If Andy Ober made a million dollars, he'd dye his hair blond, or the occasional purple green. But he's too busy writing songs about math concepts and sitting around watching television.
If you ask Andy Ober about his band, he's likely never to talk to you again. But if you ask him about his orchestra, he'd be more than happy to tell you about the trio of men having fun creating spoofs to popular songs.
"We just like to entertain ourselves, and if anyone laughs, well that's just an added bonus," said founding member Ober.
Ober, a senior telecommunications major, said the Andy Ober Orchestra made its debut during French class at Carmel High School.
"I just wrote a couple of sports-comedy songs I wanted to do on our school radio station," he said.
Members of the Andy Ober Orchestra features Ober on vocals and song writing, senior David Bugher on keyboard and back-up vocals and Grant Sarbinoff, a Purdue senior, who plays guitar.
Ober said his group is called an orchestra (and not a band) because of his hatred of local bands.
"I always hated local bands, because every single person I knew, including David, was in a local band," Ober said. It really bothered me that they were always talking about their inspirations."
One of the first songs that was written and preformed by the AOO was a spoof to The Barenaked Ladies song, "If I Had a Million Dollars" which was changed to "If I Made a Million Dollars."
The lyrics described athletes doing stupid things as a result of high salaries.
The song's first line is, "If I made a million dollars, I'd dye my hair blond, or the occasional purple green."
In February 2000, the orchestra wrote and recorded a spoof to "The Sunscreen Song" adding their own "stupid advice."
"People actually really, really liked it when we played it on the radio, and it was on the wild success of that song that we decided to put together a show," Ober said.
The Andy Ober Orchestra has since performed several times at Pruis Hall. The group hopes to play there again this month.
While almost every aspect of the Andy Ober Orchestra is purely for laughs, the one thing all members of the orchestra are very serious about is their style of comedy.
"All of our jokes are clean," Ober said. "We are dead serious about that."
Bugher said, "There are times when a really well-placed semi-dirty joke works. There's a time and a place for those things. You spread it out and make it unexpected, which makes it more appropriate."
Both Ober and Bugher said their favorite song is "Pi Pi Pi" which is sung to 'NSync's popular song, "Bye Bye Bye." The tune is about the mathematical concept.
In the song, Ober has the number Pi memorized out to 60 digits. Other songs include "Ode to Crocodile Hunter," "Hamburglar in Paradise," and "Living La Vida Pokemon."
"If I can make someone laugh singing about the Hamburglar or a math concept, I think that makes comedy good," Ober said. "I realized 90 percent of our songs chronicle what complete losers we are.
"They chronicle that we have nothing better to do than sit around and watch television, so the songs are about television and food."
While the musicians are constantly hoping for a the chance to make money writing and performing songs with the orchestra, they realize that is not likely to happen.
"None of us would be opposed to the idea of making our livings by singing for the AOO," Ober said. "If we could do that, we would jump at the opportunity. But I think we realize that's not the case, so just in case this greatest comedy act ever doesn't work out, we're going to college."
At the moment, the orchestra is trying to play at local comedy clubs. They also have two CDs out. The first is "The Legend of Mick Faldo, World Famous Archer" and the second is "Hidden Track."
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