances, that we have costume changes, that we physically go into the audience, that at some songs, we take things from the audience. We bring audience members up on stage. It's a very interactive comedy show that is just best described as wildly theatrical, so since we do comedy and it's a wild theatrical music experience, we call it musical theater, which it is. Well, right now, I mean, even theater in general is open to interpretation, musical theater even more so. Look at what is up for best musical. As we're recording this, Tony wins haven't been announced, assuming there will be Tonys with the writer's strike.

Who knows? But look at all the different formats that are up for best musical, like Kimberly Akimbo versus Ann Juliet versus Some Like It Hot. I mean, three very different styles. New York, New York, I mean, everything. Even with what's coming out, like Here Lies Love, they're getting rid of the seats. Yeah, they're turning it into a nightclub. That's going to be insane.

[28:18] Keith Habersberger: And so I agree with that. And so when pulling all of this into The Wizard of Friendship, I guess the character names are just as stupid as the lyrics are, which is amazing. So you got Alex Brightman as Flim Flam the Sausage Man, Wayne Brady, the Wizard of Friendship himself, and Deshaun Wesley is a giant bird in a man suit, which is his actual character name. So are you going out and you're like, man, we need to hold open casting calls. Who can we get for these amazing parts? Or are you just texting Alex Brightman? You're like, dude, like...

[28:49] Hughie Stone Fish: No, no, we had a full audition process. There was some strong consideration. Alex Brightman just put in an excellent audition tape. It was so close between him and Jack Black, but we had to go.

[29:08] Keith Habersberger: No, what happened was we, you know, our friends who are also our heroes, we found out that they actually liked what we did. And then we thought, oh, my God, do you think there's any chance they would say yes to being on our album? And so finally, we built up the courage to ask them if they want to do it. And so they all were like, hell yeah. Thanks so much for asking. We'd love to do this. And, you know, then we recorded with them in the studio.

[29:33] Hughie Stone Fish: Where do you meet? Like, where do you just run into Wayne Brady?

[29:36] Keith Habersberger: Actually, sometimes you do. At Disney! The originating thing with Wayne Brady is that I was at Disneyland. Alex Lewis, you were there, right?

[29:48] Alex Lewis: I was there too. It was all three of us.

[29:49] Keith Habersberger: You were there too. That's right. We were all there. With my wives. And we were walking across Pixar Pier. And I just heard, hey, Keith! And now, like I said, I work at BuzzFeed. I have a very big online presence, so I'm not super surprised for someone to recognize me at Disneyland, of all places. It's a million people there. And I turned around, and I was like, oh, there's a fan calling out my name. And I see, and it's Wayne Brady. And I was like, all right, this is eight-year-old Keith, who, you know, was so excited to watch Whose Line Is It Anyway? He watched it standing up in his living room. Not sitting down, but standing up. I would watch it standing up, because I wanted to participate along with them, because it was so fun.

He and his daughter were at Disney, and he was basically asking if I would take a picture with her. And I was like, yeah, can I take a picture with you? And that led to him saying that he was a fan of what we did in the BuzzFeed all in Try Guys. And then he saw our duets online and thought they were hilarious, and he wrote to us about one. So we invited him to come hop into a concert we did last winter, where he was like, hey, do you want to come do some duets with us? He's like, sure, what else could I do? And we're like, anything you want. And so he came and did a few numbers with us, and we improvised a song with Wayne Brady, which is definitely a dream come true. And in general, you know, he, like us, really loves what comedy music is and wants it to be more than it is.

There's not very many comedy musicians that exist that you could name or comedy bands. So he wants to support the growth of this art form. And he's very kindly lent his talents to us. And truly, I think that we are friends. And, you know, it's very, very cool to be able to say that. And, you know, he even further, like he recorded his parts for our album, even though he was sick, because he really wanted to do it. And it was really great. But yeah, like we found these talented people. They like us. They agreed to be on our album. They make our album so much better.

[32:00] Alex Lewis: Alex Brightman, I met through a Try Guys video, but also he knew who we were because of these duets. I tell you, TikTok, if you can find a format that can do well on TikTok, and you can do a lot of it, it can really do a lot for you. The duets have done a ton for Lewberger. And it's great.

[32:23] Hughie Stone Fish: We've been really blessed because we have this series that does Broadway songs. So they've gotten a lot of good success. So a lot of Broadway shows have invited us to come do it with them. And so we've gotten to meet their cast and make videos with them and sing with them and play with them and just build, you know, some of them have, like, like Keith is saying, like some of these people have actually turned into friends, which is just so cool, because they're people that we've all admired for so long. And now they're our friends and collaborators.

[32:46] Keith Habersberger: So we've been really blessed because we have this series that does Broadway songs. So where did Huey and I went?

[32:53] Hughie Stone Fish: Oh, sorry, I was just gonna say Huey and I went and saw Six last night. And they're, you know, in the playbills, there's always these advertisements for like the Broadway cruises. And we've got this running joke with Rob McClure, that about, you know, like, oh, we're gonna come we anytime we get a playbill. It's got Rob McClure in it on this Broadway cruise. So Huey and I take a picture of us and the playbill. And this time, it also had Alex Brightman. So we texted the two of them together, like being like, we're getting ready to set sail, boys. I can't wait to watch you on the cruise. This is really dumb bit that we have.

[33:40] Keith Habersberger: Where did the like, what you're doing with the Broadway shows? Where did that idea all spawn from? Like, I know the words and I don't that that was brought so much joy to so many people when, like, we were itching to get Broadway content back when the industry was just starting to allow people to touch each other again in a friendly way.

[34:03] Hughie Stone Fish: Yeah, it came from us. I mean, it was we were trying to figure out what Lewberger's TikTok presence would be. We had auditioned a few different formats. This was one that we came up with at a wedding, Huey's wedding, Alex and I were out just asking about some song that I didn't know. And he is my shadow. But I think what actually it was is Alex being like, we should do some duets of Broadway songs together. Do you know this one? I said, no. Do you know this one? He's like, no. Do you know this one? No. And then we're like, maybe that's it. Maybe it's that I don't know. And we I just make them up. And so we set a time to record a couple at my house a week later, and they did well. So like, OK, let's do it again.

And even the first ones were lounge jazz standards. They weren't even Broadway numbers. But then we found out even more specifically that Broadway songs are so much better and they have a built in audience. So we were able to start finding more people who would like us by doing a parody of what it is they already liked, which, you know, this is basically a parody, although it's an improvised parody.

[35:12] Keith Habersberger: Do you go learn the words after you sing it or you just like still screw it?

[35:20] Hughie Stone Fish: No, don't know. In fact, I think I from watching our own TikToks have learned the wrong words. Like, I hear them and I'm like, oh, yeah, they don't sing the right words. We get tagged in videos all the time that are people like, I just went to perform on stage and I sang the right saying, like your lyric, like, oh, God, no, no. The Beetlejuice ones were some of my absolute favorites. I mean, like those are more of the rock songs anyway. I mean, I like I like all of that. That's that's a little more upbeat. But yeah, it's brought so much so much joy.

[35:47] Hughie Stone Fish: And then last thing about Wizard of Friendship is the ultimate goal to bring it to Broadway. Do you want to adapt it into something else? What's the long play for that?

[35:54] Keith Habersberger: We have a lot of goals for all it's worth. Yeah, I mean, you know, the thing is, we did this off-Broadway run and it was really successful. We had a great time. Everyone who came to see the show had a great time. Now we have this album that we're really, really proud of and we can't wait for everyone to listen to. And, you know, we will be touring some version of it in the spring. There's just so many things that we can do. And at the same time, there's so many things that we can do. So we never want to, you know, limit ourselves. We're so creative. We love working together. We always want to create new things. So we definitely have the goal of being on Broadway. And if it's a Wizard of Friendship that's on Broadway. Awesome. Let's rock and roll. If it's the next project we do that's on Broadway, that's cool. If it's both, that's great. You know, we love making stuff together and all that.

[36:42] Hughie Stone Fish: Yeah, I mean, the song is stupid idea to put on a Broadway show. It's true. It's very expensive. It's a really risky gamble. I mean, I from doing our show gained, obviously, so much more respect for the world of theater and how hard it is to do how many things you have to be thinking about how it really does take a team of hundreds of people to and years and years to get a show, even a show that fails after a month on Broadway, man, that's impressive. It's really hard.

[37:15] Hughie Stone Fish: Get that far at all. And so, you know, I would love for us to figure out a way to write a Broadway musical. At the same time, like you said, we have a lot of different ambitions that might not be our next ambition, but I think it's on our, you know, our timeline somewhere along the way. And also, just in thinking of like how we do more as a business of Lewberger, writing musicals that other people can be in and can license and do later. Part of the fun of musical theater is that you get to do them, you know, like you get to be in a student version of Phantom of the Opera, maybe like you get to be in them and our show isn't really written for you to be in. So I think we want to create some more properties that our fans and other musical theater fans get to participate in eventually.

I was gonna, you know, make a joke about like, having the show dethroned Adam's family as the most licensed high school production. But you, you sort of Well, I want to ask a serious question, though, because now it sounds it's interesting, because it sounds like to me, the three of you are so is equally focused on creating and writing for others as you are for yourselves, which your typical sort of, I guess, comedian, I wouldn't put that comedians don't write for others. A lot of times you can't the comedies for yourself.

[38:38] Keith Habersberger: Yeah, I mean, that's true. But musicians write for each other like crazy songwriters, right for everybody. And I mean, in the business side of things, that's how you make money, right? If you can write a song for someone who can use way more famous than you to sing it, you're going to make money. And that's not one of our ambitions is to, you know, be profitable with comedy music. That's cool. But I do think it's like, I, if you want to be a good writer of musicals, you have to learn how to write for other people, not just yourself. And also, you get to make musicals. And then you bring in an Alex Reitman, and he, he helps you figure out what his part is, right? When you're really making a musical, you workshop it, it's very, very collaborative.

This, our show was very collaborative. But there was a lot that we had collaborated on prior to arriving there. And there were lots of things we continued to collaborate on, but we didn't build it from the ground up in New York. So I don't know, it's just it's fun. It's hard. It's, it's the hardest, I think we've worked on any one thing ever.

[39:44] Hughie Stone Fish: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's, we definitely, it will also probably depend on the project itself. Like, you know, if we wrote the next six, for instance, which I don't know why you would go to us to do that. But you know, if we wrote a show for, you know, six women, that that would be, we couldn't do that show. But, you know, if we wrote a show, like, you know, a bit that a couple of us could be included in or three of us or whatever, like, then maybe we'd be a part of that and just kind of it's also project dependent.

[40:19] Keith Habersberger: Yeah. And we're like, as a group, I think we would love the opportunity to, you know, write something like the next Legally Blonde, right? Take an IP that exists that's popular. How do we make it into a good musical? I think that's something we would are actually very good at. And because of our variety of genre, I think we can bend to a lot of different properties. So we're hoping that through all the projects we continue to do, when somebody is like has optioned some great thing, and they're looking for a talented trio of guys to help them write this as a musical that they think of us.

[40:55] Hughie Stone Fish: Well, the Nancy Drew musical was just announced a day or two ago. And so what's missing now from my childhood is the Hardy Boys version of this.

[41:01] Keith Habersberger: There you go. Right. There you go. Just putting that out there. We need some Hardy Boys musical action. Encyclopedia Brown could be a great musical. If you're familiar with that childhood favorite of mine. TGIF, all about step by step. Let's see, starring, characterized Suzanne Somers and Patrick Duffy.

[41:18] Alan Seales: Okay. So three closing questions I ask everybody to wrap up the episodes. We'll try to keep your answers summarized so we can get to all three of you. So I'll start with you, Hughie. The first question then very simply is just what motivates you?

[41:37] Hughie Stone Fish: What motivates me? Yeah, man. What motivates me for what? To eat healthy, to not eat healthy, to practice piano, to do nonprofit work, to go on tour? Is that all I get? To get up in the morning? This is an open ended question on purpose. To get up in the morning and take that next step. What are you doing it for? I like to be able to have influence on the world. And I have found that the more success I have in my career, the more influence I get to have. That's one of my motivations.

[42:21] Alex Lewis: My crippling neurosis.

[42:29] Hughie Stone Fish: Which is not a wrong answer.

[42:29] Alex Lewis: No, I know. It's a very right answer. My crippling neurosis and fear of failure. Those two things motivate me the most, I'd say. You are definitely the most musical theater of the three of you. So yeah, that's on par. That's on brand.

[42:45] Keith Habersberger: I ultimately just like to make people laugh. It makes me feel good. It makes me laugh. So probably that's the simplest answer. I like to get up and I'm probably going to make somebody laugh today. And that's great. I love that.

[42:59] Alan Seales: All right. So Alex, we'll start with you this time. What advice would you give to your younger self and younger people listening now starting out down a similar path?

[43:09] Alex Lewis: Okay. What advice would I give to my younger self and advice to, oh Jesus, don't be afraid to get on anti-anxiety medication. And also, oh, you know what? I would have said, I think if I could have started writing earlier, that would have, like writing, you know, not just comedy music, like writing actual scripts earlier, it taught me a lot. And I think I could have, if I'd really just put my mind to it, I could have done it. And, you know, you learn so much with every new thing you write. So that's the advice I'd give. Write your own stuff.

[43:53] Keith Habersberger: Take piano lessons. I wish I'd taken piano lessons. I never took piano lessons. And as much of it is a stereotype of a thing a kid doesn't want to do, I tell you, if you think you want to do music, it's going to be the very best thing you can do for yourself.

[44:10] Alan Seales: But you play all the brass, but you don't play, you never learned to play piano?

[44:14] Keith Habersberger: That's correct. I play, they're just, they're very different instruments, you know, one note at a time.

[44:20] Alan Seales: That's true. A limited amount of fingers, even. It's a monophonic instrument.

[44:31] Hughie Stone Fish: I have two pieces of advice for my younger self. One, don't be afraid to be the worst person in class. You should strive to be the worst person at everything you do, because then you'll be surrounded by people who are better than you and you can learn from them. And the other thing I would say is just release music. Put it out. When I was younger, I was very precious about everything that I put out. And I think looking back now, if I had just been consistently releasing music from when I had time that I graduated from Berkeley to now, even though a lot of that music would probably not be very good, I would have more people that were interested in listening to my music. So those would be the two pieces of advice.

[45:14] Keith Habersberger: Yeah. And advice to anyone out there listening who wants to make stuff online, since that's so much of what we do. Online videos, content, it's never finished. It's released. Yeah. You know, you don't have time to be precious on something that really doesn't make you any money back. You need to make it, put it out there, move on, learn from it, make another thing. You got to make, I mean, Lewberger has made thousands of pieces of content. You have to do that for every, you know, and for every 50, one will hit, right? So you just got to crank. You just got to not be precious, not be upset that something doesn't do well. Just learn from that thing and try again.

[45:56] Alan Seales: All right. Keith, we'll start with you for the last question. It's the hardest one. If you can only see one show for the rest of your life, but you can see it as many times as you want, what would you see?

[46:03] Keith Habersberger: A theatrical show, I'm imagining you're suggesting. Hmm. Oh, what show would I see if I could only see one show forever and ever? Maybe, I mean, Beetlejuice is really fucking fun, but I-

[46:25] Alex Lewis: You were in it.

[46:25] Keith Habersberger: I'm right. I know I was in it. Beetlejuice is a blast because it's visually so ridiculous, but I also love Book of Mormon. And I'm proud of any comedy musical that becomes, you know, stays forever, right? Like that's got to be the hardest thing to do. So I think I will go for Book of Mormon only because it inspires me a lot of what I would hope to be able to make someday.

[46:49] Hughie Stone Fish: Um, you know, I just saw Jill Scott perform and her show was pretty awesome.

[46:59] Alan Seales: Her show's- Jill Scott on Broadway.

[47:02] Hughie Stone Fish: Or you know who I saw, Melissa Etheridge, who did have an off-Broadway show and I saw her do her full band show and that show was sick AF. And she has a Broadway show coming.

[47:11] Keith Habersberger: There you go.

[47:11] Hughie Stone Fish: Yeah. Maybe, um, Jill Scott, Melissa Etheridge, and, uh, Further on the Roof.

[47:18] Keith Habersberger: That's the all Yiddish version.

[47:24] Alan Seales: Alex.

[47:31] Alex Lewis: Uh, either Urinetown, Spelling Bee, or Avenue Q.

[47:33] Alex Lewis: No, I would go- You love Cats.

[47:36] Alex Lewis: I love Cats, but if it was the only show I could see for the rest of my life, I'd probably go fucking crazy.

[47:40] Alan Seales: Urinetown. Not Cats?

[47:45] Hughie Stone Fish: Yeah, I agree.

[47:50] Alan Seales: I would, I would see it once and go, okay, I never need to see Broadway again.

[47:54] Keith Habersberger: I guess I'm done with theater.

[47:58] Alan Seales: All right. Uh, Keith, where can we connect with you? Online.

[47:58] Keith Habersberger: You can catch, catch me at Keith Habs across all the platforms. You can watch me on the Try Guys YouTube channel. You can also catch Lewberger there a lot. I do a show called Eat the Menu where I eat everything. Lewberger is a frequent guest. Uh, and you can also find me on the Lewberger YouTube channel as well. So anywhere, any of those places you can find me.

[48:15] Alex Lewis: Uh, my social is I the number eight of Thumbtack, uh, which is a holdover from my AOL instant messenger screen name from 2003. But I, you know, one, I didn't change it in time and that's what people know me as. Um, and you can find me at Lewberger, you know, everywhere else, TikTok, Instagram, all that stuff.

[48:44] Hughie Stone Fish: Oh my goodness. All right. Uh, Huey, we're going to connect with you. I'm H-U-G-H-I-E Stonefish. Huey Stonefish. You can check out my nonprofit, the Arts Project Syracuse at the Arts Project Syracuse.

[48:55] Alan Seales: And do you hate when people say Huey Stonefish? Like combine your second and last name?

[49:02] Hughie Stone Fish: That's my name. So, you know, I appreciate when people say my name, uh, at all.

[49:13] Alan Seales: Well, thank you. Thank you. Uh, I think all three of you, man, this has been so much fun. I really appreciate it. And everybody please listen to Lewberger and the Wizard of Friendship album out on June 23rd, everywhere you stream your comedy music, which is everywhere you stream music. It's fricking funny. Thank you guys. Appreciate it.

[49:29] Lewberger: Thank you. Thank you.