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[0:05] Joe Iconis: Hey, I'm Joe Iconis.

[0:10] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And I'm Jennifer Ashley Tepper. And this is our podcast where we talk all about my brand new Iconis and Family album, ALBUM. In this episode, we're going to be talking about the song, The Answer, originally written for the musical The Black Suits and recorded for the album by Aaron Tveit.

[0:23] Joe Iconis: Yeah, and this is one of the oldest songs on the album. It's about a young man taking a test, grappling with his life decisions, and we have some fun stuff to say. Let's check it out.

[0:29] Joe Iconis: When a fire starts burning, how much time do you have before it burns itself out? Track two on the album, The Answer.

[0:35] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. Probably one of the oldest songs on the album.

[0:44] Joe Iconis: What year did you write The Answer?

[0:51] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I wrote The Answer in 2004.

[0:54] Joe Iconis: Okay. For the musical, The Black Suits. Do you want to tell us about The Black Suits?

[1:02] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I would love to. Yeah, The Black Suits is a show that I wrote at NYU. I went to the Tisch Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program, and it's the first musical that I ever wrote. And it is about a high school garage band on Long Island trying to win a battle of the bands, St. Anne's Battle of the Bands. And it was a show that I started dreaming up in 2003 when I was a senior in undergrad at NYU, and then I ended up writing it as my thesis musical. And it was the thing that introduced me to the world of New York theater. At the time that I wrote that show, there just weren't shows that were populated with young people, and it was right before Spring Awakening. And so most of the initial dealings I had in this business and the initial actors or whoever that I met was through Black Suits.

[2:05] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. And it was performed for the first time at SPF in New York City, which was a summer play festival.

[2:10] Joe Iconis: Jason Tam sang the song, The Answer.

[2:15] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: He did. And then there were two big productions of Black Suits out of the city. So Jason Hyatt and Jimmy Brewer both performed The Answer. And a lot of people have performed it over the years. It's one of those songs that I believe that sheet music is actually, you can perform it yourself. It's something that people have been able to sing for years. So it's maybe one of the most familiar songs on the album.

[2:30] Joe Iconis: It is, yeah. But I mean, we recorded it for a two-player game, obviously, with George Salazar singing it. But it's never been recorded with a band. Black Suits, it's so strange because it's a show of mine that people actually do know quite well, but it's never had any kind of official recording. It's so weird. And so many people who I have worked with for years have passed through the show. And Jason, Stacey Williams, and Lance Rubin, and Annie Golden, we all met for real because of the Black Suits. The first ever reading at NYU, they were all in. And it was the first time I ever worked with those guys. And so it's the show that people, it's like a show that people think has a cast album, but it doesn't. And so it was so special to get to record some of these tunes with a band and to do it sort of properly.

[3:26] Joe Iconis: And Aaron, I met in 2006, maybe, because he was Chris in a reading of the Black Suits. And that was the first time that we ever worked together.

[3:37] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Crazy.

[3:43] Joe Iconis: Yeah. And so the character of Chris is actually the character who sings another tune that's on an album called Social Worker. So that's what Aaron sang at the reading. But I thought it would be fun to have him sing the other male solo.

[4:00] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: The other, yeah, overwrought male solo.

[4:05] Joe Iconis: I had totally forgotten about that because, you know, your wife, Lauren Marcus, was in company with Aaron Tveit. I always think of that as being like our origin story with him kind of getting to know that connoisseur family world. But I forgot. We go way farther back.

[4:14] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Way back.

[4:15] Joe Iconis: I sold him forward. No, just kidding. It was an early roll along and joke for me.

[4:19] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah.

[4:20] Joe Iconis: But yeah, no, I love him singing this song. And it also just feels like something that already, like if I made up in my head that Aaron Tveit had already sung this in concert, like it would be believable. It just feels like, of course, he should sing the answer. It's just like one of those. It's one of those things, you know?

[4:33] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. And I mean, you just couldn't ask for a better white guy.

[4:42] Joe Iconis: I also, the band on this one is Ian Keggy, Brent Stranathan, Matt Hinckley, who were all very involved in like original Black Suits music.

[4:49] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I mean, yeah, they literally, that was the literal original pit band for the, you know, one week workshop we did of the Black Suits at SPF. Like they played that show. And so, yeah, to have them, you know, play this on the album is just so, so surreal. And, you know, Brent Stranathan, he lives out in LA now because he's a trader. And so he's out in LA. So he recorded all of his drum parts just by himself in a studio, you know, because when we did the band tracks, travel was still like not an easy thing because of COVID. And so he was like, I'm just going to do them out here. And it was so wild, like hearing him play the drums on these tunes. And Ian and I would just be like, it's like identical. Like it's, yeah, it immediately, you know, it takes you back to a very specific time and place in such a magical way.

[5:42] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. It's very special on the album how, you know, there are certain original folks that get to do things that they did originally, even a number of years ago that were never recorded. You know, we do have like the Black Suits, some of the cast members singing a song that they obviously originated and the Cast of Blood song. And obviously people singing songs that were never recorded that were done for concerts. There's a lot of like, oh, this was never captured, even though we feel like it was because it's on YouTube or like, it's just an indelible memory. But now it is. It's on an album.

[6:12] Joe Iconis: Now it is. Captured. Like a runaway dog. Caught it and now it's here forever and they can never take it away.

[6:21] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. You know, so much of my work truly has just, it just kind of lives in the ether. You know, it's like, in a way that I feel is like kind of, you know, like super old school. Like I've done a ton of stuff. I've written a lot of musicals and I've written a lot of songs and I have, you know, relatively few proper recordings of those things. And which I always kind of, I always, I always kind of like, but you know, would prefer some more albums.

[6:51] Joe Iconis: Well, I feel like how crazy that the Black Suits, which is something that like was very much a calling card for you and everyone knew you like as the writer of the Black Suits, that that's not recorded, but slowly album by album, it's like, here's one song from the Black Suits. Here's another song.

[7:04] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I know. Yeah. I feel like it's going to be someone's solo album that has blue hair on it. Like it's going to get recorded piecemeal.

[7:12] Joe Iconis: Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's not for lack of trying.

[7:19] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. Try again.

[7:19] Joe Iconis: Yeah. Quote. Quote me back to me.

[7:26] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Anything else about The Answer?

[7:33] Joe Iconis: What else about The Answer? I feel like people know the stuff that makes up the content of The Answer because of The Answer. I'm not saying that correctly. The performer, the character in the song is taking a test. And I feel like it's one of those musical theater songs where people will be like, oh yeah, I know what that means because of the song. Like people who know The Presidents from 1776.

[7:42] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Is that weird?

[7:48] Joe Iconis: No, it's not. Of course not. Yeah. I mean, I guess it is pretty self-explanatory. I mean, it was a song that I wrote. I wrote it for a literal class at NYU. And I forget what the prompt was. But whatever the prompt was, it was like, I did this all the time at school. I knew what I wanted to write. And then I would figure out how to like massage that a little bit to fit into whatever like the assignment was. But I always knew. It always had nothing to do with the assignment. It was always like, you know, I'm going to just write the song.

[8:30] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: That's for the best.

[8:30] Joe Iconis: It's for the best. Yeah. And so I forget what it was, but it was like, I was like, oh, this is, I'm going to write this song where he's, you know, going through his life choices while being forced to take a test.

[8:35] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I wish I had bootlegs of your classes at NYU. Like I wish I had Bill Finn's first reaction to The Answer.

[8:43] Joe Iconis: Bill Finn liked The Answer. He liked it. He hated the first few songs of mine that I played for him. But then I have this song called Starting to Forget, which is recorded for the first time on this album by Badia Farah. And that was the one that he liked a lot. And then I think it made him think about me in a different way.

[8:53] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah.

[8:57] Joe Iconis: Which is what happens sometimes, you know?

[9:02] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. It's like, you know, even anyone, you need time to get used to a new sound and to like understand it as a aesthetic.

[9:08] Joe Iconis: Yeah. Thanks, Bill Finn.

[9:08] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Thanks, Bill Finn.

[9:13] Joe Iconis: Hey, thanks so much for listening or watching to my podcast. Do me a favor and go to wherever you just listen to or watch this thing and subscribe or like or give us a great rating or review and then head to bpn.fm slash album to find out even more information about this podcast, more ways to watch, more ways to listen and check out my album, Album.

[9:31] Joe Iconis: Thanks so much for hanging out. Album Podcast is executive produced by Liz Armstrong, produced by Dori Berenstain, Alan Seals, Kim Garris, and the rest of the team at the Broadway Podcast Network. Be sure to visit bpn.fm slash album for both audio and video versions of this podcast and to listen to Album.