Courtesy of The Lonely Island.
The actors and writers strike last year saw many people in the entertainment industry faced with a crossroads. Some - like Kumail Nanjiani - used the time to return to stand-up. Others took the time to work on that book they always wanted to write. In the case of The Lonely Island - made up of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone - they used that time to do something they hadn’t done since 2018: they wrote some new songs.
The first hint we got that more songs will be on the way came a few weeks ago, when Samberg and Schaffer debuted a new Digital Short on Saturday Night Live, with a catchy song titled Sushi Glory Hole. It made sense, as Andy was already on the show playing Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff. But this led many fans to wonder if this was a one-off situation, or if more music could be on the way. The good news is, it sounds like there’s even more where that came from.
What The Lonely Island is saying about new music coming soon.
On a recent episode of The Lonely Island & Seth Meyers Podcast, Samberg and Schaffer were talking to Seth Meyers about Sushi Glory Hole. At the end of the episode, Meyers posed the question, already knowing the answer. Samberg said, “Truth be told, during the writer’s strike, we were sitting on our hands a bit. Doing our proper nothing. And we were like ‘What could we do?’ And we did kind of hop back up in the studio and we did make some songs. Unclear how many, because we’re not sure how many we deem releasable.”
Schaffer adds, “And there’s still a bunch that are half songs where it’s like, ‘God, if we could get some time to go back into the studio, we might be able to crack the rest of that one.’”
Samberg also notes that it is made trickier now that they don’t have the regular outlet they once had on SNL. This does make sense. Now, to get songs written and recorded, they do have to go out of their way to make time in their respective schedules to work on new music. This creates less urgency than when they were vying to get their work on the show each week.
Regardless, this is amazing news for fans, and we can’t wait to see how this all plays out. Bring on the fourth album!!
