Was there some point where you kind of realized this was catching on with people? I don’t know if they show you metrics of who’s streaming it or whatever. At one point did you realize it was catching on?
AR: This summer. This fall. Like early fall, Kyle and I were in Kentucky, shooting a movie together, and people keep blasting us, and they were saying, ‘have you seen TikTok? Have you seen what’s going on on TikTok with Dinner in America? And we were both like, ‘No, haven’t seen it, don’t have TikTok.’
I got on at one point and got the app, and did it all, and I was looking, and when I first got on and was looking, there were like 900 videos of people kind of lip-synching “Watermelon,” or posting stories that were like an overlay over the top of it, very personal stuff. And that just grew, and we watched it go like day by day, until suddenly there was half a billion impressions, it had been like two weeks… and next thing you know there were a couple hundred thousand videos of people lip-synching the song. That was crazy.
So at some point do you realize, ‘we’ve got to get this back in theaters?’ What’s the process for that even like?
KG: Again, we were on set one day, me and Adam. It was in between setups and we were looking at the phone and watching this thing grow, and we kind of just looked at each other and we were like, ‘should we try? Should we see? Let’s just throw it out there and see what happens.
AR: And see if a bunch of people do it and something happens out of it.
KG: And literally, it was, I posted on Twitter, and went, “does anybody want to see this in theaters? And then people started picking it up and it just started gaining momentum. Skeggs would post, and people would just post. And everybody kind of jumped on board, and a few theaters dipped their toes in at first. They came on and then slowly it just snowballed.
AR: It’s like the UK too, like the Prince Charles Theater in the UK, and the Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, let’s do, let’s just sell a night of this and see if we can sell a night of it, see if we sell out. They sold out the night, they were like, let’s just keep adding shows and see what happens. And so they added another show and then they sold that out in a day. Then they added another one, they sold that out in a day.
KG: We sold like 900 tickets with them, right?
AR: A 1,050, you know, sale, 1,050 seats in the five nights. And Emily and I ended up going down for like, I don’t know, like what, three or four nights, it was a blast.
ES: And what’s so cool too is it’s, you know, it’s fans who found the show naturally, found the movie naturally and then just called up their local art cinema. And it’s mostly for the most part been local theaters that are responding because they’re the ones that pick up when the fans call and listen to what they really want. And so it’s been also really special to be like visiting these really beautiful local spots. You know, I went up to Portland and visited Cinemagic up there and the folks up there are so amazing and it’s really special.
I wanted to ask about the punk aspect of the film. I know a lot of movies that deal with punk stuff will kind of sand it down, and not make it very realistic. Your film does not have that problem. Did you guys come from a punk background? What was your entry point to that?
KG: Yeah, I mean, you know, as a kid growing up in Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia, I mean, Philly hardcore is like a real thing, you know, the hardcore scene and the music scene is big. And I grew up listening to more hardcore music than I did punk music. But, you know, I came from that world. I was like a skate rat listening to hardcore music driving from spot to spot with my friends and then stealing beer from people’s garages at night to go, you know, like there was there was a little bit of that already baked in.
So it was a lot of fun to actually finally instead of being in the crowd watching the guy up on stage, actually getting to finally be on stage, which is like, always been a little bit of a dream of mine. It’s it just felt very real. It felt very, you know, even though the world is heightened, like you said, you know, the movie doesn’t shy away from what it’s supposed to be. It is maddening to watch movies that try to tackle things like that, like the punk scene or whatever. And when it gets watered down, it’s it’s incredibly frustrating. It’s almost like the worst thing you can do to a punk movie. You know, because it’s so not punk to fucking do that.
AR: You know, you have to be punk rock to make a punk rock movie.
KG: Well, you’re punk rock as fuck, Adam.
AR: No, I grew up playing your real deal. And I grew up playing in bands and doing the whole, you know, two, three dollar show thing and all of that and had a lot of fun. For me, punk rock is not defined by fashion. So it’s not a it’s not a fashion element to it, although I recognize that, you know, between ’77, ’78, 79, some classic eras there, people could argue, like a fashion aspect of it. I’ve never been that interested in that part of it, but the spirit of it 100 percent. And so being able to do that type of thing as a kid and now, seeing people inspired to pick up instruments and play based on watching the movie is literally the coolest thing to me. If there’s one thing that’s like a benefit that came out of the movie, like organically, is that a lot of young women are super interested in picking up guitars and playing now. And I think that that’s the most important thing is sort of being able to pass a torch, you know, a spirit of it on to other people. And so that’s been that’s been the coolest part for me is like hearing not only people cover the song, but then digging in and looking at what their bands are playing and stuff. I’m very inspired by that.
KG: A lot of good covers, too?
So, Kyle, you’re from West Chester and you were in the skater scene. Did you have any interfaces with the Jackass people?
KG: They’re all a little bit older than me. I went to East, so I went where a lot of those guys went to. I remember driving around the neighborhood and stuff, and you would see stuff on Jackass and then you would drive past where it was, you know, fences would be destroyed and shit would be like, you know, chaotic or you’d be watching an episode, and you’re like, oh, that’s the ice skating rink that they’re beating the shit out of each other on. And that’s the kids. That’s my school’s hockey team.
So there was definitely a crossover. You know, I used to skate at the skate park. They’re like, I’m pretty sure Bam designed and got up and running back in the day if I’m correct. So, like, I would see him at the skate park all the time. Yeah, I mean, we were all within a year or two of each other.
My son has played some soccer at West Chester East. They have a winter league and they play there on Saturday mornings and it’s really, really cold out.
KG: Yes, I remember those mornings.
