Gregory Brothers to perform at Bovard Auditorium

Real music often gets lost in an Auto-Tune abyss, where virtually any singer can be manipulated into poppy distortion. Auto-Tune is more frequently exploited by pop stars desperate to edge into the Top 40, but for a soulful, country-folk quartet in Brooklyn, the tool had another calling.

The Gregory Brothers, composed of three brothers and the eldest’s wife, use Auto-Tune to warp a series of unsuspecting politicians and journalists, rendering its diatribes into catchy musical news segments that the band posts on YouTube.

The result is a far cry from its homegrown roots.

“You can hear us do all the background vocals and most of the back tracks are made digitally but that’s still making music,” said Andrew Gregory, the middle brother.

Though Auto-Tune plays a major role in its songs, the four play tambourine, cowbell, guitar, drums and electric keytar in its videos, and even transpose the instruments into the hands of its unintentional singers.

Its snappy lyrics incorporate modern slang (the group has called then-CBS news anchor Katie Couric “shawty” and “baby boo”) and comically inappropriate jokes that parody their subjects.

Much of the humor lies in its ability to unleash unfiltered jokes in a political news-media context.

Gregory attributes the group’s ability to be loose and candid to its platform.

“One of the really cool things about working on YouTube instead of TV is that you can just totally go wild with it,” Gregory said. “We are so lucky that YouTube came along when it did, because we’ve been able to be as wacky as we want because of it.”

The band traces its roots back to 2007, before the group became YouTube famous. The three Virginian Gregory brothers were joined by the oldest brother Evan’s wife-to-be Sarah on tour.

“Driving around the country for three months in an un-air-conditioned van in August and September is a real crucible, both literally and figuratively,” Gregory said. “We had such a good time doing it that it was pretty clear we were going to have a pretty good time doing whatever with each other.”

When the group first began parodying the news, a large percent of its job involved scouring news aggregators such as the Huffington Post and the Drudge Report for fodder.

“I would just never wish that fate upon anyone,” Gregory said. “I think both those websites are so trashy.”

Now the Gregory Brothers have faithful followers that rifle through news stories and pass along suggestions via Twitter and email. Though many of its fans are young YouTubers, the band has also caught the attention of a handful of politicos. Gregory said the group has fans in the White House, C-Span and the United Nations.

Part of the band’s appeal comes from the cast of zany characters they use in their videos, including the Angry Gorilla and Junkie Einstein, an “ultra-Libertarians” who suggest a variety of drugs that should be legalized.

The band develops the characters together and its creative process has become so integrated that it’s often difficult to determine which Gregory conceived which character. Usually, the weird creations are born out of donning a slew of assorted suits in their costume department and seeing which ones stick.

“I guess we’re just silly enough people that we had accrued a series of weird outfits from friends and family members through the years,” Gregory said.

And about the gorilla suit: “It was a gift from our granddad. He used to wear that around his neighborhood.”

Before 2010, the group had amassed a cult of followers but their fame soared when they edited a clip of a young man’s interview on a local news station in Huntsville, Ala., named the “Bed Intruder Song.” It now has more than 100 million hits on YouTube and became the first YouTube song to ever hit the Billboard charts.

The young man, Antoine Dodson, is just one of many familiar faces that have graced the Gregory Brothers’ videos.

Notable guests include Darren Criss of Glee, Joel Madden, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the king of Auto-tune himself, T-Pain.

“We’ve never twisted anybody’s arm or called anyone so we’re really lucky that there are cool people that are our fans that reach out to us,” Gregory said.

The Gregory Brothers love their fans, and Gregory credits the audience with providing a lot of the news material that winds up in their videos. The band doesn’t take itself too seriously, so it can be a little unnerving when fans do, Gregory said.

“Every once in a while we have fans that say to us, ‘I love Auto-Tune the News or Songify the News because that’s where I get my news from,’” Gregory said. “Whenever I hear that, I am terrified.”

The Gregory Brothers are currently touring colleges around the country, and Gregory said the performers are especially looking forward to its trip to Los Angeles.

“We’re really excited to be doing [a tour] at USC because you guys have such an amazing reputation for a good media studies program,” Gregory said.

The Gregory Brothers will perform at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Bovard Auditorium.

 

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