Parry Gripp

Parry P. Gripp (born September 22, 1967) is an American musician and singer-songwriter. He is the lead vocalist and guitarist for the pop punk band Nerf Herder from its formation in 1994. Gripp writes novelty songs for children, and has been featured on Disney television shows.

Parry Gripp
Gripp in 2016
Gripp in 2016
Background information
Birth nameParry P. Gripp
Born (1967-09-22) September 22, 1967
Santa Barbara, California, U.S.
GenresRock, Geek rock, pop punk, pop, children's music
Occupation(s)Musician
Instrument(s)
  • Vocals
  • guitar
  • ukulele
  • keyboards
  • piano
  • bass
  • percussion
  • mixer
Years active1994–present
Labels
Member ofNerf Herder
Websiteparrygripp.com
YouTube information
Channel
Years active2006–present
Subscribers1.07 million[1]
Total views510 million[1]
1,000,000 subscribers
Last updated: September 14, 2023

Early life

Parry P. Gripp[2] was born in Santa Barbara on September 22, 1967.[3] His sister Alice and he are co-owners of the Santa Barbara Orchid Estate where he grew up.[4][5] The estate was founded by Robert J. Chrisman in 1957, and was purchased in 1967 by his father Paul Gripp, who helped establish it.[6][7] Paul Gripp ran the estate until his retirement in 1986.[6][8] In 1994, the band Nerf Herder formed with Gripp as the lead singer and guitarist.[9]

Style and works

Nerf Herder songs

Gripp's band Nerf Herder perform comedic, juvenile, and pop-culture referencing lyrics[10] coming off of the pop-punk movement while pioneering geek rock.[11] Nerf Herder songs use references from various franchises to relate to real-life experiences, like how the song "Ghostbusters III" uses the third installment of the Ghostbusters franchise that was never going to happen as a metaphor for his romantic dreams ever coming true.[12] For instruments, these songs commonly use a typical bass-heavy punk arrangement with integrated synthesizers spread throughout the song. Gripp has collaborated with nerdcore rappers MC Lars[13] and MC Frontalot.[14]

False jingles and other novelty songs

As a songwriter, Gripp creates fake jingles, as in his 2005 solo album For Those About to Shop, We Salute You - a 51-track concept album mimicking various musical styles as product commercials. It does not have one single concept; it goes through many various concept suites, such as trucks, beer, and insomnia. He also maintained a song-of-the-week website in December 2007 and a YouTube channel on August 12, 2006, in which he creates soundtracks to internet memes, as well as music videos for his own novelty songs.[15]

The Wawa and Hallmark connections

Along with his phony jingles, Gripp also has created some true advertising music, such as a series of Beatles-inspired tunes promoting the Wawa Food Markets' summertime Hoagiefests[16][17] and songs for the Hallmark Cards e-characters Hoops & Yoyo.

Television theme songs

Gripp performs The Super Hero Squad Show, Ben 10: Omniverse, The 7D, and StoryBots Super Songs theme songs.[18]

He joined forces with MC Lars to perform some of the vocals, including the chorus to "Guitar Hero Hero (Beating Guitar Hero Doesn't Make You Slash)", a song commenting on the notion that video games like Guitar Hero take kids away from playing in bands and actually learning their instruments.

On July 9, 2009, Gripp debuted a new song called "The Girl at the Video Game Store" for the 1000th episode of the G4 TV program Attack of the Show! The video features the show's hosts Olivia Munn as the title character and Kevin Pereira on drums.[19]

In October 2016, Gripp performed and wrote the theme song for the Netflix children's show StoryBots Super Songs, a spin-off for Ask the StoryBots. He also started performing and writing songs for both shows.[17]

In April 2013, Gripp recorded the song "Backyard Hodge Podge" for the episode of the same name for the children's television show Phineas and Ferb, and he also appeared in the episode in animated form.

Gripp has written songs for Vivienne Medrano's adult animated webseries Hazbin Hotel and its spinoff Helluva Boss,[20] as well as the song "Monster Fighting Time" for the "Bad Luck Jack" ZooPhobia short.[21]

Children's music

Gripp writes songs for children, with over 100 appearing on his YouTube channel, with over 250 million views. He has released five albums for children; Do You Like Waffles?, Fuzzy Fuzzy Cute Cute, Vol. 1, Mega-Party, Jingle Burgers, and For Kids About to Rock.

Between early 2017 and late 2019, Gripp's "Raining Tacos" became notable due to its popularity within Roblox's player base.[22][23] It was also used by the city of West Palm Beach to deter homeless people from congregating in some areas, along with the song "Baby Shark". Gripp requested they remove his title from their playlist and made donations to local homeless shelters.[24] "It's Raining Tacos" was featured in an Amazon.com ad which began airing in early May 2017.

Recurring themes

The William Shatner character Captain Kirk from the Star Trek franchise holds a special significance in Gripp's songs with Nerf Herder. For example, he dresses like Kirk in the video for the song "Mr. Spock", in which the lyrics of the second verse suggest Captain Kirk is extremely heroic, but girls only want to go out with Mr. Spock[25] and in the song "At the Con" he mentions cosplaying as Kirk at comic book conventions with the lyric "All week I've been slaving like a jerk, now I'm gonna dress like Captain Kirk, beam me up tonight!".[26] Over the course of Nerf Herder's discography, Gripp has also sung about his childhood crush Vivian in the songs "Born Weird" and "Vivian".[27][28] Another Nerf Herder trope is songs about interest in girls with specific taste in music narrowed down to a genre or band in tracks such as "The Girl Who Listened to Rush", "Pantera Fans in Love" and "New Wave Girl".

In his solo releases, Gripp's songs are commonly about animals and food,[29] though some food and animals in a series of songs collected in Gripp's Spotify playlists such as "The Raining Tacos Saga" (featuring songs "Raining Tacos", "TacoBot 3000", and "Quesadilla Explosion", all songs about Mexican food)[30] and "Scary Parry Gripp Halloween Playlist" (featuring songs like "Zombies Want Your Candy", "Haunted Cupcake" and "Frankenturtle", all songs that relate a spooky Halloween element to animals or food).[31]

Awards and nominations
YearCategoryWorkResult
2015Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Original Song - Main Title and Promo"7D Main Title Song"Nominated[32]
Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Original Song"Jollywood Spa Song"Nominated[32]
2017Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Original Song"I'm Not Very Nice"Won[32][33]

Discography
Main article: Parry Gripp discography
See also: Nerf Herder § Discography
  • For Those About to Shop, We Salute You (2005)
  • Do You Like Waffles? (2008)
  • Jingle Burgers – A Parry Gripp Christmas Album (2020)

References
  1. "About ParryGripp". YouTube.
  2. "Parry P Gripp, Born 09/22/1967 in California". California Birth Index. California Office of Health Information and Research. Retrieved March 15, 2021.
  3. "Family Tree Legends". Archived from the original on 2012-08-21. Retrieved 21 March 2010.
  4. "Band With a Funny Bone, Nerf Herder Gets Last Laugh". Los Angeles Times. July 17, 1997.
  5. Verducci, Richard. "Interviews: Parry Gripp (Nerf Herder)". Punknews.org. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
  6. Callahan, Brigette (November 13, 2015). "SB International Orchid Show honors renowned orchid-grower Paul Gripp". Santa Barbara International Orchid Show. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
  7. Stewart, Ethan (March 15, 2007). "The Big Orchid". Santa Barbara Independent. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
  8. "Orchid questions? Ask famed master breeder Paul Gripp". Los Angeles Times. March 1, 2023. Retrieved March 2, 2023.
  9. Herder, Johann Gottfried von (2002-09-05). Forster, Michael N. (ed.). Herder: Philosophical Writings. doi:10.1017/cbo9781139164634. ISBN 9780521790888.
  10. "The MC Lars Podcast: Parry Gripp on Apple Podcasts". Apple Podcasts. Retrieved 2022-10-10.
  11. Words, Keidra Chaney in Uncanny Magazine Issue Two | 1860. "The Evolution of Nerd Rock". Uncanny Magazine. Retrieved 2022-10-10.
  12. Nerf Herder – Ghostbusters III, retrieved 2022-10-10
  13. MC Lars - Guitar Hero Hero ft. Parry Gripp & Paul Gilbert (Music Video), retrieved 2022-10-10
  14. MC Frontalot - Wakjakaga (Feat. Parry Gripp), retrieved 2022-10-10
  15. Thomas, Owen (December 14, 2008). "Parry Gripp, the Weird Al Yankovic of YouTube". Gawker. BDG Media. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  16. Craig, Daniel (June 25, 2016). "The top five Wawa Hoagiefest jingles". Philly Voice. WWB Holdings. Retrieved February 6, 2022.
  17. Griffiths, Emma (June 19, 2017). "Q&A with Parry Gripp: From Nerf Herder to YouTube sensation". Synchtank. Retrieved February 6, 2022.
  18. Lauden, S. W. (December 17, 2021). "Parry Gripp's Top 5 Favorite Weird Al Songs". The Big Takeover. Retrieved February 12, 2022.
  19. Fahey, Mike (September 10, 2009). "The Girl At The Video Game Store". Kotaku. G/O Media. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  20. Vivienne Medrano [@VivziePop] (August 11, 2017). "The song @parrygripp is making for #HazbinHotel is absolutely a BLAST!! I can't express how excited I am for when everyone can hear it!! 💕🎶👍" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2021-03-16 – via Twitter.
  21. Short, Dan (October 5, 2020). "ZooPhobia: Bad Luck Jack". Animated Views. Archived from the original on January 20, 2021. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
  22. Gallizzi, Ben (December 9, 2021). "The songs that have caused the most carbon emissions". Uswitch.com. Retrieved May 5, 2022. First becoming popular due to inclusion in ROBLOX, an online platform game, 'Raining Tacos' by Parry Gripp is next, coming in fourth, with 44 tons of CO2 emissions generated and almost two thousand trees needed to counteract the CO2 impact.
  23. Rodríguez, David (September 30, 2021). "Códigos musicales para escuchar tus propias canciones en Roblox: qué son y cómo se usan". hobbyconsolas (in Spanish). Retrieved May 5, 2022.
  24. Palminteri, John (July 24, 2019). "Santa Barbara musician helps homeless after dispute with Florida city". KEYT-TV. NPG of California. Archived from the original on September 3, 2019. Retrieved September 3, 2019.
  25. Nerf Herder - Mr Spock (Official Video), retrieved 2022-10-10
  26. "Musixmatch". www.musixmatch.com. Retrieved 2022-10-10.
  27. SongMeanings. "Nerf Herder - Vivian Lyrics". SongMeanings. Retrieved 2022-10-10.
  28. Nerf Herder (Ft. "Weird Al" Yankovic) – Born Weird, retrieved 2022-10-10
  29. "Parry Gripp". Spotify. Retrieved 2022-10-10.
  30. Raining Tacos Saga (Parts 1-6 of 9) - Parry Gripp & Ryan A Boone"bum", retrieved 2022-10-10
  31. "Scary Parry Gripp Halloween Playlist". Spotify. Retrieved 2022-10-10.
  32. "Parry Gripp - Awards - IMDb". imdb.com. Retrieved September 3, 2019.
  33. "Parry Gripp Wins Daytime Emmy". Santa Barbara Independent. 24 May 2017. Retrieved September 3, 2019.
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