Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Heart of Karaoke Singers: The Villains of Karaoke with Tiana Hennings (Next Door Villain)

The Villains of Karaoke

Adam Wainwright: Hello and welcome back to the greatest song ever song poorly. The podcast that takes karaoke. Exactly as seriously as it should be taken. I'm your Mr. Oogie Boogie host Adam Wainwright..

Ed Cunard: And I'm just gonna try to boogie down with you. I'm Ed Cunard. I know that's a reference from something, but man, am I blanking?

Adam Wainwright: It's a reference to the villain of "The Nightmare Before Christmas", "Mister Oogie Boogie says troubles close at hand. You better pay attention now. Cause I'm the boogeyman."

Ed Cunard: yes, yes, yes. I remember that now.

Adam Wainwright: I love that song. That's a "great karaoke track out there. Just, this is the karaoke podcast. I figure I'll drop some hot karaoke tracks in the mix every now and then, you know, let the people know.

Ed Cunard: And there's a solid chance that by the time people listen to this episode, you and I have done in person karaoke for the first time in a long time.

Adam Wainwright: That's a fact, Jack. That's why I'm feeling saucy today. I'm ready to go. My bachelor parties, it's this weekend for me now, but as you're hearing this listener was this past weekend. So we'll be sure to fill you in on the updates on the next episode, but I'm ready to go today.

I'm feeling saucy. Ed, do you have trivia today? Is that, is that in the cards today?

Ed Cunard: That is in the cards today, Adam. And since we are talking to Tiana Hennings of the "Next Door Villain" podcast, it only makes sense that our karaoke trivia bullpen should focus on something related to that. So in case you somehow forgot. Here's what you'll get five trivia questions based on the episode's topic with varying degrees of difficulty.

Each question is worth one point. So the top score for any round is five points. If you get stuck, you can ask for one hint per game. Even if you get all of the questions wrong, you can still win by answering the impossible question. Get that one. Right. And you get all five points, but remember, even if you save your hint, there are no hints for the impossible bonus.

Adam Wainwright: Hmm. Interesting.

I, I agree to these terms.

Ed Cunard: It's nice that you're agreeable Adam, but you know what? Some people in this world are not, again, talking to Tiana Hennings of "Next Door Villain." So. Trivia today is gonna get a little bit evil and our trivia today is gonna get a little bit bad.

[BAD “CRIMINAL” BY FIONA APPLE PARODY]

I mean, Adam, I was feeling like a criminal putting together this round of five questions, plus one impossible bonus for you. Now, obviously "Criminal" will not be a factor in these questions tonight because that would be tipping my hat too much, but all of these questions tonight. I'm calling a wretched hive of scum and villainy, because it's all focused on villains and bad people and things like that.

How many points do you think you're gonna get tonight, sir?

Adam Wainwright: Ed, I've always been more of a hero man, myself. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna give myself a solid two.

Ed Cunard: Solid two. I think there's at least one. That's a lock for you. And I think, I think you might do a little bit better than you thought,

Adam Wainwright: Okay. Well, we'll find out let's let's

Ed Cunard: we're gonna find out let's, let's roll into it.

Adam Wainwright: let's go.

Ed Cunard: Question one, one of the things that often comes up is protagonist versus hero and antagonist versus villain. Can those be flipped?

If a villain bears his heart and song and sings quote. "Penny will see the evil me, not a joke, not a dork, not a failure. And she may cry, but her tears will dry. When I hand her the keys to a shiny new Australia." Does that change things, name the online musical. Those lyrics are from.

Adam Wainwright: And I could sing the entire musical for you right now. Let's Dr. Horrible sing along blog.

Ed Cunard: All right, man. I, I, I had to make sure that we got at least one point in there for you. It's gonna get a little harder from here on

Adam Wainwright: sure. That's fair.

Ed Cunard: Question two. The thing about villains is that a good villain? Probably doesn't think of him or herself as a villain, right? In the 2019 song, "Bad Guy" popular both among the kids and the people who watch TikTok.

This contemporary pop star sings the lines. I'm that bad type. Make your mama sad type. Make your girlfriend mad type. Might seduce your dad type. I'm the bad guy, subverting a lot of tropes, common in music and it earned her song of the year at the 2020 Grammys. What's her name?

Adam Wainwright: Was it? Billy Eilish?

Ed Cunard: It is Billy Eilish. And thank you for not asking for a hint, cause I really didn't have one prepared for that. And.

Adam Wainwright: That's fair. No, I, I was, I got there like first off for some reason, Ariana Grande popped into my head. I'm like, no, it's not her, not her. So we got there. Good.

Ed Cunard: As a slight tangent. I never really listened to that song before putting this trivia together. And I cannot wait to get to my next regularly scheduled karaoke night. Cuz I am singing that song. That song as a bath.

Adam Wainwright: It's a bang.

Ed Cunard: Yeah. Question three sometimes though the villain does tell you that he is in fact the villain.

In 1982's "Bad to the Bone," a karaoke staple. The singer is a guy who openly and explicitly states that what he does is manipulate women for his own ends. The actual trope, the song in the last question flips, it's a really fun, well known song. So there's no surprise. It shows up at karaoke a lot. The artist who did it was a partial inspiration for Frank Turner's current tour, as he was the first artist to do 50 shows in 50 states in 50 days.

Who is he?

Adam Wainwright: George Thorogood.

Ed Cunard: Correct? You might be sweeping this one,

Adam Wainwright: I love, I love that tune. That's a good tune. Why, uh, to the bottom.

Ed Cunard: Question four. One of the things our guest show focuses on is having empathy for the villain and an easy way to have empathy for a villain is to find a villain who never intended to be a villain in 1986's "Moon Over Bourbon Street," this performer and songwriter said his composition quote. " Was inspired by a book by Anne Rice called 'Interview with the Vampire,', a beautiful book about this vampire, which is a vampire by accident.

He's immortal and he has to kill people to live, but he's been left with his conscience intact. He's this wonderful poignant soul who has to do evil yet wants to stop. Once again, it's the duality, which interested me" end quote, name this British singer who while releasing this as an early solo effort was also the front man singer and basis for our, for a new wave band from 1977 to 1984.

Adam Wainwright: Okay. So there's two artists that popped into my head right now. I'm trying not to use the hint. I'm gonna go with Warren Zevon.

Ed Cunard: That is incorrect. It was Sting.

Adam Wainwright: Oh, okay. That was not one of the two artists in my head, so we were good.

Ed Cunard: Question five in 1968, the Rolling Stones released a song that made references to a lot of atrocities in history, everything from the killing of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, the assassination of both John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy and world war II. Name this iconic song. That's often sung at karaoke, at least by me.

Adam Wainwright: I don't remember what rolling stones. I, I didn't realize you sang any, rolling stone song at all.

Ed Cunard: sing a couple.

 You do have a hint.

Adam Wainwright: yeah, go ahead and gimme a, I think I have a guest though, based on the context of this,

Ed Cunard: Calling back to our last question. This hint is Guns & Roses covered the song for the soundtrack to the movie "Interview with the Vampire" in 1994.

Adam Wainwright: that hint does nothing for me, cuz I never saw the movie "Interview with the Vampire." The one that popped into my head just because, All things considered with the topic of this episode, sympathy for the devil.

Ed Cunard: And that is the correct answer, Adam four outta five.

Adam Wainwright: Hell yeah.

Ed Cunard: can lock that into five outta five, if you somehow manage to get the impossible bonus. Right?

Adam Wainwright: Well, hit me with it Ed. Let's go.

Ed Cunard: So that last question focused on the devil. One of the most well known interpretations of the devil is John Milton's 1667, epic poem "Paradise Lost."

Written in blank verse, much of what we know of Satan in popular culture stems from things Milton wrote, including the line better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. Now that said one of the most evil things in paradise lost isn't Satan, but a poetic form. There are points where Milton spells things out in the first letter of lines in a poetic concept, known as an acrostic.

In one case in book nine lines, 510 to 514 of paradise lost. Lines related to the fall of man. Begin with letters that spell out Satan. I am going to assume that your very literate self is familiar with acrostics.

But you may not be familiar with this one as no one was for centuries. In 2018, an undergraduate student discovered three instances of acrostic that had gone previously unnoticed: variations on the word fall. What university was this student attending?

Adam Wainwright: Oxford,

Ed Cunard: I am sorry, but Miranda Phaal was an undergraduate at Tufts University.

Adam Wainwright: Uh, good old Tufts university. The, the fighting cockhens.

Ed Cunard: I have no idea what their mascot is, but we're gonna leave it at

Adam Wainwright: It's the fighting cockhens in this universe. Now the Tufts fighting cockhens. If you are a fan of Tufts university and are offended by the fact what we called them, the fighting cockhens, please leave us a message and let us know what their actual thing is. We'll correct it in our universe. If not, they're just the fighting cockhens now in.

Ed Cunard: But Adam man, four outta five, you were the hero of the villain round.

Adam Wainwright: Uh, every good hero needs to understand his villains. And I feel like that makes him a more effective, you know, fighter, but you know what? I really wanna talk about ed. I wanna move on from the trivia. I was great. I know. I'm amazing. It's cool. I wanna talk about karaoke and specifically, I wanna talk about the villains of karaoke.

Ed, can you gimme a list who were the villains of karaoke?

Ed Cunard: Adam let's first establish that if there's anybody who's, the heroes of karaoke it is you and I, and we are going to vanquish. I said, vanquish, the villains of karaoke tonight. That means we are taking on the mic, droppers, the stage hoppers, the fake namers, the line hoppers, the sneaky drinkies and the show stoppers.

Adam Wainwright: Preach ed preach.

Ed Cunard: But really karaoke nights have archetypal villains. There are certain things that you find in your travels at karaoke. And these are the six that we have identified as the big villains of your average karaoke night. If your, if your night has a villain, not all nights will, but if they have one, they're probably gonna fit into one of these categories, Adam, who's our first villain.

Adam Wainwright: Ed, I wanna focus in on the mic dropper. It's. I feel like this is where people like, oh, okay. I think there's an illusion that occurs at karaoke sometimes where people, you know, this is their superstar moment. It's your moment on stage. Everybody's watching you. And what pop culture has taught us is when you are the star of the show, you can do whatever the fuck you want.

 Guess what? You can't. Okay. So. You may see your favorite superstar, have a mic drop moment. It might be Barack Obama saying he's the leader of the free world in a freestyle rap battle dropping the mic, but he's the leader of the free world. He can drop the mic that shit's expensive to a karaoke DJ. So, yes, they're a villain. If you see somebody drop the mic or it looks like you're gonna drop the mic, use your superpowers and dive and catch that shit before it hits the ground. That's how you can be a superhero for the mic dropper you got.

Ed Cunard: Exactly people think that that mic drop is a punctuation mark, but it's not punctuating how great you are. It's punctuating. How much of a Dick you are? Don't be a Dick.

Adam Wainwright: Don't be a Dick. I'm gonna make a t-shirt that says that you've made all the t-shirts so far. I'm just gonna make a t-shirt that says don't be a Dick, but ed what was number two again? You were preaching so well that I was catching every other words, every other one, as it turns out. So you're gonna have to fill in the blanks and some of these other ones.

Ed Cunard: So, so the villain number two of karaoke is the stage hoppers. Now, Adam, I want you to think back to our halcyon days when we were younger and I still had hair, there was a bar we used to go to called yesterday's party, and I'm not gonna name this person by their actual name on the mic. But do you remember that one girl who would get up turn every song into a duet that she wasn't invited to?

Adam Wainwright: uh, ed, these are. These are some real villains right here. Like they, this isn't fictional shit like this isn't pop culture, fictional, villain this is a real villain. Like, oh God, I can't.

Ed Cunard: it's one of the most obnoxious things you can do at karaoke and like any other interaction you can have with a person at a bar duets should be consensual. Do not just hop up and start singing with somebody without their expressed permission,

Adam Wainwright: Oh, it's the most uncomfortable shit in the entire please. Don't Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. It's not even an entertaining villain. Ugh. God. Okay. I'm I'm a little sick now. So I wanna move on. I just wanna get past that one. I just wanna use like, make like the, the flash and dash away from that one. Can we do that ed?

Ed Cunard: you can run, run as fast as those, those, those big legs will take you.

Adam Wainwright: And when I run, I run so far away, I run into another villain. And this is the fake namers. No, I'm not talking about your karaoke, pseudonym, ed. You know what it is

Ed Cunard: I actually don't have a karaoke pseudonym, but I wish I did that. I do.

What is

Adam Wainwright: it?

all the golden Teddy bear.

Ed Cunard: I have never called myself the golden Teddy.

Adam Wainwright: Other people have that's well, that's how you got the pseudonym. I I'm now decreeing it. That's people have called you the golden Teddy bear. I'm sorry. We've been doing it behind your back. Ooh.

Ed Cunard: This is a podcast. So that means that this is obviously then true. And, uh, I guess I am, I guess I am the golden Teddy bear, but what do you mean by the fake namers, Adam?

Adam Wainwright: I, I mean like somebody, I I'm trying to think of what a good example for like modern media would be. It would be like, uh, what was that really annoying movie? Like? It would be like Mike Myers. Okay.

Ed Cunard: Okay.

Adam Wainwright: It would be Austin. Powers. Austin Powers goes up, signs up for something Funkadelic to sing.

And then two seconds later, he's Dr. Evils up there to sign up for a song and then he goes away and then a gold finger comes back two seconds later, sing for a song. So all of a sudden this person's on the list. Three times they put in three different names and just kind of like. Slid their way in there.

It's tougher to do. If the karaoke DJ is like typing in names to go along, but a lot of places still use the slips of paper and that's where they can get you. It's like, well, that'll be the equivalent of me putting Adam David and that a Wainwright on the three name slips.

So technically they're all rights. That's my middle name. I go by that. That's my first name. That's my last name. They're all me. Oh, do these people make you sick too?

Ed Cunard: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And you don't see it as often as you used to, but people still try to play shenanigans like that. Just like. Try to play shenanigans when they are villain number four on the set, the line hoppers guys, it's a rotation, not a weird squiggly. Do whatever the fuck order. Wait your damn turn.

Jeremy Bearimy

Adam Wainwright: I love. " The Good Place" reference here. That's so good. That's so good. In case our listeners didn't catch that. Ed, could you just like, can, can we put like a scratch noise in here or like a rewind noise?

Uh, so people could hear this again, cuz I want you to play that back just once. So go ahead. Can you play that joke back so we can hear it again?

Ed Cunard: it's a rotation, not a weird squiggly. Do whatever the fuck order. Wait your damn turn.

Jeremy Bearimy

Adam Wainwright: Yeah. Good joke, ed. Good joke. Tell me about the line hoppers though. Let's let's be serious.

Ed Cunard: I mean, these people take all sorts of ways to do it. You know, like, Hey, you know, I gotta get going. Is there any way I can, I can sing again now. So I, so I can get outta here. Um, my hamster's real sick and I, I would like to get home to my sick hamster. Can I sing now if I give you $20, can I sing next? I've seen all sorts of things like that happen and more, what about.

Adam Wainwright: Yeah. It's normally bribing with money it's oh, my friends really wanna leave. Oh, I gotta get home. Oh, my glass slipper. My car's turning into a pumpkin at midnight. They'll offer all kinds of things for some reason to like sing just a little bit earlier than they would.

And listen, if I'm a karaoke DJ, like, and somebody who's offered me like 20 bucks to move up in the rotation, that's gonna be tempting

Ed Cunard: my favorite story that I've heard from multiple hosts, which means this happens often enough is that somebody would try throughout at night and be like, Hey, listen, I'll give you 10 bucks. If I can sing next, I'll give you 20 bucks. If I can sing next, by the time they get to I'll give you 50 bucks. If I can sing next, they're usually already next in the rotation.

Anyway, if you're a host and somebody does that and they're next anyway, take that jerks money.

Adam Wainwright: Even if it's, I will, I will give them if it's $50 ed, I'm giving them leeway for one, I'm letting them skip one singer. At that point, I will like cuz the karaoke DJs need cash. Karaoke DJs can be a little bit of a villain. They can have a little villainy in them at that point, I think. And just for, for one, can we give 'em one, ed, everybody gets one.

Ed Cunard: No, I'm a hard liner, Adam. No one

Adam Wainwright: You can be a hard liner guys, just so you know, if you, if I'm ever DJing, if I'm the karaoke DJ at your event or whatever it may be, and you offer me $50, I will skip you one person in the rotation. So you can.

Ed Cunard: there are a lot of things Adam would do for 50 bucks.

Adam Wainwright: Hell. Yes, there is. Cuz I'm a little hard up for cash. Ed, when you're hard up for cash, what happens?

Ed Cunard: That's when you get a little sneaky Adam,

Adam Wainwright: You too, get a little sneaky ed. So I wanna talk about number five, the sneaky drinkies. I can't say that in evil voice.

Ed Cunard: there's no way to say that in an evil voice. No.

Adam Wainwright: a, I, I really tried to like, be angry about that, but the minute you say sneaky drinkies, it's like, it just wants to come out a certain way. It's great.

Ed Cunard: Who are, are the sneaky drinkies?

Adam Wainwright: they're people who're sneaking outside food or drinking too.

Any bar restaurant, whatever it may be, wherever karaokes at. God damn it. Listen, people. I, I know life life's expensive. I, I understand. I get it. And I don't wanna tell someone they can't come to karaoke if they can't drink, if they, they don't or can't drink. But come on, come on. If a bar doesn't see a return on investment of karaoke nights, you see what happens to karaoke nights.

They get cheaper. shittier host or cancel altogether. You're killing karaoke. When you sneak in drinks or food to go to a karaoke night. Ed, does that make the sneaky drinkies murderers?

Ed Cunard: I mean they're well, on their way, the only time I've ever been specifically rude to somebody at karaoke is when I caught them doing this at a bar in Altoona. And I'm like, listen, I get it. But you're so fucking shitty right now. I'm gonna highlight how shitty you are being right now. I wanna make sure everyone knows that you are just, you know, bringing in your outside shit. Don't do that. Just don't do that.

Adam Wainwright: don't do it. Pregame show up to the bar, a little buzz. Do what you gotta do to save some money. Don't don't feel like you need to bring the flask with you. Leave it at home

Ed Cunard: Flasks are for weddings and company functions only.

Adam Wainwright: Well, yeah. Most weddings. Yes okay. Ed, we, we are down to the most villainous of villains. I feel like now tell me about the last villain of karaoke to create our triumph. It's not a triumphant. I know that I'm using it ironically, but triumphant complete it.

Ed Cunard: you're leading me into saying the show stoppers.

Adam Wainwright: Yes.

Ed Cunard: When I say that I don't mean the girl who absolutely kills Adele to the point that Adele would be like, damn, no. I mean, the person who has their song started, they're like 30 seconds into it's like, wait, wait, wait, no, I, I flubbed the note or, or I, it didn't sound, it didn't sound.

Can we just, can we just start over? Can we, can we start over you mind? Or can we change? Can we just change a song altogether? Can we, can we do that?

Adam Wainwright: Oh, that one gets me the, I, I can't sing this. Can you, can you just gimme a different one? Guess what? If you can't sing it. Welcome to Ed and Adam's world. That's what I say. You.

Ed Cunard: Not being able to sing something has never stopped us probably to the chagrin of people who have been out with us.

Adam Wainwright: Oh, definitely to the chagrin people that have been out with us

Ed Cunard: . And I know that this list is not comprehensive by any measure. We would love to hear who you are loyal listeners think are the villains of karaoke. What's the worst villain you've seen at a karaoke night. Is it the guy who won't stop hitting on every lady singer? Is it the guy who won't stop hitting on every guy singer?

Is it the person who randomly throws a beer bottle? Because he really hates Garth Brooks. I don't know. Let us know. We want to hear your villains.

Adam Wainwright: oh, that's a story I haven't heard yet. I need to know more about this Garth Brook thing. So can you summarize for our listeners real quick? And then you're gonna tell me deets on that one.

Ed Cunard: So again, here are the six karaoke villains we have identified in this show. We are going after the mic drops the stage hoppers, the fake namers, the line hoppers, the sneaky drinkies, and the show stoppers. Adam, I know you want to hear this other story. So I say we just cue the fucking guitar and roll into our interview

Interview: Tiana Hennings, "Next Door Villain"

Adam Wainwright: If you're wondering why we spent so much time talking about the villains of karaoke, it's because we're talking to someone who knows more about villains and villainy than we do. As one of the hosts of "Next Door Villain," she and her co-host Joe bring empathy and humanity to the pop culture villains we love and hate. Tiana Hennings, welcome to "The Greatest Song Ever Sung (Poorly)."

Tiana Hennings: Ooh. Thank you. I'm excited to be here.

Adam Wainwright: yeah, we're so excited to have you here and talk about some villains and talk about some karaoke too, because the number one question we have, what's your karaoke origin story. Every good villain has an origin story. I feel like, and I feel like every good karaoke or somebody who's done, karaoke has an origin story.

 So hit us with your karaoke, origin story.

Tiana Hennings: Yeah. Um, oh, when I was in high school, so I was about 14 years old. There was a karaoke event that was happening one weekday night in the cafeteria that they put on for students and only like eight students showed up or something, but I really wanted to go, cuz I've always liked singing. I was in choir and I was just like, yeah, I wanna sing.

 And I went there and there was this one kid who was singing, "Strawberry Fields" in a British accent. He was not British, but he did. And I was like, oh, that's, that's very nice that, he's getting into the Beatles vibe. with his British accent. And then I went and there were like maybe five people sitting at a few different random cafeteria tables.

And I sang "Dance, Dance" by Fall Out Boy, because I was obsessed with Fall Out Boy when I was like between 13 to 15, 16 or so. And that's around the time that "Dance, Dance" came out, which is. It's kind of awkward for like a 14 year old to sing "Dance, Dance," because I can't quite remember all the lyrics right now, but I do remember being like, something about bed or like, like, like sexual, lyrics.

, I was just like, I'm just gonna keep pushing forward. Cuz I really like this song and people were just staring at me

Ed Cunard: it's weird to think back about some of those songs that you were singing when you were younger. I was in a group discussion with some people and they were asking questions like, what's the song that you sang. That you probably shouldn't have been singing at the age. You were singing it. And for me, it actually goes back to what you were just saying.

It was "Please Please Me" by the Beatles, because that song is certainly not just about be nice to me and I'll be nice to you. It's a very specific, be nice to me and I'll be nice to you, but seven year old me did not know that. you though, you're like us in a way. You've gone to karaoke alone.

When you didn't have any friends to go with. What's a karaoke night, like for you when you're flying solo?

Tiana Hennings: I went solo because it was during a time when I had moved to a town that I had never been in before. Like I hadn't even visited the state or the town before I moved there. It was Spokane Washington. And I'd never even been to the west coast really, or the Pacific Northwest at least. , I really wanted to get out, but I didn't have anyone to go out with.

I tried doing like Bumble for friends and I had a little bit of success with it, but the people I met on there just like were not able to go. So I went to this pizza joint that also does karaoke on like Saturday nights and it, they had good pizza and it was really cheap. And I was really, you know, interested in the cheap pizza I had just moved.

And so I was broke and it was like my first job out of grad school. So I, I didn't have much money And I just, I, I took an Uber actually, I think, because, you know, I wanted to drink a little bit because sometimes that can help me talk to people better, or just like not freak out that I'm alone.

 And so I sang "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley. , and there are a few groups of friends there and they're all very nice. I think it's not until after I sing that people start to come up and say stuff to me, or kind of wanna talk because the song and the voice that kind of acts like a conversation starter. But before that, I'm just a random girl, like standing there and, and no one really questioned, like no one really took the time to analyze me.

Most people are either buzzed or about to be drunk. And so. It didn't matter a whole lot. And then I just kind of leave early, cuz I don't wanna, you know, twiddle my thumbs too long. And then I just kind of sit and watch other people. So that was mostly in Spokane

Adam Wainwright: I'll tell you what, that brings back memories for me, because I've done this too. I've done the exact same thing. I moved to an area where I didn't know anybody. I'd never been to that area before. It was like the Louisville Kentucky area. Didn't know anybody, but like one of the first things I did because I.

Gone through our phase with ed. Our very rabid phase of karaoke was just before this. So I, I sought a karaoke spot. And if anything, I don't, wouldn't say I formed like lifelong friendships from there, but I got to know like, got to be friendly with people and got to be social. And it got me outta the house.

So I love that you used karaoke as an avenue to be social. Love it, but I realized. That karaoke. Isn't a lifestyle choice for everybody, for ed. And I clearly a certain amount of a lifestyle choice, but there are also plenty of casual fans like yourself. can you tell me what karaokes like for a casual fan?

Because it's been so long since I've been a casual fan of karaoke,

Tiana Hennings: I know I just talked about like going alone, but as a casual friend, I mostly go when other people will go with me. I'm. Particularly thinking about like one to two friends, really good friends that I know from college who are willing to do karaoke with me. I feel like as a casual fan, I have to gauge when they're available and if they wanna go.

And, it's usually when we're just ready to go out. and so it might as a casual fan too. I have like one to two key songs that I go to, but I feel like if I were more serious about karaoke, I would have to think of like so many more songs that I would need to practice and read the lyrics to, to make sure that I got it.

 I would have to have so many more. Songs in my repertoire and I just don't as a casual fan. I've just got my go to that. I'm like, I can do this really well, the others maybe, but I'm not gonna take my chances. I'm not gonna spend time outside of karaoke to practice more songs. I'm just gonna do like the one to two that I know, and know that I can sing confidently in front of people.

 . I go out usually when other friends are able to go out. And when other friends are able to go out, I do like to do a duet. Sometimes I have done, I know that. This is probably the most overdone karaoke song in the history of karaoke. You would know this better than I do, but I did sing.

"Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey with my friend the night before a college, speech tournament. So sometimes as a casual fan, you just go like on a whim. Like sometimes you don't even plan for it. You're just like, oh, we compete at 6:00 AM tomorrow. Let's go drink and sing "Don't Stop Believin'" in front of all of these people.

We don't know in this small rural town in South Dakota. So

Ed Cunard: What you said makes me think of like other places is I have seen the diehard karaoke people who only sing the same two to three songs

Tiana Hennings: Oh,

Ed Cunard: every single week, regardless of how many weeks they go to that bar.

Adam Wainwright: Or, or what the atmosphere of the bar is. It, they are completely unaware of all of that.

Tiana Hennings: Interesting.

Ed Cunard: so in that sense, you are just like a regular. Karaoke bar goer. So you should feel, you should feel comfortable in that

Tiana Hennings: Yeah.

Ed Cunard: For somebody who is a casual fan, you've surprisingly done karaoke all over, but the place I'm most curious about is you did karaoke in China while studying abroad. What was doing karaoke there?

Like.

Tiana Hennings: Yeah, it was great. I probably did karaoke there more than any other place, because it was so readily available. I did it in Chongqing, China, which is in Southern China. , and I was there studying Mandarin and you go into a big building, maybe with several different businesses in it. And maybe you go to like the fifth floor or something, and that's like the karaoke floor.

And. You get to have your own personal room, that you share with your friends and friends of friends. Maybe they have some of that in the United States. I'm not sure, but I know that in China, most of the time you get your own private room with your friends to do karaoke with you, don't sing in front of people.

You don't know, like kind of in an open. Bar. and you know, you walk into that room and it has a massive screen on the back that the music video will play with the lyrics on it. And you have your own machine to choose your songs. And everyone in the room usually sings. At least once they have mostly Chinese.

Music. But they do have some English songs. So I would take advantage of that. I would sometimes sing Lady Gaga, but sometimes we would try to challenge ourselves to learn a song in Mandarin or a Chinese song. Especially cuz that would help us learn the language. Like we were going to school for Chinese.

So maybe we should practice that or at least kind of try. It was also a little bit harder because the lyrics are in traditional characters, but we were learning simplified Chinese characters because in the mainland you usually use simplified characters, but the music videos and, and the karaoke music, It had traditional characters instead, which is mostly used in Taiwan.

 And so that had another layer of difficulty, not to mention like the pronunciation and trying to sing in a language that's not your own. My friend learned this song called "Qìqiú," uh, which is by Peggy Hsu. And it's a really fast paced song with like lyrics that rhyme with each other. And that means "balloon."

 She would say these words over and over like different words very quickly throughout the song and my friend learned it, which was a big challenge, cuz it was so fast. She had to sing those lyrics so quickly. I tried to challenge myself with a song called "Wèi Nǐ Xiě Shī" which means "write a poem for you."

 I actually never got the courage to sing it at karaoke, but I still learned it. I can still sing some of it, but I think there was a lot of pressure, like when you're in front of people and it's like, you know, these traditional lyrics are on the screen and, you're trying to sing in a different language and you hope you don't mess up.

 So usually I would stick to the English songs. I sang a lot of Lana Del Rey songs, like in China, just kind of random, but I did. And usually everyone in the room, friends and friends of friends, maybe there's like 15 to 20 people in a room and you can order drinks for your room. You can order snacks for your room.

 Usually everyone would sing , you'll have to tell me about your experience, but when I'm in the United States, I feel like there's a lot of people who like aren't good at singing or quote unquote. Aren't good. Who really, really don't want to sing at karaoke, but are there for the show?

And if you try to get them to sing, they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And that happens a lot in the states, but when I was in China, of course, like I only have a sample size of like 50 or something. But when I was in China, like everyone would sing. It did not matter what they sounded like. They would just be like, I'm gonna sing. And it didn't matter like what they sounded like, what, what they felt. It just. They just sang, they didn't care. You know, like if they felt that they weren't as good as the next person, you know, everyone was just having a good time. And, um, so I really appreciated that in China, a lot of my American friends and Chinese friends, you know, would kind of have that vibe.

Like, I'm just gonna sing so of saying, so.

Adam Wainwright: I think it might be tied a little bit to the, just the culture, uh, in, in that area. I, I spent about three years in Japan, so I got to be familiar with Japan's karaoke scene. A lot of what you're saying rings true. As far as like, and the thing that tripped me out about Japan was like, you go to any bar and they had karaoke.

They just hand

Tiana Hennings: Oh, that's awesome.

Adam Wainwright: Yeah. It's a little ti you pay them $2. They hand you a tablet. They hand you a microphone. So it's so ingrained in the culture that it, it was never seemed like anybody pushed back against it in any of the places that we were, and everybody would be into it and participated over the course of the night.

It's a very interesting thing, but yeah, I think you have a very fair point where there's a lot of people in America that are just gonna say no, no, no, no, I don't want that. And I just don't think it's like that in some parts of the world, but I wanna come back to something you said, and I want you to expand on it just a little bit for me.

So you said You sang a lot of Lana Del Rey China.

Tiana Hennings: yeah.

Adam Wainwright: tell us about some other songs that you love singing at karaoke. I feel like we never ask this question and we need to ask it more, but Tiana tell us some songs you just like singing at karaoke.

Tiana Hennings: My go to, is you and I by lady Gaga. Have you heard that one?

Adam Wainwright: Mm-hmm

Ed Cunard: I sing that one fairly regularly.

Tiana Hennings: that's awesome. I haven't met someone who has also sang it, so, yay. That song just really works well with my voice. It's in my range, a lot of Lady Gaga songs are in my range. and I really like that. Plus she mentions Nebraska a lot.

It has kind of this rural vibe to it and I'm from South Dakota. So I'm also from the Midwest. I even have family in Nebraska, so I feel. I mean some pride, at least like when I sing the song, I'm like, yeah, Nebraska, you and I. I just feel really empowered by "You and I" by Lady Gaga. another one that I mentioned earlier is "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley.

 In my range, I like the way it sounds. I also sang that song while one of my friends was beatboxing it? not like at a karaoke, but like just in our apartment. And he could beatbox really well and he could beatbox, Gnarls Barkley "Crazy." And then I would sing it on top of that beat and it sounded so cool.

I was like, I don't know why at that moment I didn't record that or something, but I was, that was like in college and, it always sounds pretty good. There's not a particular Lana Del Rey song that I sing. Just kind of whichever ones are available because her songs work pretty well with my range too.

I've always liked Lana Del Rey. she reminds me a lot of late high school, early college, was when her first album came out.

Ed Cunard: That's very cool. I don't know a lot of Lana Del Ray stuff. Personally, the only thing I really remember about her is that she has a song called "Diet Mountain Dew,"

and I drank diet mountain Dew, and I download the song and I don't think I've ever actually listened to it,

but it's very tempting to

give that a shot of karaoke.

Adam Wainwright: full disclosure. I just Spotify-ed, Lana Del Ray, just to kind of look at the top hits and I'm pretty sure the name of this album is called "Norman Fucking Rockwell" and now I have to listen to this album.

Tiana Hennings: Yes, that is a very good album too. Um, I listened to that one a lot throughout 2020.

Adam Wainwright: Oh my God. I wanna listen. I'm reading the names of the tracks in this album, and I need to go listen to this. You have opened my eyes. Thank you for introducing me to this in general. Cause this is great.

Tiana Hennings: Yes.

Ed Cunard: If it's not obvious, Adam and I are kind of old and relatively unhip at this point.

Tiana Hennings: I mean, you're just products of your generation, like. Gen Z is gonna make fun of me soon, but your, your gen X is that right?

Ed Cunard: well, I am Adam. I think she just called you out.

Adam Wainwright: I did. I'm a millennial still I'm

Tiana Hennings: Yeah, I'm

a millennial too.

Adam Wainwright: I'm I'm the edge of the millennials, like towards, towards the very border, but I'm, I'm so millennial, I'm gonna

firm, I'm gonna grasp to it.

Ed Cunard: he's an elder millennial

Tiana Hennings: Okay. I'm a young, I'm a younger millennial.

Ed Cunard: so we have almost three generations here, which is great. A whole lot of different perspective to bring.

Adam Wainwright: You can't just say two generations of you have to

Ed Cunard: No, no, no, no, no, no. You're, you're an elder. You're an elder millennial,

Adam Wainwright: Okay. Ed, if you won't, if you won't pivot, I'm gonna pivot now that we walk down this, because what I really wanna talk about with, I, I really wanna talk about your podcast. I wanna talk about "Next Door Villain." Now for those who don't know, you should learn real quick and go follow it on Spotify or anywhere you can listen to podcast.

 "Next Door Villain" focuses on understanding and empathizing with villains and pop culture. Uh, I love this podcast. I just recently dug in, I started with the "Phantom of the Opera" episode, cause I saw "Ooh, the Phantom of the Opera." I'm like. Yes. So I got to hear Tiana sing a little bit at the beginning. That's a spoiler alert.

Um, and that was great. You sounded great on that, honestly, like I was like, Ooh. Okay.

but it was so interesting hearing you guys break down like this, this awful kind of human being and really developing empathy for it and like attacking from different angles. so I'm gonna ask the question. Why is having empathy for the bad guy?

important?

Tiana Hennings: Well, there may have been a time in your life where you were the bad guy in someone's story and you probably would've appreciated someone understanding your side. it's tough, cuz you never want to like say yeah, it's good for someone to do bad things. But at the other hand, you wanna understand where they're coming from, why they did that bad thing, why they are the way that they are, so that you can maybe communicate with them better or think of solutions better to the problem, or you can help people. So there's several different reasons for why you might want to practice understanding the perspective of someone else, even someone who you might not agree with. you get to see their side of the story.

You gain perspective. when you understand why someone does something, it's easier to think of solutions on how to stop that from happening. Improving your empathy skills is important because if you can empathize with someone that you don't agree with, or with someone that you think is doing bad things, then it's gonna be easier for you to empathize with other people.

And that's going to enhance your relationships and enhance your understanding of humanity.

Adam Wainwright: a hundred percent. Agree with everything. Yes, yes, yes. Yes. I'm clapping. It doesn't play well on podcasts. It'll just blow up the mic, but okay. I have two things for you. On that episode, specifically, you calling Raol out on their shit. Yes. Okay. All day I loved loved that. The second one I have.

Okay. There's a very deep back catalog. Was there a villain that you ran into that was particularly hard to empathize with where you guys really started breaking it down? Like, how are we gonna do this? Who was that villain? and why was it so hard to find the empathy of that villain?

Tiana Hennings: That's easy. It was Jafar from Aladdin

Adam Wainwright: Okay.

Tiana Hennings: it was so hard because he's just a jackass. I don't know. He just, he's just like, let me enslave Jasmine, and then let me try and just take over because I wanna take over, You know,

Adam Wainwright: A gross.

Tiana Hennings: just, I think that entire episode we were just like, we don't really have anything.

Ed Cunard: But you guys tried.

Tiana Hennings: We tried sometimes. It's it. That's what matters. Like if you just practice it and if you just try, sometimes that is just a really great way to warm up your brain to get better at understanding other people. Another one was, Dr. Evil's. Cat from the Austin Powers franchise. We decided to do that.

It's a really short, like 15 minute episode. We did take it down on the main feed and it's gonna be in our Patreon so if you wanna listen to it, join the Patreon. But it was so silly because we were like a cat let's empathize. Let's relate to a cat.

Adam Wainwright: that's so much fun though. I lo I love that. I really do. I, I love that idea.

Ed Cunard: here's what I want to know from your perspective, cuz we talked about it earlier in this show. Who do you think the villains of a karaoke night are and how do you handle them with empathy?

Tiana Hennings: I've thought about this question and I was. At first, I was like, I don't think I saw any bad people at karaoke. Everyone seems great, I guess, maybe the guys that like keep hitting on you, you know, and don't like, it takes a lot, like to get, to nudge them away.

 Usually, you know, they do walk away or like I mentioned something like, oh, I have a boyfriend or something, and then they walk away. But sometimes they can be kind of pushy and you know, they're trying to get laid, I guess. They don't know that I have a boyfriend or something. And so they're trying, but at the same time, they should still learn, like they should still know better than to like be pushy about it, you know? And we say that a lot about a lot of villains on the podcast.

We're like, yeah, I can see why this villain and this movie did what they did, but at the end of the day, they shouldn't have done it. , and we're in a patriarchal society. And when you're in that type of society, men, not all, but some men think that they're kind of entitled to women and to what they provide for them.

And it can get overblown. And so, and just say no, and, I don't know. I don't know what I do. It depends on the person. Right. Sometimes I just walk away. I don't even say anything back to them or sometimes I yell at them drunkenly. It depends, you know, just depends, on what's happening, how pushy they are.

Adam Wainwright: Sometimes that's what it takes. And like, listen, you're gonna get no condescending opinions here, ed and I are both of the opinion to fuck the patriarchy. We try to be allies, however we can, but what, okay. I keep coming up with two questions. Cause we have questions that are written down, the questions that pop into my head.

Okay. So the first thing I need to ask is everybody needs to just take a moment right now and pull up "Next Door Villain" on their podcasting app, whatever you're listening to this, to pull it up. I'm noticing a trend as I've gone through all the backlog of the artwork that is custom done, it looks like for every single one of these episodes in a very particular like color scheme, who does the artwork for your episodes?

Tiana Hennings: That's a great question. At first it was Joe's ex-girlfriend and then. She did not do it anymore. And then it was one of Joe's friends who wanted some experience, doing some graphic design. So she did it for a little bit of time, but then she could have no longer do it, which is fine.

And we were like, gosh, do we pay like a new graphic designer? What do we do? And then Joe was like, I'll do it. So maybe. Don't know, starting at which episode, I wanna say maybe starting at like Gaston, he started doing the episode artwork and he is getting better.

Adam Wainwright: Oh, my God, Joe. Well done, man. Like, I'm looking at these and I love these. They like some of these, I wish I could just like pull right off of the internet and the web and put, put 'em on a poster. You need to check out the art and the reason I, I wanted to ask specifically about the art is because one of the cool things about your show is that you contribute creative, works about the characters you talk about and often in the form of poetry.

 This is the karaoke podcast. You know, you contribute poetry every now and then have you ever written a poem about karaoke?

Tiana Hennings: I haven't, but I will definitely consider it, but I wanna ask you. If I were to write a poem about karaoke and if I were to in, if I were to incorporate a villain into that poem as well, which fictional villain do you think I should input into a karaoke poem?

Adam Wainwright: Ooh, ed, please, please. I think I have my answer. I think I, I I'm a hundred percent sure I have my answer. Who needs to be in this?

Ed Cunard: Is yours from a web series.

Adam Wainwright: no. Although that's great too. I know the direction you're going with that. And I love that ed. I'm gonna let you tackle this cause I know my

answer.

Ed Cunard: so, my first thought, as soon as you said, that was Dr. Horrible, because if anything lends itself to karaoke, it is Dr. Horrible's sing along blog.

Tiana Hennings: I love Dr. Horrible sing a long blog. I would do an episode on it, but I think the show already covers Dr. Horrible's perspective pretty well.

Adam Wainwright: you have to do hammer hammers, the villain.

Tiana Hennings: yeah, he's like the hero

villain

kind of guy. oh, I love that movie. Cuz even though it's kind of short, I think it's only like an hour long or something it's so deep.

like, it doesn't seem deep at first on the surface, but then you're like, oh my gosh, all of these themes about whether the hero is actually a good person cuz Dr. Hammer sucks. Like he,

Adam Wainwright: he does. He's captain hammer sucks.

Tiana Hennings: yeah,

Adam Wainwright: Listen, we can't, we can't do this. I could nerd out about Dr. Horrible for a very long time. This strikes just the right nerve with me that we could do this literally for another hour, cuz I have thoughts and I love that thing. What I will say to everybody out there it's a Dr.

Horrible fan or casual fan is if you didn't know, there is a commentary track to Dr. Horrible sing a long. That is also a musical. It is called commentary the musical. And if you haven't listened to it yet, the next thing you need to do after you're done listening to this episode is go listen to commentary the musical.

You can find it on Spotify and you can listen to Nathan Fillon singing about how he's better than Neil Patrick Harris. That's his entire song it's called better than Neil. And it's amazing. Okay. But I'm gonna bring us back in. I'm gonna reel my I'm gonna de bury those feelings deep down and continue this conversation.

the first person that popped into my head was packer from the office.

Tiana Hennings: Oh, yes.

Adam Wainwright: That was the first person that popped into my head. Cause I think he even sings karaoke in that one episode,

Tiana Hennings: he probably does. I, yeah. I love the office. We did an episode on Jan from the office,

Adam Wainwright: saw that

Tiana Hennings: yeah.

I love that episode. I think it's probably in my top five favorite episodes. Partly cuz both Joe and I kind of nerded out about the office to a very intense degree. So yeah, packer. Oh yeah, he sucks.

Um, he's so bad. he's like he like poops in Michael Scott's office and

Adam Wainwright: Uh, I'll never get over. The first time, I think it's one of the first times you meet packer, cuz me and my fiance have started a rewatch. The one of the first time you meet packer.

you see his license plate that says, I think it's this. W L L H N G. And then, um, Ryan asked him if he's a big fan of William Hung and that's like my favorite moment, right? There is one of my favorite moments. Like why does everybody keep as, okay. Okay. Now I'm just, I'm nerding out about everything. We, we could have a nerd out session about a lot of things.

All the right nerves have been hit, but that's all the questions we had for you. Tiana, this has been great. We've nerded out. We've talked about some really great things. We've learned a little bit about your podcast, but now, now is the time that we wanna hit you with our best shot.

We're gonna play our quick fire air quotes, game. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna give you five questions, just answer whatever pops into your head. You don't know an explanation to anybody. They're your opinions, and you don't have to defend them either. . There's a caveat to this at the very end of it.

After five, it's only fair that you're gonna get a chance to fire away. So you're gonna be able to ask ed and I, any kind of question that you want and be solemnly swear karaoke, otherwise will answer, honestly. So all that being said, Tiana, you ready to play? Hit me with your best shot.

Tiana Hennings: yeah, hit me. hit me with your best shot.

Adam Wainwright: Exactly. So, number one, what is the best thing you have seen in karaoke?

Tiana Hennings: My friend, doing a mock American idol show at Disney world.

Ed Cunard: That's impressive.

Adam Wainwright: Love it.

Ed Cunard: Conversely, what's the worst thing you have seen in karaoke?

Tiana Hennings: Probably just like a bachelorette party, like singing many different things at once. Like just having a good time. I mean, I don't think it's that bad. It's just like chaotic.

Adam Wainwright: the singing, everything, a bunch of different things at once. Got me.

 Question number three. What is the one song or one of the songs that you would love to do at karaoke, but you've just never been able to find a good version of, or find it all,

Tiana Hennings: Probably. a Bob Dylan song.

I don't think I found a Bob Dylan. I can't remember the title, but it's one of his face, one of his best. I'm sorry, I didn't prepare for this one very

Adam Wainwright: That's all right. That's all right. We'll let it. Bob Dylan,

like one of the Bob, Dylan ones. Yes.

Tiana Hennings: Yeah, one of the Bob Dylan ones.

Ed Cunard: Now imagine that someone had kidnapped your family and all your loved ones and the only way to release them. Was to wow. The kidnappers with a karaoke performance. What song do you choose to free your loved ones?

Tiana Hennings: I'm gonna go the choral route and I'm gonna say Ave Maria.

Adam Wainwright: Ooh. I like it.

Tiana Hennings: Yeah.

Adam Wainwright: I love it. I that's, that's a great, oh man. Now I just wanna see somebody. Okay. Yeah. Now I'm envisioning this entire scenario. It's beautiful. It really is

so angels in the background

and the, the kidnappers are freaking out. Like it's great. Love it. So, last question. I, if you could magically strike one song from every karaoke playlist forever, uh, which song would you choose?

Tiana Hennings: I, I know this is boring, but I don't have one maybe. Okay. Maybe "Don't Stop Believin'" just because it's probably the most done. So maybe we've had our time with it.

Adam Wainwright: Oh, so instead of striking it forever, you're retiring.

Don't stop believing. You're, you're giving it an honorable sendoff and say, thank you for everything. All the joy you've brought, but it's time for something else to give us that joy.

Tiana Hennings: Yes

Adam Wainwright: I love that that's the most positive approach anybody has taken to this question.

And I love that those were great answers and I, I really appreciated it. but now you have a chance to fire away. So go ahead, ask at an I question that pops in your head and be solemnly swear we'll answer honestly.

Tiana Hennings: Who is a fictional villain that you identify with and would you dress up like them during karaoke sometime?

Ed Cunard: Hmm.

Adam Wainwright: So it has to be a truly fictional villain, right? It has to be created. It can't be based on historical person.

Oh man. Cuz I had my answer pop right into my head. I knew this and I had dressed as this person at karaoke. So.

Tiana Hennings: Oh, who? I am curious. Who is it?

Adam Wainwright: Okay, I'll come up with a fictional villain. but Aaron Burr was my number

one, right to the top of my head where misinterpreted as a villain, I have such deep empathy for that man in like his portrayal in society.

And I have dressed as Aaron Burr for a karaoke event. Ed, what do, what do you got?

Ed Cunard: I have two and one of them is questionably, a villain. But Ted Mosby from how I met your mother,

I read as villainous and I also identify entirely too highly with, because he is a pretentious son of a bitch. And so am I, but dressing up as Ted Mosby would functionally just be dressing up as myself because I was the same age as Ted Mosby at the time that Ted Mosby was Ted Mosby.

So that's just my wardrobe. Now for an actual, like villainous fictional villain. If I could pull it off, I would absolutely attend a karaoke night in full Dr. Doom regalia, cuz my ego is big enough that I could be Dr. Doom and that's just a banger of a costume. And I think it would be fun to make up a Latverian accent and sing something.

As Dr. Doom, and we're gonna curse you Richards as part of it. What about you, Adam?

Adam Wainwright: man. I'm trying to go through villains that are popping into my head. Okay. You know what? I'm gonna pick one and I'm just gonna see if I can empathize on the spot with them, cuz I think I can. I, I'm pretty sure I'm pretty, pretty good at this. We're gonna, I'm gonna test my empathy skills right now.

I'm gonna go with Lord Voldemort. I think I'll be an awesome karaoke presence to kind of appear as a Lord Voldemort on a karaoke stage. And listen, Lord Voldemort was just a misunderstood, brilliant child.

He had people try to reach him, but they tried to reach him in their own ways. They never actually took time to listen to him and understand him and where he was coming from, the struggles that he was facing. They were trying to project the ways that they knew compassion to be on him. And he clearly just needed something up.

Else to help him out. So as he was coming up and he started getting curious about this and children, we all have curiosity at that age and we all grow and we wanna learn and understand the world at this age where he is curious about these things, because somebody's saying no, no, no, you can't go in there.

The number one thing you're wanna do is you've gotta know more about that.

Tiana Hennings: Yeah.

Adam Wainwright: instead of pushing him away, I think if he would've just been brought in and understood and taught how to use these things and was able to learn about them, that I think his path and trajectory could have been very different, but Dumbledore being how he was just neglected to take care of the child.

So he turned out why he was because he was a victim of his circumstances coming up and a misunderstood child being projected on by adults who clearly didn't understand the brilliance behind him. So a as you grow up and you're constantly being rejected and misunderstood, like I, I think it's just natural, what he was doing.

He was seeking out society with zone. And once he discovered like this, this thing around him and he had these close group of friends in the death eaters, like he just wanted to share that with every. That's all he wanted to do. He wanted people to be part of his world, and now the ways he went about it is real, real shitty and, you know, killing people the whole nine yards.

 and if you disagree with me, then you're gonna die. But at the same time, really, he was just trying to share.

Tiana Hennings: Yeah.

Adam Wainwright: So what I would wanna do is I would wanna dress up as Voldemort and just share my karaoke prowess with everybody out there and make them be part of my world.

Ed Cunard: And the fun thing is now he is somehow less villainous than his creator.

Adam Wainwright: This is true.

This

Tiana Hennings: Well done well done. And you could dress up like him, but you might need to chop off your nose.

Adam Wainwright: This is true. I don't know if I'm ready to make that sacrifice. Well, maybe after my wedding, I'll have the

Tiana Hennings: Okay.

Adam Wainwright: here about chopping off this. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. That was it. That was great. I love that question. That's one of my favorites. I think we've been asked so far, so what we like to do right now, Tiana, the floor is your's whatever you wanna plug, whatever you wanna talk about.

Our show is now your. So do whatever you want with it for as long as you like, and we'll hop back in when it seems like you're done.

Tiana Hennings: Feel free to. Listen to our podcast "Next Door Villain." we're on Spotify, apple podcasts, good pods, all of those podcast players. and if. If you are someone who enjoys pop culture or villains, you can submit literary art, like poetry, prose, monologue written from the perspective of a villain that you're passionate about, and you can submit it to us, just go to nextdoor, villain.com/submit, and you can submit that to us.

And we might put it on the show. we're always looking for more literary art to share. I also just wanna say thank you so much to you too, for having me on

Ed Cunard: It, was our absolute pleasure. we both love your podcast. We're Patreons of your podcast and we are so happy you joined us. And we really hope to see you singing at a screen sometime soon

end notes: villains

Adam Wainwright: Now is the time of the show where we kindly ask you to go ahead and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podchaser, or Goodpods, just leave a review. Let us know what you think. Send us feedback.

Oh, what do you want more of? Less of exactly the same amount of like, you know, you know what I'm talking about. Like, you can't possibly take any more of this particular thing, but you don't want less of this other thing. Be very specific. We kinda love it. And that's all I have say yourself.

Ed Cunard: Yeah. And the best place to find any information to send us an email or to have a link to a review, or to just keep up with us. And our merch store is sung poorly.com. We spent so much money on that really great domain name and I, it wasn't like $3. It was $3 for the first year. That's what we paid for it.

But I mean, that was $3 that we could have spent on a very bad beer at a karaoke bar.

Adam Wainwright: Mm

Ed Cunard: And speaking of drinking bad beers at a karaoke bar. Somebody that we have both done that with Ben Dumm has graciously provided all of our theme and interstitial music for this show. Please check out his latest project. The Ben Dumm 3 on Spotify, apple music, or wherever you jam those sweet, sweet rockabilly-ish musical notes into your skull cavity.

Adam Wainwright: And remember when you could spend $3 on 30 shots of beer at boomerangs.

Ed Cunard: or, or $4 pitchers at the castle pub.

Adam Wainwright: Oh buddy. I think they sold 2 75 pictures of captain and Coke at Wolfe's. At some point

Ed Cunard: Uh, we are, we are dating ourselves and admitting that we are just cheap, cheap, cheap drunks.

Adam Wainwright: Make sure you come back next time, because they're gonna talk to someone who wants to make your karaoke nights and your day to day work life more. And fulfilling. That's it, that's all, there is no more. So until next time I'm Adam Wainwright

Ed Cunard: I'm Ed Cunard.

Adam Wainwright: And remember that singing off key is still technically singing.