It’s been a landmark year forSaturday Night Live—and for the trio that redefined what digital shorts could be. While promoting his upcoming filmThe Naked Gun, directorAkiva Schaffersat down with Collider’sSteve Weintraubto talk aboutthe future ofThe Lonely Island, the surprise return of their musical comedy toSNL, and the now-infamous short “Sushi Glory Hole.” That short, which aired duringSNL’s50th anniversary season, marked the trio’s first official SNL short in five years. But surprisingly, Schaffer says no one had brought it up during theNaked Gunpress tour until now.
“I’ve been doing press forNaked Gunfor, like, this whole week, and I kept thinking somebody was going to bring it up because it’s the last thing I did besides this, and you are somehow the first person. So, thank you, because I’d love to talk about “Sushi Glory Hole,“and nobody brought it up.”
Asked about the pressure of deliveringsomething worthyof the long hiatus, Schaffer credited a confluence of timing and creative momentum — and even the writers’ strike: “We got lucky in a couple of ways,” he explained. “Thank you for thinking it was worthy.I was very proud of that one. But we got lucky in that the writers' strike — not that that was lucky — but during the writers’ strike, one of the things we could do was make songs. So me,Andy[Samberg], andJorma[Taccone], on certain off weeks, would just get together and make songs, not knowing where they’d end up, or if we’d one day get an album together. We made a lot of songs because it was the only thing that we could do.”
The reunion was also helped along by Samberg’s return toSNLto play Second GentlemanDoug Emhoffduring the 50th season, oppositeMaya Rudolph’sKamala Harris. That twist of fate suddenly allowed the team far more time together than they had previous anticipated, and with Schaffer hard at work onThe Naked Gun, that teamwork was vital.
“So, all of a sudden, Andy was kind of getting back in the rhythm. He was flying there every week doing the thing with Maya, so he was back in the mix. So, it was easy to be like, ‘Oh, we should do a short.’ The 50th kind of gave him an excuse, but Andy was already there. Then it wasn’t the high-stakes thing that it used to be, of, like, ‘We’ll come up with one on Tuesday.’ We were like, ‘We have that song. We made it during the strike.’ So, it was a bunch of great things coming together. I was very busy editingNaked Gun, so the only thing that was really hard was the studio people who spend a lot of money every week holding a staff together to edit a movie, and you have to go, like, ‘I’m going to bail out on Wednesday of this week and just be gone the rest of the week.’”
The Lonely Island Has a Back Catalog Ready to Go
With talk of music on the table, Schaffer revealed that the group has a solid batch of demos from those strike sessions, which means we should be entertained for quite a while, should they ever see the light of day.
“We have, like, 10 to 20 demo versions, rough drafts of songs, and I think a lot of them would be worthy of being on an album. I don’t know how many “Sushi Glory Holes"we have necessarily right now, but we have a lot of tracks that we think are funny.”
As for how “Sushi Glory Hole” got chosen out of all those options? Schaffer admits there was a discussion about it, but ultimately it came down to it simply being the one they wanted to do next: “There was a little bit of debate, but then that was the one that we felt like we wanted to do.And Jorma, I don’t think, was available. I forget where he was, but he was not around, so one that’s just me and Andy was also part of the equation.”
But as for what’s next for The Lonely Island? Stay tuned, folks. They’re not going anywhere.
“We make the podcast with Seth Meyers every week, so that’s keeping us in each other’s space in a really nice way. Then we have these songs, so we need to figure out how. I mean, we did two on the show, because we also didHere I Go,the one with Andy andCharli XCX. We want to record a couple more and polish them all up and mix them, and maybe get some guests, and then figure out if there’s a game plan. So, much likeI Think You Should LeaveSeason 4, it’s on the horizon, but I don’t know when.”
Until then, we’ve got “Sushi Glory Hole,” a stack of unreleased demos, and one of comedy’s greatest trios still riffing, still collaborating — and still very much in the game.
