There are many things that go into making a brilliant musical, and thankfully Jon and Al Kaplan ignore all of these. These brothers have written a website full of hilarious musical spoofs, from Silence: The Musical based on Silence of the Lambs to the never-demanded 24 Season 2: The Musical.  Silence: The Musical premiered at the New York City Fringe Festival and is currently working its way onto Off-Broadway.  Jon and Al spoke with me about their unique musical repertoire. Click here for part 2 of the interview.

Prodigeek: What made you think Silence of the Lambs needed to be a musical?

Kaplans: We’ve been Buffalo Bill fans our whole lives. We would quote his lines in school. We thought it would be funny to hear Buffalo Bill sing. That was the original impetus and it grew from there. We saw that there was a song called “Would You” in Singin’ in the Rain and “Would You?” is one of our favorite Bill lines.

Prodigeek: What brought you two together to work on it?

Kaplans: We’re brothers, and we’ve worked on other stuff together. Most people think we are the same person anyway, even though one of us is bald. We’ve worked together on stuff since we were kids making home videos (including an epic version of Rambo that has been finally rendered obsolete by Son of Rambow) and we started writing music together during college.

Prodigeek: How did you interest in writing music develop? How about the interest in hilarious musical theater spoofs?

Kaplans: We’re huge film music fans and started writing when we were around 12 (though not together until later). Our dad was a part-time composer, so he helped get us interested.

Kaplans: We’ve always loved musicals (even serious ones like Little Mermaid, Bricusse’s Scrooge, Sweeney Todd) and we love offensive or esoteric comedy so this combines our two passions.

Prodigeek: What was the work process like for Silence? How did you approach adapting it?

Kaplans: We weren’t very serious about it because we didn’t think anyone would ever hear it. We didn’t write it with the intention of putting it online. This was well before the days of YouTube, MySpace, etc. We put it up for a few friends to hear and it took off from there. As for adapting, we focused on covering all the major Bill and Lecter stuff, much to the unfortunate exclusion of the main character Clarice (whom we could barely perform) and also tried to tell a skeletal version of the plot. When we expanded the show for the stage, we gave Clarice more to do and filled in the blanks.

Prodigeek: The song “If I Could Smell her Cunt”. How’d that, no pun intended, come about?

Kaplans: It came within the first five minutes of discussing the idea for the show. We didn’t want to go the standard “Fava Beans” route in our version. Bill and Lecter were the heroes, so we built Lecter’s song around one of our favorite iconic lines from the movie; that also turns the scene on its ear, opening a window into the love story.

Prodigeek: Did you expand it for the stage specifically for the Fringe Festival or had it been performed before?

Kaplans: Specifically for the Fringe. They approached us and they seemed like the most serious about getting the show done right (and the New York location was a plus).

Prodigeek: What was it like working on the show for the Fringe Festival? How did it all come together?

Kaplans: It was extremely rushed and had its ups and downs. It was great to see the show live; it at least gave us an idea of what the whole thing could be given the proper scenario.

Prodigeek: What were the ups? What were the downs?

Kaplans: Ironically, the songs, which were the reason the show was staged to begin with. The songs needed more rehearsal, basically. The ups were that a lot of the show played really well and a lot of people loved it despite our problems with it.

Prodigeek: Ah, that’s understandable. Aside from more rehearsal is the show going under any other changes for Off-Broadway?

Kaplans: Yes, for Off-Broadway the show will be invisible

Prodigeek: Haha. Inspired

Kaplans: We don’t know if the show will even happen; that’s out of our hands, but we’re hoping it does because it’s in new hands now. If it does happen, there will be changes. We’ve already done a lot of revisions on the show after the fringe. A new version of “Quid Pro Quo,” for one

Prodigeek: You were slated to open on Off-Broadway last September. Do you know what the holdup is?

Kaplans: We’re probably not allowed to go into detail, but the holdup was that our lead producer had no idea what he was doing and flushed the show down the toilet. But the show is in good hands now. We’ve had offers to go to other cities, but some interested parties want it to open in New York first, and that can take more time.

Prodigeek: New York is big. How does that feel, starting out in NYC?

Kaplans: It would have been nice. We’re from New York originally.

Prodigeek: You both went to University of Southern California for musical composition? How did college prepare you for your unique career path?

Kaplans: It didn’t; it was a huge waste of time and money! Actually, it helped expose us to lots of good concert music, but our teachers weren’t exactly film music fans (like we were). We resented them for that, and they resented us. We understand where they were coming from, as 95% of film music is shit…but isn’t 95% of all art shit?

Prodigeek: I would have to agree with that

Kaplans: Sorry to go on about film music, but that’s our foundation. Complaining about film music is our hobby.

Click here for part 2 of the interview. You can download MP3s for all their music on Jon and Al’s website.