Q & A session with the warped, yet genius minds of Bryan Cullen and Mike Cechnicki, who together make up The Jingleberries. Except these were all answered by Cechnicki as Cullen is too busy being the “backbone” of Faction. Nonetheless, this is fucking gold!

We know you both work for Sirius XM, but could you tell us exactly what you each do and / or job titles?
Mike: I do teenagers, mostly. No title. Except the one for my van.

Cullen’s all Faction all the time. We both try to listen to the as much of the show’s as we can, take notes, pull sound bytes, and gather incriminating information for future song ideas. But it’s hard to focus on the Ellis show when that’s only one of fucking gazillions of shows Cullen does for Faction alone. Which is only one of gazillions of entire channels that I do sound design, voices, and production for. At least I don’t have my own show to host too. Cullen isn’t the “Backbone” for nothing. He eats those fucking things for breakfast. Management’s still bitter about having their spines removed.

How did you two meet? Was it strictly through work?
Mike: My first day was a full music channel Production Department staff meeting. That’s what I was hired to do. All the shit between music that radio people think makes the channel have a personality and listeners think are commercials. Things like the show bumpers on Ellis coming back from songs. So at this stupid meeting, everyone goes around the room to introduce themselves to the new guy. As company virgin, I went first, saying my name and that I came from “a warm, wet, pink place.” When it came around to this pasty bald bastard all in black with thick gauges in his ears named Cullen, I think I counted 27 uses of the word “fuck.” And that was it. Kismet.

What made you guys decide to start making song parodies for the show?
Mike: There was a limited run all-punk channel on Sirius before the merger with XM that Cullen was a big part of. He got the idea to do punk style jingles of us singing instead of just “blah blah blah, The Punk Channel” all the time. I had done a bunch of creative jingle style things for the Broadway and Top 40 channels, of all fucking things, so it was second nature. A couple of weeks later, Ellis interviewed LL Cool J who dropped the now infamous “get these balls” all over the place. Cullen decided we should try a parody of LL written around his hostile interview clips. Not long after, Raw Dog revealed he had a trust fund. We haven’t stopped backing over that fucking champion with the parody bus since.

Is there anything that you consider “off limits” when it comes to a song parody?
Mike: I would have said family until Tully broke Separatist code by knocking up a gook. It’s funny. Ellis is really sensitive to race related jokes in songs, but not in conversation. He doesn’t exactly love parodies about him either. They never play twice. So I try to stay away from picking on the host and any racial shit. But not because I’m not racist. I mean, fuck Klingons. Am I right?

Have you ever made a parody that you later felt bad for writing?
Mike: Every one that I sing lead on. Which is most of them. I’m not vocally trained, and that’s part of the joke, but some of them really make me cringe. And I won’t use AutoTune unless its part of the original piece of shit song. If a parody ever takes more than an hour to make, we walk away. Unfortunately, we never have more than 15 minutes and never walk away and these things play over and over. Just to torture me.

Either of you have a favorite parody that you’ve made? Least favorite?
Mike: “Dick in a Box” stands out. Or maybe “I’m on a Boat.” Cullen says those weren’t ours. I remember it differently.

The Jingleberries have a pretty solid cult following. Are / were either of you surprised at how well you were received by both the show and fans?
Mike: I like vaginal sex. Just throwing out Christmas gift ideas. And yes, of course we’re surprised. Not by how fucking amazing we so totally are, but how overwhelmingly positive the feedback always is. Always. I honestly can’t remember one negative comment that wasn’t sarcasm. No comedian of any kind can say that. And it blows me the fuck away. Much as I’d rather actually being blown. See how it comes back around?

If one of you offered $6000 for the other to suck them off, just one time, would either of you do it?
Mike: Honestly, I’m a little bummed to find out that I could have made $6K.

To both of you, if the other got his balls stuck in a relish jar, would you A: Laugh, B: Laugh & take a picture, C: laugh, take a picture, and write a parody about it, or D: help him and keep the secret?
Mike: I put C for everything. Hopefully there weren’t any True or False questions.

Is there anything else you would like to say, shout out, or make fun of?
Mike: I wanna shout out my boy, Prop 37. California’s right to know what’s in your food. That guy’s literally going to save the human race. Oh, and Katie. I don’t know you very well, Katie. But if you keep sitting on the sidelines of battle, I’m just saying, collateral parody damage happens. Even if it gets my dick punched in.

THE END

So there you have it sisters! A kick you right in the asshole interview and a warning shot fired at Katie! Shout out to Mike Cechnicki (@Jingleberries) and Bryan Cullen (@Cullensaidthis) for the awesome interview and for all the great parodies! For a good time, follow them. For more masturbatory material, hit their website: bookhockey.com