Category: News

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Dana Margolin of Porridge Radio is sitting in a car to avoid getting a ticket, summing up these weeks leading up to her band’s album release as “crazy times.” It’s late April when we talk over Zoom, and she’s preparing to move to a new house and leave her home base of England for a short press trip in New York. “There’s a lot happening,” she says, “but anyway, enough about that.”

Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To The Sky is the third album by the UK indie-rock group, following their lowkey 2016 debut Rice, Pasta And Other Fillers and their breakthrough 2020 masterwork Every Bad. The latter watched the quartet putting their all into colossal, evocative songs rich with raw feeling and powerful instrumentals. It put the band on a pedestal, earning them a nomination for a Mercury Prize as well as raving reviews including one from Pitchfork declaring the record Best New Music. They were about to embark on a tour in the states opening up for Car Seat Headrest when the pandemic shut everything down. Their success, then, was only tangible online. The attention startled Margolin, forcing her to grapple with the changes that come with a rising status in the music industry. This inevitably ended up as a theme in some of the new songs, such as “Back To The Radio” and “End Of Last Year.”

“I didn’t start a band on purpose,” she reflects. “I started a band by accident.” Since she was a kid, she would make up songs and poems as a way of having fun. It wasn’t until she was 20 that she began taking it more seriously, and she’s still figuring out exactly what it means to take on the role of a bandleader. “Like, who the f*ck am I to have to stand in front of people on stage and command their attention?” she speculates. “I know how to do it and I know that I love it but also it’s incredibly difficult.”

I saw Porridge Radio at Village Underground in London in November of last year. It was my first show outside of the United States, and I was running on no sleep after being wide awake on my overnight flight. Yet Margolin energized me and the entire crowd of the sold-out gig. The venue was capacious with a slanted ceiling, reminding me of a church; the songs filled up all of the space, and Margolin’s presence was like that of a priest, her words confident and cathartic like holy proclamations. Her lyrics are known for frequent repetition (In Every Bad opener “Born Confused,” she sings the line “Thank you for making me happy” 41 times), which contributes to the momentum of the recorded songs but also to the intensity of live performances. It invites everyone — even those who may have never heard the song before — to join in, similar to a chant or a choir.

On the third track of Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To The Sky, Margolin sings the line “I don’t want to be loved” 57 times. It’s one of the many moments that feel heavy with a deep feeling of shame. When I ask if making music serves as a sort of atonement, she rejects the idea. “I think of it as a place to get something out or to reveal a part of myself that I would otherwise be too ashamed to reveal,” she explains. “It’s a space where I can try to be understood and try to let go of something and try to have people hear just what I’m experiencing.”

Along with repetition, questions are a motif in her lyrics. Trying to count how many there are on the new album would be a masochistic task, but some notable ones include: “It’s not easy, is it for you?” on the conflicted “Jealousy,” “When do I surrender?” on the closing title track, and “Do you remember when we all fell apart?” on the otherwordly second single “The Rip.” The questions vary; they ricochet from being directed at herself and at others, and some are easier to answer while others are impossible. She chalks this up as her “just trying to figure some shit out,” she says. “It’s very confusing, just having to exist and understand things.”

“Once you ask the question, you kind of know whether or not it was a stupid question,” she says. “But in the process of asking it and saying it, you can hear yourself and you can figure out if you agree with yourself. You write it down and you look at it and you think, ‘Is that true? Or is it not true? Was that a helpful question to ask?’ I think just the very act of asking a question gives you space to answer it for yourself and to process it. That is a really important part of life—asking things and saying things out loud and trying to see if you agree with yourself.”

As words are said over and over, the meaning changes, almost expanding and contracting over the course of the song. Eventually, the syllables are just sounds, as if emitted from an instrument. This makes sense in the context of Margolin’s fascination with endlessness and seeing herself and her struggles as small in the grand scheme of the universe; the more she repeats her complicated questions and declarations, the less real they seem. “I am really interested in the idea that things go on forever,” she contemplates, “and they repeat in infinite loops. I like my life and my relationships are everything, and nothing really. There’s something really beautiful and quite freeing in that idea.”

The stakes are high in Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To The Sky — but there are also no stakes at all. The sprawling, fragile finale is buoyed by simple chords and Margolin’s soft vocals as she lulls the last lines: “No, I don’t want the end / But I don’t want the beginning / All the way down to hell / And all the way up to heaven.” Her words soar like doves; it’s an incantation of liberation.

Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To The Sky is out Friday on Secretly Canadian. Get it here.

In the midst of being pilloried for pushing the Great Replacement Theory that sparked the mass shooting in Buffalo over the weekend, Tucker Carlson managed to spark a new controversy on Monday night by insulting Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw for his support of the $40 billion aid package for Ukraine. Carlson, who’s been routinely criticized for pushing pro-Russia talking points, has been a vocal opponent of sending aid to the Ukraine. The Fox News host has said any Republicans supporting it should face primary challengers, but he took things even further when it came to Crenshaw.

During a segment with Tulsi Gabbard, Carlson insulted Crenshaw for saying that anyone who opposes the aid package is pro-Russia, which we already know is a sensitive subject for Tucker. Via Mediaite:

“There is no imminent threat, or even long-term threat of Russia invading Finland or Sweden,” Gabbard argued. “Russia can barely hold on to a very small sliver of Ukraine right now.”

Carlson then ripped Crenshaw as an iteration of late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) with an eyepatch.

“You know, the more I think about it, it takes a lot of gall for eyepatch McCain to attack moms who are worried about baby formula as pro-Russia,” he said.

Carlson’s insult was an interesting development considering Gabbard, who’s also a veteran, let it fly by without comment. More notably, Carlson was among the many conservative voices demanding Pete Davidson‘s head after he joked on Saturday Night Live that the Texas congressman looked like “a hitman in a porno movie.” Davidson was forced to apologize to Crenshaw, and the two later appeared together on SNL to bury the hatchet. It was a huge ordeal at the time, so naturally, people can’t help but notice the hypocrisy of Carlson doing the exact same thing with little pushback from the right.

You can check out some of the reactions on social media below:

(Via Mediaite)

Over the weekend, an 18-year-old white man walked into a market in Buffalo, New York, and began shooting people. He killed 10 and injured another three, motivated by bigotry and ignorance as evidenced by a 180-page manifesto he posted online. It was one of just four mass shootings that took place over the past weekend, and the latest example of how genuinely messed up the political and social climate has gotten. As the world reacted to the tragedy, Cardi B, who often has canny observations about current events, didn’t reserve any sympathy for the perpetrator.

“Mass shooters are not mentally ill,” she tweeted on Sunday in the wake of the attack. Oftentimes, in the wake of a mass shooting (the fact I have to write “often” in that sentence is pretty sick, right?), the discourse will turn into a debate about mental health. However, Cardi wasn’t having any of this distraction tactic this time around. “They have [an] evil mentality.”

As usual, Cardi might be onto something. It’s telling that there’s assumed victimhood for the people who perpetrate these terroristic acts, as though they can’t be held responsible for their actions. But I gotta say, a guy writes 180 pages about how much he hates people he’s never met, that tells me he’s perfectly functional, his thinking has just been warped.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Rajon Rondo’s former partner and the mother of his two children, Ashley Bachelor, filed and received an emergency protective order on Friday in Louisville that will temporarily require Rondo to remain 500 feet away from her and their two children, as well as turn over any firearms he owns to the court.

This comes after an incident last week in which Bachelor alleged Rondo became enraged after she asked her son to stop playing video games with Rajon and help with laundry, threatening her with a gun and demanding to see the children outside while holding the gun, as first reported by TMZ and confirmed by ESPN’s Baxter Holmes.

In it, she alleged that Rondo and a child were playing video games Wednesday when she asked the child to separate laundry. Rondo reacted angrily, according to the woman, ripping the game console out of the wall and smashing several items in the house, leaving the boy and another child there upset.

The woman alleges that Rondo said to her “you’re dead” before leaving the house, only to return shortly thereafter, this time with a gun and demanding to see one of the children. The woman said she grew scared of the situation, so she brought the child downstairs, and Rondo pulled the child outside, allegedly while still holding the gun, while he yelled at him. He then demanded to see the other child, too, and she also came outside, as Rondo yelled at both of them for being afraid of him, the woman alleged.

In the protective order, Bachelor says it is not the first time Rondo has shown “volatile, erratic, and explosive behavior,” and alleges he has a history of verbal abuse towards her and both of their children. The NBA told ESPN the league is aware of the situation and is “gathering more information” on the incident, while Rondo has not yet been named a suspect in any criminal reports, per TMZ.

As part of Tommy Hilfiger’s Classics Reborn series, the fashion house has revealed Shawn Mendes’ cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing In The Dark.” In the campaign’s accompanying video, we see shots of Mendes running through fields, playing guitar and showing off his abs while rocking signature Hilfiger fashions.

“Shawn’s not only a multitalented musician — he also represents a new generation of future-makers who understand the need for action,” said Hilfiger in a statement. “By joining forces with Shawn to learn, share and innovate, we can build upon what we’ve already achieved and take our sustainability journey to the next level. While we recognize we still have a long way to go, together we can build even more awareness to make a positive, lasting impact.”

The Classic Reborn series launches in tandem with Hilfiger’s Play It Forward movement, which sees Hilfiger recreating some of the house’s iconic looks, but in a more sustainable manner. Some of the looks include their signature jeans, polo shirts and boxers. For this line, the jeans are designed with 20% post-consumer recycled cotton, which requires less water and energy during its finishing stages.

Much of Mendes’ wardrobe on his Wonder tour will consist of liability fabrics and trimmings, along with deadstock vintage Tommy Hilfiger fabrics. Play It Forward gifted Mendes a $1 million donation, portions of which will fund regenerative cotton farming.

“I’ve always been inspired by Tommy and the iconic brand he built, and I’m excited to share our journey together with my fans,” said Mendes in a statement. “Everyone has a role to play in creating a more sustainable future and I’m inspired to see what we can achieve. I look forward to learning from each other, exploring how creative reimagination can have a positive effect on the fashion industry, and sharing what living more sustainably means to me.”

Check out “Dancing In The Dark” above.

The only thing worse than possibly taking an L and having the whole internet laugh at you over it is having video footage of said L pop up online. Freddie Gibbs, who recently performed in Buffalo, New York with what appeared to be a swollen eye, had been the subject of some nasty rumors that said he’d been jumped just hours before. Now, TMZ has the footage, which depicts Gibbs and a whole bunch of other men trading blows inside the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que restaurant.

While there’s still no official word on just what started the brawl, fans have been running with one theory in particular due to its location and the war of words Freddie has been waging on hometown hero Benny The Butcher. While he’d previously enjoyed a healthy working relationship with all the members of Griselda Records, a recent exchange between Gibbs and the notoriously outspoken Westside Gunn seemed to sour that connection.

Then, after Benny dismissed a rumor of a joint album between the two, saying their time “came and went,” the prickly Gibbs took his words as a challenge. They have been going back and forth on social media ever since. However, if recent events are connected to their tiff, perhaps cooler heads will prevail and they can talk out their differences like grownups.

Watch the video of Freddie Gibbs’ restaurant fight above.

Solo: A Star Wars Story is by far the lowest grossing Star Wars movie. The anthology film, starring Alden Ehrenreich as Han Solo, Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian, and Chewbacca as Chewbacca, made only (“only”) $392 million at the box office, compared to $1.056 billion for Rogue One; it earned less than 1983’s Return of the Jedi, even before adjusting for inflation. Solo also received indifferent-at-best reviews with a 69 percent “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, although the film does have its supporters.

There’s a fun Star Wars movie in there, but a troubled production (and maybe the worst scene in the entire franchise) did Solo no favors.

The underwhelming response to Solo changed the course of Star Wars, both in the short term, with more “Star Wars Story” installments on hiatus, and the long term. In a lengthy profile, Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy told Vanity Fair that future Star Wars projects probably won’t have new actors play old characters, like Ehrenreich as everyone’s favorite space scoundrel (even if his performance is one of the best things about Solo):

The 2018 movie Solo explored Han Solo’s younger years, with Alden Ehrenreich taking on the role of the smuggler originated by Harrison Ford. The film has its admirers, but it made less at the box office than any other live-action Star Wars movie. Solo’s swagger may be too singular for another actor to replicate. “There should be moments along the way when you learn things,” says Kennedy. “Now it does seem so abundantly clear that we can’t do that.”

The implication here: get ready for lots of new characters, which is great, and LOTS of CGI and deep fake technology, which is… less great. See, this is why every Star Wars movie and TV show should be about the adventures of Watto and his little hat.

There’s no pesky humans to deal with.

(Via Vanity Fair)

Travis Barker and Kourtney Kardashian’s marriage has been an are-they-aren’t-they affair. They reportedly got married in Las Vegas in April, but they later confirmed reports that the ceremony wasn’t legally binding. Then, it was reported that the two got hitched for real this past weekend. Now it turns out that marriage actually is legit, as the couple confirmed on Instagram last night.

Barker and Kardashian shared near-identical posts (Kardashian’s has a few more photos), both of which are captioned, “Till death do us part.” The pictures are mostly of the couple in and around a low-rider convertible with a “just married” sign on it.” Featured in one of the photos were the Blink-182 drummer’s father, Randy Barker, and Kourtney’s grandmother, Mary Jo “MJ” Campbell.

Furthermore, a post from Kardashian’s Poosh brand is captioned, “The Barkers.” Kris Jenner also offered a congratulatory post on her Instagram Story.

It seems this wasn’t even their final wedding ceremony. When initial reports of this weekend’s wedding were shared, a source told People,
“They had to legally get married first ahead of their big Italian wedding, which is happening very soon. All the details are set and the whole family, including all the kids, are very excited.”

Blink-182 is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

This week in pop was full of amazing, long-awaited material. The Chainsmokers unveiled their new album So Far So Good, their first since their 2019 LP World War Joy, and Ethel Cain unleashed her 75-minute bone-chilling debut Peacher’s Daughter which takes a new approach to pop.

Each week, Uproxx rounds up the best new pop releases. Listen up.

Tate McRae — “What Would You Do?”

On this new fierce track “What Would You Do?” co-written and co-produced by Charlie Puth, Tate McRae is aware of her worth and isn’t afraid to say it. “I’ve always been a nice girl / I’m pretty understanding / But you mess up my head, boy / and you’re taking me for granted,” she spits against a catchy rhythm, and then cheekily threatens to kiss his friends. It’s both inspiring and funny.

5 Seconds Of Summer — “Me Myself & I”

“Youngblood” singers 5 Seconds Of Summer are taking accountability on this new single “Me Myself & I,” which wallows in regret. “I guess, I guess I got what I wanted / I never knew what I needed,” they repeat. The sound, though, is upbeat and electric, packed with memorable melodies.

OneRepublic — “I Ain’t Worried”

“Counting Stars” band OneRepublic have a knack for rich sonic landscapes. The whistling in “I Ain’t Worried” is the kind that you’ll find yourself doing after the song is after without even realizing it. The lyrics are as intriguing as the sound: “I don’t know what you’ve been told / but time is running out so spend it like its gold,” vocalist Ryan Tedder quips.

Becky G — “Bailé Con Mi Ex”

Last month, Becky G announced her new album Esquemas and released the seductive single, “No Mienten.” This new song “Bailé Con Mi Ex” gives another taste of what this record will be like; it’s vibrant with a booming bass, while the lyrics reckon with letting go of grudges and living life to the fullest.

Noah Cyrus — “Mr. Percocet”

This acoustic guitar-driven ballad by Noah Cyrus is about dealing with the contradictions of life. She’s in pain and in love, lulling, “I wish you’d still love me / when your drugs wear off in the morning.” Her voice is gentle and hurt and her words are poetic as she explores the wreckage of a dangerous relationship.

The Chainsmokers — “I Love U”

The Chainsmokers are having fun in the music for “I Love U,” partying and performing, but something’s missing. “From the day I got your number like Paris in the summer it ends / Every day that goes by I wish I was in your bed,” they sing against dance beats that have a layer of melancholy under their bounce.

Ethel Cain — “Sun Bleached Flies”

Ethel Cain has reinvented pop with her new album Preacher’s Daughter, and this sprawling track is proof of that. Beginning as a piano ballad with soft, haunting vocals, it forces the listener to be patient as the energy and tension build and burst about four and a half minutes in. The song turns into a colossal anthem with soaring saxophone and holy vocals repeating the mantra: “If it’s meant to be / then it’ll be.”

Sasha Alex Sloan — “Adult”

Sasha Alex Sloan has successfully summed up adulthood with the line: “‘Cause it finally hurts being hungover / But it’s still not worse than being sober.” Even as she reckons with the depressing reality of life in this new song “Adult,” Sloan maintains her humor and charm, especially while drinking red wine and eating marshmallows in the music video.

Remi Wolf — “Michael”

Remi Wolf’s new track “Michael” is trippy and addictive, devoted to disorientation as she sings: “Hold my hand and spin me / round until I’m dizzy / loosen up my chemicals.” Her confident, idiosyncratic vocals guide the song and imbue it with personality, making it stand out from other pop songs.

Gryffin, Olivia O’Brien — “Caught Up”

This club anthem is about reveling in your infatuation: “I’m obsessing and it’s no good / But I don’t even mind, no,” Olivia O’Brien sings passionately over Gryffin’s effervescent beats. It’s less than three minutes, but it overflows with infectious excitement and fervor the entire time.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Despite being enemies on the hit workplace comedy The Office, Angela Kinsey and Jenna Fischer are actually real-life best friends, as chronicled in their upcoming book, The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There, which drops next week.

Office BFFs takes fans behind the scenes of some of the most iconic Office episodes, like the messy “Booze Cruise” adventure, and the iconic “Dinner Party” episode that caused all of them to break character at some point. Uproxx spoke to the best friends/podcast hosts/now-authors about what it was like to reflect on those Office memories, and how fan response is now, versus when the show began airing nearly 20 years ago.

Office BFFs reads like a very natural-flowing conversation. So it was really nice to read. I think my favorite part of the book specifically was all of the photos and all of the little keepsakes that you have.

Angela: Yay! That was like, so hard, it was so hard to pick. Because like you’re saying, you know, there are about 400 [photos].

Is there some there’s like a hidden Office archive or scrapbook somewhere?

Angela: Well, we are avid scrapbookers, the two of us. Like, one of the things we bonded about on set was that we were always taking pictures, and making old scrapbooks. Jenna has made scrapbooks as gifts, I would make scrapbooks for gifts. Like, we are those gals.

Jenna: I remember the first time we got a little memo in our trailer telling us that, I can’t remember who it was but, Access Hollywood or something is going to come to do a story on set tomorrow. And we ran to each other and be like, Oh my god, Access Hollywood is coming, we’re big time! And I saved that memo. We saved everything.

Angela: We save everything! I found a memo from the day we got internet on the set, which was a big deal, because our computers were just, like, props for the beginning [of the series], you know. But what you see in the book, we sorted through probably a thousand, like, easily. So it was so hard picking all the ones we wanted in there. Like, there’s actually so much more.

The younger generations are getting into The Office because of streaming, and now there are a ton of viral TikToks and memes reaching these teens. How does that resonate with you both?

Jenna: I mean when it was streaming on Netflix, there was a group of younger folks who thought the show was a Netflix show.

Angela: I have a middle schooler now, and middle schoolers love The Office. They have a student store, and I volunteer there, and someone will come up and they have a Dunder Mifflin shirt on! Like seventh graders, eighth graders, they love The Office. So it’s been sort of wild to experience the show again, because, you know, their parents sometimes are with them. You’ll talk to a parent who loves the show, and now they’re watching it with their kids. And it’s something Jen and I talked about, how growing up, we all have a memory of that one show that no matter what we were doing—you know, with our families and extracurricular activities, and all of our siblings having all sorts of different interests—there’d be that one program that we all sat down and watched together. And it’s such a great family memory, and we all have it! And there’s a lot of families that come up to us and say that, for us, is The Office. And it always warms my heart.

Jenna: Yeah, that for me growing up, was Cheers. And now for my family, it’s Abbott Elementary. I actually use that as a frame of reference for my kids, who are a little younger. I was like, “So you guys, you know when people are coming up to Mom and they’re saying, like, ‘I love The Office, I love your show.’ Do you know how we watch Abbot Elementary every week? Like, that’s what people did with Mom’s show.” And they sort of were like “oh!” So I was able to frame it [like that].

Angela: My kids are older, so they’re watching it with me as we rewatch for the podcast. They’ll watch episodes with me because they’re older. And it’s really wild now to have my own kids quote the show to me, or quote a line I said. There was an episode we were watching and Angela runs off to the warehouse to meet Dwight, and my daughter turned to me and goes, “Mom!” And she was like, embarrassed. And I was like, “Honey, that’s just Dwight and Angela.”

When you do fan events like your book talk at The Town Hall, do you ever have any weird or memorable fan interactions?

Angela: Oh my god. So many. I’ve told this before, but it’s one of my absolute favorite moments. I was at a U2 concert a few years back, and I was trying to find my seat….there was a group of guys that probably were like, college-age, you know? And they yelled across an entire section of people, “Angela!! We would take The Da Vinci Code ‘cause we’d burn the Da Vinci Code!!” I was cracking up because, of all the quotes to yell at me across the U2 stadium.

Recently, we’d been watching the St. Patrick’s Day episode, and I have a quote in that episode that people have said to me every year on St. Patrick’s Day, I’m telling you, every year, someone says to me, “Oh, I don’t want to leave to go CELEBRATE St. Patrick’s Day; I’m going to PROTEST it.” Just like, so odd! But I get these really random Angela Martin quotes thrown at me.

It’s strange, what sticks out to fans. Is there anything that was kind of a throwaway line or bit that became unexpectedly big?

Jenna: Yeah! There’s this episode where Pam holds up two pictures and she says, “they’re the same picture.” It’s a talking-head that Pam has. And that’s been meme’d like crazy. But I went to the pharmacy once and I was picking up something and I was asking questions about the medicine, and the pharmacist said to me, “They’re the same thing.” Like, somehow, quoted the show to me. And I was like, “Wait, they’re the same?” And they’re like, “No, no, no. You know, they’re the same thing.” And I’m like, “I don’t understand! If they’re the same thing, why do I need both?” And it was so confusing! Because to me that was such an obscure quote, right?

When I first got glasses—because I wear glasses now—I posted a picture online of myself and my new glasses, and I got all these comments that were like, “Jenna, you’re going in the wrong direction.” And like “Jenna, you take the glasses off to be hotter” and stuff. And I was like, “What’s everyone coming down on my new glasses for?” And then I just realized they were quoting Michael Scott to me.

Angela: I once ordered cupcakes from this bakery. And they had cupcakes and cookies and stuff. And my daughter was with me, and was like, “Oh, let’s get a cookie.” And she ordered, then I went up to the counter and was like, “I want a cookie, too!” And the guy behind the counter says “oh, no cookies for you.” And I was like, what? I was so thrown in the moment! Like, “…but I want a cookie!”

In the book, you mention that Creed is your neighbor, Angela.

Angela: Oh, my gosh, he lives at the end of the street from me! And it’s one of the absolute joys of my life. I love it so much. We can walk to each other’s houses and I just love it. One time I was on a walk and he was dog-sitting for his daughter, and all of a sudden I hear, “Pumpkin’s out!” And I was like, there’s Creed! He still calls me pumpkin. I mean, you know, we talk about this in the book, and Jenna has been here when he walks down with his guitar, and he sits out in the yard and sings.

Do you ever see any of your other castmates? Or do you just kind of keep in touch with them from a distance?

Jenna: Yeah, I mean, I hope the book makes it clear that we see each other all the time and keep in touch constantly.

Angela: We are so fortunate and thankful that we’re all still in touch. You know, we have a cast text thread, where we text each other and check-in. And I mean, just this week Rainn thought he was hilarious because he texted a picture of a prison guard that helped an inmate escape, and there was their mug shot, and Rainn was like, “Angela, John—you guys should do this.” Like, sent it to the group. He was like, “this should be your movie!” So there’s always, just like jokes or updates or life things. We have this ongoing text thread.

That’s amazing. Who’s the funniest person in the group chat?

Angela: Oh my gosh. I think Creed sends us the most random things. Creed will do a really cute thing at Christmas, sometimes he puts on an elf hat and, like, sings a funny song and will text everybody.

Jenna: Yeah, but then like Rainn, really a big part of Rainn’s personality and part of his life is that he’s a person of service. So he is often texting the group, like, kind of in that vein, as well. Like, “Hey guys, here is something I thought as a group we could come together, and really make someone’s day. What do you say?” And so he’s often initiating ways that the cast can be of service. And I really appreciate that about him.

Angela: Yeah, he has a really big heart for others. In particular, you know, people in need, people who are going through a hard time, and he’s so great about getting us together to just make someone’s day a little brighter.

Almost the complete opposite of his character.

Jenna: Yeah! I think it’s a piece of him that we know so well because of how close we are to him, but it’s—I think it’s not something you would expect if you know his character from the show.

Were there any stories that you recovered during writing the book that you had totally forgotten about?

Jenna: Well, this wasn’t about the show, but I had completely forgotten that I, like, got up on the Emmy stage for snacks.

Angela: I couldn’t believe you forgot that! I mean, it is such a vibrant memory.

Jenna: You told me that, you were like, “Oh, we have to tell that story about how we were on the Emmy stage, eating snacks!” And I was like, “What are you talking about?” And you’re like, “Remember? Remember, we got the stink-eye? And then people were really, really mad at us, because we were being really loud?” And I was like, “What?” And you were like, “And then we got kicked out!” And I’m like, “What are you talking about???” And you told me that whole story and I went downstairs to my husband and I’m like, “does this ring any bells??” And he goes, “Oh my god. YES. You don’t remember that??” And I was like “No!”

Angela: And then I found those emails, where we emailed each other after the award show. And then it all came to you.

Jenna: It did. It did.

Angela: But I will say that whole thing, when it happened, Jenna was the last one of our group, of us and our dates, to realize that we were on the actual Emmy stage. We weren’t in some room. We were just enclosed in a curtain, eating food, while people were presenting awards. And so it just cracks me up, like, her moment of realization like, oh my god, YES, I did that.

Jenna: Yes, I had completely forgotten that.

Co-authoring a book must be hard, especially when you are so close. Did you find anything that you disagreed on when you were writing the book? Or was it a very collaborative process?

Angela: We’ve always been really great creative partners. You know, whether it be Angela or Pam in a scene, talking about sprinkles being in her freezer. You know, we’ve always had great chemistry as actors, and I really saw that in our writing as well. Like Jenna would share something with me, and then that would inspire me, and we would sort of bounce ideas off of each other, or memories off of each other. If I sort of forgot one part, she remembered the other. So we were a great team in that regard. But having said that, we also work very differently. [laughs] So we had to figure out how to write together.

So how do you work differently?

Jenna: I like to write first thing in the morning, to have that be the first thing I do for the day, because then I find that my brain gets a little mushy, and I don’t have much more to give. And then the second half of my day is, like, chores and, you know, emails and things like that. Right? Well, Angela does her best creative work in the evening. And so we did not want to be writing at the same time. Angela doesn’t want to be writing the book at eight in the morning.

Jenna: Angela wants to be writing the book at like 9:30, 10 pm. So that is her burst of creativity.

Angela: Oh, yeah, my sweet spot!

Jenna: Yes, exactly! And so that made it hard to write a book together when we write at totally different times of the day. And we didn’t want to have to force one person to take another person’s creative process. The things that Angela would come up with in her creative time were so fruitful and important, and just, her brain wouldn’t have been able to do that at eight in the morning. And likewise, I’m just sludge by 9pm. So we had to figure out what—

Angela: Jenna, you’re in bed by like 8:30, come on. You’re asleep by 8:30! Your brain isn’t sludge, it’s off.

Jenna: Everything is sludge. I am done. Yeah, so that was a big thing to realize.

‘The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There’ drops on May 17th.