You can’t just joke about Something F***ing Awesome.
This singer-songwriter ukelele-strumming duo is made up of junior Sammy Oakes and sophomore Julia Peltier, who formally came together in January to spread ukulele happiness to the world and to get “famous people to acknowledge our existence.”
With completely straight faces, the Something F***ing Awesome declared that their “ultimate goal is to get on “Ellen.”
While their name is pretty provocative, Oakes and Peltier are humble when it comes to describing their songwriting process. They sit in MGC, figure out the famous person they’ll sing about, go to RhymeZone.com and then fool around until they hear something they like.
Then Oakes “splices the songs together” using GarageBand.
They also get some help from mooching off friends, using a fellow Phi Mu sister’s practice room or getting some audio tech students to record them in the studio.
Both Oakes and Peltier grew up playing music on the piano, violin, cello, saxophone and more, but they found their mutual passion in the ukulele. The duo met through Phi Mu last year and instantly connected over their love for the four-stringed instrument. Oakes prefers it over other instruments because “it’s small and I’ve got little hands.”
The duo is dead-set on performing on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” and will even “sell out” to achieve it. They said they were even willing to re-name themselves “The Ellenettes” or whoever their biggest corporate sponsor turns out to be.
Something F***ing Awesome does everything from originals to covers, mash-ups to tributes, aka “creepy stalker” fan videos to get their targets to notice them (i.e. begging for a date with the actor who plays Ron Weasley from “Harry Potter”).
One of their more popular songs includes a mash-up of Adele’s “Someone Like You” and Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream.”
The duo doesn’t just sing, but acts as well. Each of their songs is accompanied by a music video, and they plan on doing a casting call for future videos soon.
Their free-flowing, satirical style is just as diverse as their musical inspirations, which include Nicki Minaj, Julia Nunes, Tiny Tim and Israel Kamakawiwo’ole (famous for his Hawaiian-inspired rendition of “Over the Rainbow”).
“[Anytime] we hear something and it inspires us, we like it,” Peltier said.
They don’t care about being made fun of and will even mash-up two entirely contradictory songs deemed “emo versus happy,” Peltier said.
Generating buzz about their music has been made relatively easy through social media. You can find the eclectic duo on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube at youtube.com/somethingfingawesome.
And just maybe, someday, you will find Something F***ing Awesome on TV dancing with Ellen.
thescene@theeagleonline.com
