Remember those shred videos that took off a few years ago on YouTube, in which the creator would take live footage of famous musician’s performing and re-record the audio to make it sound like an absolutely talentless psychological meltdown? Like the one where the Beach Boys sound like a bunch of drunk man children, the Hall & Oates one in which the bass player plucks as if his fingers are made of wet cereal, or the Kings of Leon one which sounds like karaoke night at the ENT clinic. They're all funny - for at least forty seconds.Professional composer Andy Rehfeldt was a fan of those original shred videos and he decided to invert the idea by doing the exact opposite. Andy re-records the audio impeccably, like a total pro, but he does it in a totally different genre. Starting with a Disney version of Slipknot (below) he’s since amassed 130 different videos and 39 million views, making his YouTube channel the number one resort for fourteen year old boys, bored office workers and weeknight weed smokers.
Andy: About five and a half years ago I realised that I could find acapella vocals on the internet. I'd been watching St. Sanders' shred videos and I thought to myself, "I should make funny videos like him, but arrange and play as well as I can, instead of making it sound like they are screwing up."Ah, so you’re a real musician?
Yes. I'm a composer at Endless Noise Music and Sound Design. I started to become obsessed with making more videos over time.What compelled you to keep making them?
The fact that many people were entertained by them, and I was having a blast doing them.So what's the process of finding a genre for a song?
I just decide what would be the funniest/coolest genre to do for the song I choose.What are some of your favourites?
I think my transcription of the rap and chord analysis on the reggae version of Eminem's "Love the Way You Lie" turned out glorious.And I think my death metal version of Ariana Grande, because when the drums start doing the slow funky beat with my riff, it's perfect, and Thomas Hinds' vocals are incredible.They are both definitely interesting. Have you ever had any feedback from any of the artists?
A little bit. Someone from the Iron Maiden camp said they liked my bossa nova version, Dying Fetus enjoyed my Radio Disney tribute, and Katy Perry retweeted my death metal cover of her, saying, "Hey everybody I'm working on my new sound for the upcoming tour." I got a kick out of that. In interviews, Tom Araya from Slayer, Dave Mustaine from Megadeth, and the guy from Behemoth mention my covers of them, and they seemed to be amused at least. I even heard that Gorgoroth put my Radio Disney version of them up on Facebook.Who would of thought Gogoroth and Dying Fetus would be so mad on Disney. Are you gonna expand into any more genres?
EDM needs to come soon.I just want to put this out there: when i was googling your name, the word 'fartstep' came up a lot. What's going on there?
Well I was recording my farts every morning so I could make a big fart sound library.A big fart sound library?
Yes, a big fart sound library. All my farts played one after another on an audio file. I then brought the file to work and my engineer helped me put them into a sampler. Another friend showed me the Gaslamp Killer's live video, so I decided to use that for my fartstep masterpiece!What was your inspiration for that?
Well, at the time I thought that dubstep, as a genre, was pretty lame. So I thought that I could come up with a spoof genre called fartstep, that would sound better that dubstep. I soon realised that someone thought of fartstep way before me, but that didn't stop me from making the video. I definitely think of myself as one of the pioneers of Fartstep..And they can never take that away from you Andy…You can follow Dan Wilkinson on Twitter.
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The weirdest aspect of the whole thing is how some of them actually manage to sound remotely enjoyable as stand-alone songs, like the ska version of Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow” or the smooth jazz rework of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”.I decided to contact Andy to discuss his motivations, what it’s like to have Katy Perry and Gogoroth as superfans, and his role in pioneering, erm, fartstep.Noisey: So, Andy, how did the covers/reimaginings start?
Andy: About five and a half years ago I realised that I could find acapella vocals on the internet. I'd been watching St. Sanders' shred videos and I thought to myself, "I should make funny videos like him, but arrange and play as well as I can, instead of making it sound like they are screwing up."Ah, so you’re a real musician?
Yes. I'm a composer at Endless Noise Music and Sound Design. I started to become obsessed with making more videos over time.What compelled you to keep making them?
The fact that many people were entertained by them, and I was having a blast doing them.
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I just decide what would be the funniest/coolest genre to do for the song I choose.What are some of your favourites?
I think my transcription of the rap and chord analysis on the reggae version of Eminem's "Love the Way You Lie" turned out glorious.And I think my death metal version of Ariana Grande, because when the drums start doing the slow funky beat with my riff, it's perfect, and Thomas Hinds' vocals are incredible.They are both definitely interesting. Have you ever had any feedback from any of the artists?
A little bit. Someone from the Iron Maiden camp said they liked my bossa nova version, Dying Fetus enjoyed my Radio Disney tribute, and Katy Perry retweeted my death metal cover of her, saying, "Hey everybody I'm working on my new sound for the upcoming tour." I got a kick out of that. In interviews, Tom Araya from Slayer, Dave Mustaine from Megadeth, and the guy from Behemoth mention my covers of them, and they seemed to be amused at least. I even heard that Gorgoroth put my Radio Disney version of them up on Facebook.Who would of thought Gogoroth and Dying Fetus would be so mad on Disney. Are you gonna expand into any more genres?
EDM needs to come soon.I just want to put this out there: when i was googling your name, the word 'fartstep' came up a lot. What's going on there?
Well I was recording my farts every morning so I could make a big fart sound library.A big fart sound library?
Yes, a big fart sound library. All my farts played one after another on an audio file. I then brought the file to work and my engineer helped me put them into a sampler. Another friend showed me the Gaslamp Killer's live video, so I decided to use that for my fartstep masterpiece!What was your inspiration for that?
Well, at the time I thought that dubstep, as a genre, was pretty lame. So I thought that I could come up with a spoof genre called fartstep, that would sound better that dubstep. I soon realised that someone thought of fartstep way before me, but that didn't stop me from making the video. I definitely think of myself as one of the pioneers of Fartstep..And they can never take that away from you Andy…You can follow Dan Wilkinson on Twitter.