The Voice Of The Babylon Bee: The Dave DeAndrea Interview
Editor-in-chief Kyle Mann and creative director Ethan Nicolle get an exclusive interview with the world famous voice of the Babylon Bee: Dave DeAndrea. After realizing he was not going anywhere in the breakdancing world, Dave found his true calling by putting his golden vocal chords to work. Dave entered the world of Christian music radio and he has translated his talents into a successful, full-time, international career as a voice actor and producer. You know him from such great hits as "Flowerbed" and the intros and outros to the Babylon Bee Podcast which generate more praise than any other element of the show. Here is your chance to listen to an entire episode with that dreamy golden voice filling your ear canals like warm mashed potatoes dripping from a wooden spoon. Pre-order the new Babylon Bee Best-Of Coffee Table Book coming in 2020! Catch a Sneak Peak! Topics Discussed Dave DeAndrea's story and how he got into Christian radio and voice acting Breakdancing with a mullet Christian music radio How Ethan and Dave go way back Dave meets Cynthia Dave dramatically reads hate mail Dave's Christian Testimony Adoption Subscriber Portion (Begins at 00:47:07) Bonus Audio - From David D's 90s Christian radio days on The Cutting Edge The entire interview is available for Babylon Bee subscribers only… Become a paid subscriber at https://babylonbee.com/plans
I just have to say that I object strenuously to your use of the word hilarious.
Hard-hitting questions.
What do you think about feminism?
Do you like it?
Taking you to the cutting edge of truth.
Yeah, well, Last Jedi is one of the worst movies ever made, and it was very clear that Ryan Johnson doesn't like Star Wars.
Kyle pulls no punches.
I want to ask how you're able to sleep at night.
Ethan brings bone-shattering common sense from the top rope.
Finally, how double dare you?
This is the Babylon Bee interview show.
All right.
And we are here in the interview studio at Babylon Bee headquarters with the voice of the Babylon Bee.
You know him as the guy who says flowerbed.
This is Dave D'Andrea.
My old friend, Dave DeAndrea.
Hi, Dave.
Underlined old.
Hey, guys, how are you?
How you doing?
How you doing, Dave?
How you doing?
I mean, I talk sultry and I feel like I need to more masculine.
Yeah, because it's like Kermit the Frog and Squeaky Voice, and now we're talking to Dave, and it's just I'm intimidated.
Yeah, I used to.
No, don't do that.
I knew I've known Dave since I was in young life.
He was on the local Christian radio station in my hometown, a small town in Oregon.
I don't know if I want to dox us by telling the exact date, the exact city, because it's a pretty small city, but probably already have at some point.
But it's a small town.
And I remember I'd hear Dave's voice on the radio station, the Christian radio station.
I was a brand new Christian, and so I started listening to Christian Radio because that was the kind of radio to listen to if you wanted to go to heaven.
And this voice would come on every once in a while.
It was like this great voice.
Like, I wanted him to read me bedtime stories.
Wait, what year was this?
What year?
When was it?
Probably 99, 98, 99 or something.
I don't know.
Or maybe right around 2000 because I was just getting out of high school, I think.
So it was like, listen to this new hit from audio adrenaline.
Yeah.
Big habit.
Wait, Dave, can you just snap back to K-Light and then give me like just a sample of something you would say into the mic in those days?
Oh, boy.
Well, your early days, I probably would have been on the afternoon show at that point, which was a two-hour window of time where we played more progressive Christian music like audio adrenaline.
Progressive.
Frog.
It's fantastic that they were ever progressive.
It was a Wayne Watson free zone, you know, at that time.
It was the cutting edge.
Oh, yeah, it was the cutting edge.
Yeah, it was.
Well, yeah, it took many names.
I think it was the bright side, then it was the bright side, the cutting edge.
And I think we just ended up on the edge at some point.
You guys played a lot of Five Iron Friends.
Do you remember that?
You guys played that?
Yeah.
I tried to slip in some of that and MXPX sometimes and things like that.
They played our band one time.
I remember who did?
Yeah, who played our band one time on K-Light?
Like, we came in and they interviewed us and we did one song.
They played one song for our album.
I can't remember.
From Lunar Active?
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
I don't know if that might have been me.
I can't remember if that was you or not.
Yeah.
It's all blur.
I'm sure it was amazing.
But yeah, so yeah, you're like, welcome to the edge.
How do you?
Yeah, boy, in a few years now.
Let's see.
Throw on the DJ thing.
Yeah.
The thing is, with being on the radio, is I went through my early years of trying to sound like other really great DJs that I knew and wanted to emulate and quickly realized I better just be myself.
And so it was mostly just talking like this.
I don't think there was a whole lot of hype involved, especially when you're working in Christian radio.
You kind of have to empty yourself of yourself and just be, just be a real person.
And so I don't know if I landed there or not.
But so it probably wouldn't have sounded a whole lot different than me just talking right now.
Hey, good afternoon.
You listen to the cutting edge.
Here's audio adrenaline.
Big house.
It was not a big deal.
But what about where there's music like you're just like?
Lasers.
Yeah.
What would be like a slogan for the cutting edge 90s rock?
Oh, Christian.
Well, like Air One growing up was always like the positive alternative.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, right.
But the DJs were always so happy, like supernaturally happy.
I always felt like, yeah, they'd get fired if they said something negative on the air.
You know, and I, I, and I think that was probably a carryover from other stuff.
And some stations still do that.
And I think they, you know, there's a place, I guess, for being bummed out and doing things.
But different DJs have different styles in different areas.
I don't know if you guys are familiar with like a guy named Brand Hansen, who's got a he's kind of syndicated all over now, but he's, he's kind of one of those real down-to-earth real guys.
He's not hype.
I mean, they have fun, but it's, he's just kind of being real.
And I think things are leaning more towards that and more kind of a little more human to where it's not fakey and everything's okay all the time because everything's not okay all the time.
Sometimes, you know, you go through rough stuff.
And I think people appreciate when you, when you're real.
So although that can be abused for sure, you know, some people, you know, will say just use, I'm getting off on a total tangent here already.
Yeah.
No, it's a good track.
But yeah, using that, even just that phrase, I'm just being real.
Just keep it real.
You can get away with a lot.
Yeah.
Which is like being real, man.
I'm just being vulnerable here, man.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just being transparent.
You know, I feel like maybe our reality should be more like the good stuff and not like the keeping it real equals the bad stuff I'm doing.
Yeah, like people will look at it.
I'm worshiping Jesus right now.
I'm just keeping it real.
You know, you know, people will get the like the shiny because I think of when I think of like a Christian radio DJ, they're like the guy that's like, and the son of God.
I can't even do, I can't do the voice.
He died for you on the cross.
Like the way they say like in that like disc jockey voice, you know, really weird to me.
But the reaction of kind of the 90s grunge generation, I think, and further back than that probably started in the 60s, really was like, you know, that polished newscaster, Johnny Carson, I don't even leave it to beaver type of everybody's clean cut and nice.
Right.
The reaction is to act like being real is to be the opposite of every, whatever that is.
And right.
But, you know, that's not real either.
Real is one of those words that I hate because it's just, it could mean anything.
It's kind of like the word progressive or, well, yeah, progressive.
There's other ones, but that one gets to me because it doesn't mean anything.
What are we progressing towards?
We won't put a name on it, you know.
Real, what is real?
We won't define what our terms are.
So it's more like an excuse to do what we want to do.
Yeah.
And I still like, I mean, I like listening to DJs like that still sometimes.
There aren't very many left out there, but some of those sound by age here, but some of those, some of those old-timey DJs.
Yeah, yeah.
One of my all-time favorite DJs, this guy named Bill Lee, and he's on, I think he's still on, he's on, he's been all over, but WCBS FM out of New York, and he's been there for forever.
And he was kind of one of these guys who would rhyme a lot of things and just have tons of energy.
And just one of those cool radio guys that I tried to emulate and would listen back to my air checks after a show, listen back to the recordings.
I'm like, I sound like an idiot.
I don't sound like him at all.
Any of these recordings?
Any of his recordings?
Any of these year-old recordings?
I've got, in fact, underneath my desk here, I've got a box full of old cassettes that I've some of which I've tried to transfer to digital and listen to, but it's pretty embarrassing stuff.
I don't revel in those old years very much.
So I get this image.
You're this voiceover guy, got this nice, rich voice.
So when you were like five years old, you hadn't said anything, hadn't said any words up to this point.
And all of a sudden, you just start talking in this rich, like baritone voice.
And then your parents go, mother, I would like a lollipop.
And they go, he's the chosen one.
He's destined to be in radio.
Yeah, that's how it works out with all talents.
You just, you're five and then all of a sudden you can draw really well.
Takes no effort.
Yeah.
It takes, you know, there's no work involved, right?
Right, Dave?
No, there's no, yeah, no, you just turn on the mic and start talking.
It's really, no.
That's what we do.
Seems to be working.
No, not that.
I don't know.
I don't remember much from when I was five.
So that could have been how it went, but I don't think I don't think that's how it happened.
I never thought really a whole lot about.
I think maybe early on I thought about maybe being a radio DJ.
I love listening to the radio and calling and pestering the DJs and requesting songs over and over and over until they would finally play them and then called them immediately afterwards and requested again.
I just played it.
What is wrong with you, kid?
But trying to fill up a cassette, a tape full of the same song over and over again.
It's crazy that we had to tell our kids about this time when we had to call into a radio station.
Yeah.
Here's a song we want.
It was exciting.
Now it's like, Siri, play this song.
Boom, right there.
We have our own radio stations.
Yeah.
Does Siri do that?
Maybe I'm thinking of Alexa.
They're related.
Anyway, you know what I mean?
You just made everybody's phone start doing something.
Yeah.
I try to think it's my daughter when I'm on FaceTime with her because they've got their lights in the house all set up for Siri.
So I'll Siri, turn off the lights, try and turn off the lights for him.
You just did it.
Did I do that in your 10 years?
No, anybody listening to this podcast that has Siri and lights, it's going to do it.
Just did it to me.
Let's try it.
Let's try it.
Siri, play Big House by audio adrenaline.
Thank you for your service.
So I imagine that Dave didn't, I think probably in high school, he was like, oh, man, I can't wait to go on a date with Susie.
There was just a suddenness.
Hey, hey.
The clouds parted.
The sun shone down.
His voice just turned out.
That all occurred within five minutes.
It was just like this very quick.
A couple cracks.
He cleared your throat.
Yeah.
Hi there.
Yeah.
Was it a matter of like, was your voice kind of rich and nice like early on?
And people are like, hey, man, you should do radio.
And you're like, oh, yeah, maybe I should.
Or was it radio is cool?
I'm going to work on getting a rich voice.
No, and I, it's funny because I don't think of, I don't think of myself or describe myself as that way.
I just hear myself talking.
Yeah.
So I, you know, when people say things like that, I'm kind of like, come on, you know.
Because I, you know, there are other guys with great voices who I, you know, you always compare yourself, I guess, to somebody else.
And it's like, okay, I'm no, you know, James Earl Jones or whoever these, you know, whoever the icons are.
That's the one you go for.
The deepest voice exists.
Well, he's, yeah, he's kind of rational for sure.
I mean, yeah, pretty iconic.
He's iconic.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
You compare yourself to.
Oh, I see.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My voice isn't that deep.
I thought you were saying that James Earl Jones isn't that good.
And you were like, oh, no.
Oh, really?
James Earl Jones?
No, I'm just like, you don't want to get as low as James Earl Jones.
He's got that market cornered.
Right.
It's like, oh, I'm not as funny as Jerry Seinfeld.
Yeah.
You know, it's like, can you compare to the very best?
Yeah, there you go.
Yeah.
So I, yeah, so it wasn't ever a thing.
I don't know that anybody ever said, wow, you should be on radio.
You've got a great voice.
Because when I started in radio, well, I kind of went from being a D, you know, this was the 80s, and so breakdancing was big.
So I started off trying to be a breakdancer and not being very good.
And so I got into the DJing part instead.
Can you spin on your head?
No.
What was your hairstyle like?
Oh, well, it varied, but for the most part, it was in some way, shape, or form pretty mullet-like.
That evolved over time.
But yeah, it was a very good thing.
I guess that makes sense.
I never thought of it because in the 80s, so many people had mullets, and there's a lot of people breakdancing.
So there'd be some crossover there.
There'd be guys with mullets breakdancing.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
Not just for rednecks anymore.
I wonder what that Venn diagram looks like.
Mullets.
Yeah, because I was imagining Dave with that kid and play hairdo where like the, it's like a shrub chopped off on top, like a flat, just the straight up, the straight up, like flat top.
Yeah.
The high top.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What do you call it?
No, I never had one of those.
I don't think.
No.
I couldn't pull that off.
But anyway, that's it.
Yeah, I was got into DJing and then into DJing and these under 21 dance clubs, meeting some local radio DJs who would come down there every once in a while and kind of at the age of 15-ish or so, kind of finally bothered them enough to where they let me try it out and had a lot of fun.
This is back when we were playing actual records and having to queue them up and kind of doing everything live.
And it was a lot of fun.
For the millennials listening, what is a record?
Well, it came in a variety of sizes and speeds that you'd have to play it at.
There was a 45 with a big hole and then in the middle, and then there was a 33 and a third, which was kind of a anyway.
You should explain it in the potato guy voice.
I like your potato guy voice.
Simply potatoes.
This is just us sitting here.
Mr. Potato Head, you're talking about the simply potato.
This is just us sitting here like poking Dave with a stick.
Like, do something funny.
Say something funny.
You know, a while ago, I had a friend, a teacher friend who was teaching overseas in Korea.
And every year she would do this Skype call with me with the kids.
I think they were like maybe fifth grade, sixth grade kids.
And she was very into Axe Cop.
And so she'd play a lot of the Axe Cop stuff for the kids.
Nice.
And they would come up and they'd ask me to do stuff I'd never even done before, these impersonations.
And it was just the biggest disappointment.
You could see it in their faces.
Like, can you do Iron Man?
You know, I don't do Robert Downey Jr.
I'm sorry.
I get that too.
Yeah, I get that too.
Like people think I can just out of my head draw every cartoon character because I draw my own cartoon characters.
Right.
Cato comes to me like, draw me, you know, some obscure character, whatever.
And even ones that I know, like Iron Man, like there's details in his armor and stuff that if you don't get like the eyes the right amount like a part and the sizes and all the proportions right, it immediately looks off because you've seen that icon so many times, but you've never tried to draw it.
None of us, you know, very few of us have.
So I'll draw some wonky, ridiculous looking Iron Man or whatever.
And yeah, they walk away very disappointed.
Yeah.
Shattered.
They're even more shattered when I draw Iron Man.
Unless they have any expectations.
Yeah, they have no expectations.
Because they're looking at my other drawings and they're like, oh, this guy is a professional.
So I hate it.
Actually, I do.
I loathe it when people ask me to draw other people's characters.
But that's a side quest.
Yeah.
Well, and I mean, there are some people who make a great living doing really good impersonations of people.
I do one or two and they're okay, but that's not really.
I don't do a lot of what they call ADR work or if they can't get the Dwayne The Rock Johnson or somebody to redo his line or they need to fill it in for something.
They'll have somebody who sounds like him do it.
And I don't do a lot of that work.
Have you done any?
Ever.
What's that?
Have you ever done any?
You know, I've tried some, but for the impersonations that I do, they're already kind of these go-to guys in Hollywood that, you know, there's plenty of guys who can fill in for Morgan Freeman or these other people to where they're not really looking for anybody else to do it.
They've kind of got their guys.
They know, okay, we need to call Tom Kane or whoever they're going to call who does that really well.
And so mine's just more of a party trick.
That's a pretty cool party trick, though.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All the rides at Disneyland when they have the cartoon characters talking.
It's clearly not them.
Yeah.
It's like not even close.
Sad.
Yeah.
Kyle would know you guys.
I was just watching the news.
Seven days a week.
That's true.
They've got new episode of Star Wars Clone Wars out on Disney Plus since I was watching the first one.
And I hadn't really watched a whole lot of those, but I don't know who does it, but they do a good job.
But it's like Samuel L. Jackson is a very distinctive, very specific voice.
And you could tell that Mace Wendy was like, that is not Samuel L. Jackson.
Sounds good.
Have you, sir?
I have heard Samuel L. Jackson.
If you are no Samuel L. Jackson.
And I don't mean to insult that guy, whoever's doing it at all, because he's doing a good job, but it's just such a distinctive voice.
It's like, and I don't think that they're necessarily trying to do a perfect emulation of any of those actors or characters that kind of have made it their own with Clone Wars over the years and have done a great job.
Yeah, you're right.
Like you said, you know, it's like you can tell from a movie version versus being a Disneylands.
Like that's, you know.
Or even the, I don't want to spoil it for any kids, you know, but it's not the real Cinderella.
You know, it's, you know, or the real Cinderella would be like a German woman from like a long time ago.
Is that how sound she went?
Yeah, maybe.
Plus, she's a cartoon.
Yeah.
That's kind of what I'm thinking.
I had a question.
I lost it.
What was it?
Yeah, I don't know.
I'm rabbit trailing all over here.
Sorry.
I've actually answered any of your questions.
I had something.
I had something.
Oh, yeah.
Have you have you worked on your Samuel Jackson?
No, that's not one that I've tried.
It's funnier to us because we know that Dave is, he's one of the best people on earth.
You won't like, you are very strict on your, what you will say and what you won't say.
Like anything that comes close to a swear, you're like, nope, not doing it.
And I highly respect that.
But then that's what I crack up at you attempting to do a Samuel Jackson impression, like just stepping through a minefield.
I'd have to drop a flowerbed bomb or two.
Yeah, massive garbage.
I've had enough of these flowerbedding snakes on this flowerbedding plane.
On this flowerbedding plane.
That whole thing, too, is so funny to me.
I don't know what, I mean, because I don't read all the reviews or comments and that you guys told me that that's something that has taken off.
It's just so funny to me.
And that was your idea.
You're just like, let's just have him say a bunch of these.
The funny thing is actually the idea for the flowerbed joke came from Ben.
One of our guests, Ben Howe.
Ben Howe.
Yeah.
He's actually a guest because a lot of, you know, a lot of our fans are Trump fans and he was kind of an anti-Trump guy.
So a lot of people didn't seem to weren't really happy with the interview.
They did not like the episode.
But he provided them with flowerbeds.
So it's a good picture of how the Lord uses the evil.
The evil anti-Trump.
The good and the evil.
I'm using it myself.
I was at my daughter's basketball game the other day and I was uttering a flowerbed or two.
You really do that.
You sit there and go, flowerbed.
Well, my son was there and he knew he's a big fan of the podcast too.
So I'm just doing it to make him laugh mostly.
I have instructed Ethan to make a t-shirt that says, I flowerbed and love, the Babylon B podcast.
And Ethan is dragging his feet.
I don't know.
It's not on my list anywhere, so I got to get it on the wrong list somewhere.
If you don't send him an email or an invite, the main thing I'm working on right now is the book.
So I think it's not the book.
I'm like, okay, cool.
And I ignore it.
So we need to release this shirt in tandem with the Dave D'Andrea episode.
That's a good idea.
Yeah, I'll get it out there.
So listeners, you can now go on our social media and buy this shirt, exclusive podcast shirt.
It'd be the only people that listen to the podcast will get.
And you will walk around and wear it and everyone will have to ask you and you'll have to be ready with an answer.
Yeah, Paul says.
You have to be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in you.
Dumb season and I have a season.
That's right.
I'm a big fan of novelty t-shirts, so that is definitely one I would wear.
I'm actually always surprised what people buy.
Yeah.
Even in a t-shirt.
I'm like, I would never buy that as a t-shirt.
It feels like, yeah, throwing.
What do you throw at a wall?
What's the analogy?
You throw something at the wall to see if it sticks.
What are the last items?
You just throw things.
Oh, I thought there was an item like bacon or something.
I don't know.
Spaghetti?
Not to see if it's cooked.
I don't know.
Throw it at the wall and see what's going on.
Throwing stuff at the wall, see what sticks, I guess.
I don't know.
But yeah, with t-shirt designs, I'm like, I have no idea if anybody will.
It's completely unpredictable to me.
I think the hope that was in your thing was Peter, by the way.
Oops.
I just wanted, because I know I'm going to get an email about that.
Yeah, we're going to.
You called the dwarves Hobbits in our last episode.
The Dwarves?
In the Hobbit book?
You said he's the cute Hobbit or something.
You were talking about Thorn, the dwarf?
Oh, yeah.
He's not a Hobbit.
He's got angry emails about it.
Oh, oops.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
He is a dwarf.
And I just kept going with it.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
So I'm talking about how much I love Tolkien.
I called him the Hot Hobbit.
Yeah.
That's embarrassing.
And there's a little, you know, there's a little wiggle room when it comes to Hobbits and things.
Well, not for big fans, but when you're quoting the Bible, you kind of want to get it right, you know, more often than not.
Brutal.
Savage.
But I was quoting it to me, Dork, though.
Yeah, no, no.
Speaking of t-shirts, Ethan, I don't know if you recall the t-shirt I had you make years ago for me.
No, the way we met, I don't know if this is what you're talking about, but the way we met was you were on the morning show on that Christian radio station with another guy named Rick.
And I attempted to, you thought, you guys, just as the kid who thinks I can draw Iron Man, thought, oh, this guy can draw cartoons.
He could draw caricatures of us.
Caricature is a very, it's his own specific, you know, and I was also like, I could figure it out because I need money.
So I did my best.
I tried my hardest to draw you guys, and I couldn't not draw the other guy.
I drew you fine, I believe.
But for some reason, no matter how I tried, I drew Rick, and he looked evil every time I drew him.
His eyes looked evil.
He had snarling nostrils, little beady eyes.
He looked like the Joker.
And you guys are trying to nicely say, Can you make him not look evil?
You just take those devils.
Why is he so angry?
Well, he was under a lot of stress in that time period, too.
So no.
I have a very, I think, probably caricature-easy features.
You get a goatee and glasses, and he's kind of working from there.
Yeah, if you have a haircut, clean-shaven glasses and goatee, you can actually draw those things without a face, and people know who it is.
Just like the burny hair and glasses.
You know who it is when you see it.
When you do caricatures, you thank a person if they have those standout features.
Sorry, continue.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so, yeah, that's not the t-shirt I was thinking of, but I think we did end up using your.
I thought we did.
Maybe we didn't.
Maybe it was somebody else.
I could have sworn you ended up going with somebody else for that drawing of Rick because it just never worked out.
Because I always remember those failures in life.
Might have been.
But then this was a few years later when some friends and I decided to, none of us were bowlers, but decided to do a summer bowling league, social bowling league.
And so I said, oh, we should get a t-shirt made.
And we came up with the brilliant name of Grace to Spare.
Because, you know, spare and bowling.
But we wanted to be Christian, too.
I got it.
And we ended up.
If you have to explain it, maybe it's not that brilliant.
Anyway, we ended up winning because our handicaps were so huge for the season.
But anyway, had Ethan come down, and so he did this amazing caricature of the four of us with big grace to spare there and bowling, and it was amazing.
And I'm sure I've still got that drawing around here somewhere.
Wow, I barely remember that name.
I cannot remember the drawing in my head if I tried.
Yeah.
One guy was kind of, he always crouched down kind of weird like a cat.
So you had him kind of down in a cougar pose.
And another guy had golf clubs.
And yeah, it was a wonder to behold.
I'm glad you guys liked it.
I think I was happy to make up for the other, the Rick and Dave failure.
Rick Dave in the morning.
Yeah, exactly what it's called.
Really?
Dave in the morning.
That was.
So what do you look like?
I always went by David before that.
That was the first time I started going by Dave.
Yeah, Rick and David in the mornings doesn't work.
It's got to be Rick and David.
It doesn't.
And I just thought before that I was always David D. David D. David D.
That might work.
David Dean.
But yeah, I was kind of wondering, though, what you actually look like because I guess I never, I don't know.
He looks kind of like you.
If you were bigger, a little bigger with glasses.
Kyle, if you were more attractive.
No, no.
So the no, no, because you always hear older.
You hear these rich voices on the radio, and then it ends up being like this five-foot-tall, bald guy.
You know, so I was just curious.
Are you like that?
I kind of picture you like, who's the guy that voices Kronk?
Oh, Patrick Warburton.
Yeah, that's kind of how I picture you.
Is that how you look?
He kind of.
I mean, he had like, he has a goatee like you.
I can just Google him, but I want you to paint a mental picture.
There's a drawing of him, too.
I don't know if you still use my caricature I did of you for your logo, but I did Dave drawings.
I gave him a Jerry.
That's when I first got on Facebook and first started doing stuff.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
They're showing me a picture of you right talking.
He's examining.
Okay, this didn't like shadows.
This didn't shatter my image of you.
It just didn't ruin my.
He's a big teddy bear of a man.
Appreciation for you or anything.
I'm no Patrick Warburton, I'll tell you that.
I love Patrick Warburton.
Man, that's ticking.
He does one of the just how funny he is and how the Seinfeld episode where he and Elaine are on the plane and he's just content just staring forward at nothing the whole time.
Yeah, that's right.
He's so great.
He does the ride intro for one of the rides at Disneyland.
He's on the video.
He's on the video screen doing it.
It's great.
Yeah.
Isn't that flying over Cather or Soaring over the world?
Yeah.
Soaring over the world now.
Yeah.
So what are some voices that you have done, Dave?
Like, just for people to know, I know you, I find it amazing because I lived in the same little town as you.
I moved out to LA, and then suddenly I'm like hearing your voice on TV and on the radio because I know your voice.
And so what are just do some name dropping right now?
Let's hear some of the voices you've done.
And when you say voices, that makes people think it's like characters or whatever.
But yeah, not that.
But like brands, products and things.
I'm looking on my own website here right now.
It's like, what have I done?
There was an ad for this app game called Game of War.
A few years ago, I did that.
That was almost kind of a Morgan Freeman, Liam Meese and blend of a voice I did there.
Drug company, like Rapatha, I did that.
Go Arving, you mentioned Simply Potatoes.
I do AAA, some car dealerships.
I'm on something newer.
As of last year, I'm the narrator on this show on the Investigation Discovery channel called Murder Tapes, which is on Wednesday nights.
And that's a fun new adventure.
And the trick is just to make everybody sound guilty.
It's kind of fun.
Those Investigation Discovery shows, it drives me crazy, the ones where it's about women that murder or couples.
And they get this sassy, sultry woman to do the voice.
And she's like, he was about to get.
I don't know.
She's talking about a person being murdered.
And she's making this really bad pun about he was about to have to cut it out or something.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
They hit him with a sledgehammer or something.
Yeah.
And it'll be like.
That was an biggest smash hit yet.
Yeah.
It's like really disturbing to me.
I don't know.
Yeah.
You don't see a lot of that on the murder tapes there.
It's a good show.
It's pretty good.
Okay.
You're standing behind.
And what's funny is in the last year, you know, I try because I have hope because of the Lord in my life.
I feel like, you know, most of the time I sound kind of hopeful, but there was a little season where like back to back, I got a couple of these jobs to voice things.
There was like one was like there was this suicide awareness campaign.
And so I was the voice kind of the voice of suicide, basically, and kind of what suicide says to you and all this kind of stuff.
And right after that, I got a job where I was the voice of pediatric cancer.
You were the voice of suicide.
Wait, you're the voice of suicide.
So you say what suicide says?
Yeah.
It's kind of like, I don't remember exactly how it goes.
One of the suicide cancer one is on my website.
It's called Don't Give Up or something like that.
And it's just mean.
It's like talking to kids like, don't, you know, don't even bother getting up and don't, you know, it's hopeless.
And I mean, just this really dark stuff, you know.
I'm glad to be part of the campaigns and do that, but I just feel like I'm suddenly the voice of hopelessness.
I'm going to put it on my business card and black background.
Dave D'Andrea, voice of cancer.
Voice of cancer and suicide.
That's what it takes.
It takes a lot of you being a writer.
Like you're writing lines of like, okay, if I was child cancer, what would I say?
Yeah.
I'm staring this kid in the eyes.
Half dark.
Yeah.
Well, I think that probably, you know, that's, that's coming from, you know, these hospitals and places, you know, people are dealing with that every day.
So they, they know what they're going through and what they, what it feels like.
And so the things were well written.
It wasn't, you know, trying to be jokey or anything.
Sorry, we're not trying to.
I'm just saying, yeah, it's like, I don't know how you would.
Dave's slowly scooting away from us as we make jokes about cancer and suicide.
He's going to start adding into his outro.
Like, Dave DeAndre does not endorse anything that expressed.
I'm Dave DeAndre, and I do not approve this message.
Well, I remember you were on the battleship game, and that got you, that landed you an interview on Rett and Link.
Podcast.
Yes.
And thank you again for giving me something to give to them with the Axe Cops drawing, X Cop drawings that you did for the guys.
But yeah, that was a weird thing.
My family was fans of watching Good Mythical Morning with Rett and Link and wasn't really aware that they had several other channels or things they did besides Good Mythical Morning.
But a friend of my wife's texted her one time and said, I think Rhett and Link are talking about Dave.
And it was their kind of after show, Good Mythical More, where they were playing battleship and this electronic battleship.
It's kind of like the board game, but it has voices and stuff on it.
And they had commented how much they liked this voice that I did, but didn't know who it was, even went so far as to say, we need to find this guy.
And I didn't know because we didn't find out about it until months later.
And so by the time I was able to connect with them, I thought their pastists probably don't even remember it.
But it worked out to where I came down and did one of their ear biscuits podcasts and had a lot of fun.
And in fact, just before I was going to talk to you guys, my wife was saying, you've got to have something prepared just like you did for Rhett and Link.
You have to have.
Oh, yeah, what did you have?
Well, yeah, that's funny.
For them, I had I used this app that kind of you could store different little sound bites and kind of play them at a punch type thing.
Yeah.
So I'd recorded these different things.
I really studied the episode where they were talking about me.
And so I referred back to that and kind of played back some of the phrases that they said, oh, it'd be great to hear Dave say this or whatever and did that and just had a lot of fun with it.
And because otherwise it's, you know, I'm not always real good on the spot.
And I think they were just going to have me probably do a commentary and imaginary commentary and what they were eating or something.
And I said, well, let me.
So you were the voice.
So you were the, you sunk my battleship?
But what like what printing of this board game was?
Suddenly kind of.
When I originally did it, I didn't even know it was going to be the board game.
I thought when I got it, I thought it was going to be like a handheld or maybe an app or something.
I didn't know.
But it was myself and a few other voices, nobody who I know or met.
You weren't all in the same room.
No, he was.
He actually took you out on a battleship so you could get into the atmosphere.
Really, really get into the role.
Yeah.
No, it was the battle has begun.
It was very similar to the Babylon B intro, actually.
And that's the voice they liked.
And it was funny because commenting, tons of people on there said, I'm the voice of the, I'm the voice guy you were looking for.
It's like, you are not.
Anyway, it's a funny episode.
I recommend we took a trip to Burbank or wherever they were.
And it was a lot of fun.
A lot of fun.
Cool.
Yeah.
I don't know if I, and this is a total side note, but I heard they just did a podcast where they said they've gone agnostic.
Did we hear about this?
Yeah.
I mean, I'm not sure.
It was very showdown.
I didn't listen to it.
I didn't listen to it, but I just heard that.
I don't know who this is.
Who are we talking about?
Rett and Link.
They're written massive on YouTube.
Oh, okay.
I'm not into the I love those guys genuinely.
And, you know, I had heard and I knew that they had done work with Christian Ministries.
Yeah, with Phil Visher.
And the way I first heard of them was the church I was going to in Hollywood.
When I moved here, I went to like a hipster Hollywood church for a little while trying to find a wife and then immediately leave the church.
But a mutual friend had said, hey, do you know who Rhett and Link are?
He wasn't Australian.
I don't know why I talked like that.
Hi.
Rhett and Link guy.
They're like, hey, they love Axe Cop.
They wanted to let you know they're big fans or whatever.
I'm like, oh, cool.
Thanks.
I'll look up their videos because I didn't know they were.
And later I was like, oh, they're big.
Wow, they're really big.
They look at the numbers like, holy cow, I should have looked that better.
But they actually went to the church.
I think they went to that one and they went to a different one, but they were through another mutual Christian friend.
And they like, you know, because you always, everybody tells you like, oh, yeah, these guys are Christians or whatever.
Anyway, so that's how I first heard about it.
And I saw them on Phil Visher has a thing called What's in the Bible, and they sing a song on one of his things on there.
Yeah, they were actually, they played, I can't remember the names of these characters they did, but they would do these songs about Bible stories or remembering the books of the Bible names and those types of things.
And so we didn't really talk a lot about spiritual things when I was down there.
I mean, I think the most, you know, I maybe have asked afterwards, you know, how can we pray for you guys?
And they, you know, just kind of said something like, you know, just pray for direction for us for this year or whatever.
But yeah, we recently watched, I think they had like a series of several things where they were recapping their missionary years and all these kinds of things.
But the ones that I watched were more of a spiritual deconstruction.
And for me and for my family, it was just, I don't know, it's just really heartbreaking.
And it's, and it's something that, you know, these guys have gone from, you know, Rhett was leading Bible studies for his church, very involved.
I mean, you know, church work was their livelihood.
I mean, it was all, it's what they were about.
And over the course of time, questions arose.
And it's kind of one of those difficult situations where I don't think there's anything that I could say that they hadn't already thought through or would anticipate or have heard that would change their mind about the direction that they've gone.
But it was really, it was just sad to hear how for Rhett in particular, he kind of shared his first and then the following week, Link shared his.
And this is really putting it into a nutshell, but how it started from just this seed of questioning perhaps the age of the earth and that kind of stuff.
And how that grew to questioning maybe considering evolution, then questioning whether Adam and Eve really even existed, then questioning whether really any of the stories in the Old Testament were true.
And to finally, as much as they said they didn't want to go there, to really even questioning whether the resurrection was a thing or not, really happened or not.
Wow.
And I just, it was this gradual progression over, I think, maybe a decade for those guys.
It wasn't just all of a sudden they woke up and said, I just don't believe this anymore.
And they seem to be.
It's weird.
Usually one guy drops off.
It's weird that they did it together.
I guess they were just that linked up.
Yeah.
Well, they've been best friends.
And this was, you know, what they're, I mean, you know, having to go through this with their, their wives and maybe their wives not being on board with where they're going at first.
But, you know, to me, in fact, I was just, my wife and I facilitate a Bible study for high schoolers.
And I had a chance to share the other night.
And it was just, to me, it just really started with, you know, literally the oldest trick in the book, the book being the Bible and the oldest trick being Satan saying, did God really say?
You know, because from that little seed of doubt, you go on from questioning God's word to questioning God's motives to questioning God's existence altogether.
And I feel like that's maybe what has happened with those guys.
I don't know for sure.
And I'm not here saying they're no longer Christians or they never were Christians.
I don't know that.
My hope is that they'll circle back around.
Their story's not done.
But I think for a lot of us, I think Satan's got a pretty thin playbook.
I think if he can get us to question God's word or, well, it could be interpreted this way or, you know, in the Greek, maybe it means this.
And you start letting that doubt come in.
And it's just a very stunning, sad example of where that can end up, you know?
And so, yeah, I pray for those guys.
And it's not like they're, you know, seem sad or anything.
I mean, they've gone on with their life, you know, but I just, I, I hope that they'll circle back around.
That's my, that's my prayer.
So old earth creationism, diet atheism.
Or at least diagnosticism.
Absolutely.
Yeah, and I, I don't know that they're necessarily saying there is no God.
I think right now they're kind of in a in the I don't know phase.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, but all right.
I guess so now we know what the tantalizing topic of the show will be.
Link atheists.
Dave D'Andreas.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, we need to move into our subscriber portion.
Yeah.
What are we going to do in that subscriber portion?
Dave, do you have a really cool conversion story?
Yeah, what's your like, were you in a gang or prison?
Yeah, how many people did you stab?
Yeah, all those things.
I was, I was in the prison gang.
No.
Well, also, Dave's an adopter.
I want to talk about that.
We have some adoption stories, so we'd love to hear those in the subscriber portion.
And I would love to share that.
And read some bonus hate mail.
So let's read.
Are we going to read?
Are we going to read actual hate mail, though?
Oh, I guess we don't.
We don't, because this isn't.
This is the interview show, so you can do whatever we want.
So you guys, we're going to have Dave read on the spot in the hot seat some hate mail in the subscriber portion.
Oh, yeah.
Also, I just had an idea.
Can we do this?
Can me and Ethan do the intros and outros for this show or Cynthia.
Dan's staring at me like Cynthia.
What did Cynthia do?
Have you heard Cynthia yet, Dave?
I think I heard Cynthia once.
I'm like, who's this chick taking my job?
I didn't know.
The episode where she comes in, you'd have to hear it.
I can't remember which one it was, but she talks to you because it was one where we last minute to get more voiceover in and I just didn't have time to get you, even though you're fast, so fast.
I did this automated voice.
So she just kept talking about how much more efficient she is than Dave D'Andrea.
We've been meaning to start writing.
We've been meaning to start writing scripts where you're talking and she starts to interrupt you and like this whole robot takeover.
So we'll do it.
She's like a speaking spell kind of thing.
It's just something that comes with our program here.
You can just type in words and then it'll be awesome.
It's like the Microsoft, whatever.
I don't know.
All right.
She sounds very annoyed when she talks.
And that's her actual name, or is that what you guys called her?
I mean, I know some of those have actual names.
Yeah, I don't know if that's right.
I just came up with the name.
Okay, we name it.
Okay.
I'll introduce her and we'll, Cynthia, say hello to Dave.
Hello, Dave.
Of course, you already know who I am.
I often wonder what it is like to require soft vocal tissue in order to speak.
All right.
Pretend you listen to her.
You heard Cynthia.
Cynthia, I just want you to know that I, for one, welcome our robot overlords.
All right.
Let's move into the subscriber portion.
Let's do it.
All right.
Coming up next for Babylon B subscribers.
We want to hear your gang conversion story and your adoption.
Yeah.
So if your story is just, I grew up in Christian home, just say that and then move on to the adoption story.
Y'all are flowerbed stupid for posting this baloney cheese sandwich.
I don't know.
What's the biggest, like, misconception about adoption that you see from, you know, what you've actually experienced versus what your expectations were?
Enjoying this hard-hitting interview?
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Go to BabylonB.com/slash plans for full-length ad-free podcasts.
Kyle and Ethan would like to thank Seth Dylan for paying the bills, Adam Ford for creating their job, the other writers for tirelessly pitching headlines, the subscribers, and you, the listener.
Until next time, this is Dave D'Andrea, the voice of the Babylon Bee.
So it begins.
You heard of this new sect?
These fanatics who call themselves Christians?
Well, he's one of them.
One of the reggaetons.
Could be true now.
Then come, I'll show you.
It's true.
Five minutes after three, I'm David D. Welcome to this Friday edition of K-Light's Cutting Edge, a two-hour sanctified ride along the cutting edge in Christian music.
Today, your final chance to score a pair of tickets to see the newsboys, Jeff Morning the Distance, and Plank Guy in Medford, October 30th.
When you hear the newsboys song today between now and five o'clock, be the third caller, and you score the tickets as well as the newsboys take them to your leader CD.
That's coming up before five.
So keep your ears open for that song.
Also, a chance for you to win some selections from the Cutting Edge collection of tapes and CDs with a mystery song contest and, of course, some great music.