Arguably the most extraordinary ’80s experience of 2022 took place not on Netflix but on your favorite podcast app. Sonic Leap, the Audio Up scripted podcast series, blended Robert Zemeckis with John Hughes and threw on a charisma filter, courtesy of the series’ stars, Hero The Band. The band of four brothers — Justin Barnett aka Ocean, Jerramy Barnett aka Goku Love, DJ Barnett aka BamBam, and Nick Barnett aka Nikky Jupiter – tell HollywoodLife that portraying fictionalized versions of themselves on the series was “a great experience.”
“Honestly, it was a bit overwhelming, in a sense, because we were on tour when it released,” says Nikky Jupiter, “and you never know what to expect anytime you drop a project, whether it’s just music or if it’s a podcast or if it’s a podcast and music, which is in this case. But I feel like we’ve gotten a great response, and people have really been tuned in and excited about it.”
Ocean said the group had gotten “a lot of feedback from people that don’t even necessarily listen to podcasts, just saying how it is entertaining, and it feels like they’re right there with us watching it, even though it’s not even a visual. So it’s pretty dope.”
It’s not hard to imagine this podcast making the leap (pun intended) to a movie. Told over eight episodes, Sonic Leap details the story of Hero The band, an experimental, 1980s-inspired group that finds itself out of sync with its contemporaries. After meeting up with time-traveling music eccentric Leo James, played by Anthony Anderson, the group is sent back to 1985. There, they run into a bad boy rich kid, Cade Hill (Trippie Redd), and a shy baseball player and undiscovered guitar star named Willie Barnett – the group’s long-lost father.
The script is strong, but the story thrives thanks to Hero The Band’s natural relatability and charm. “It’s actually our first acting gig and our first acting gig together,” said Nikky Jupiter, who shares that the brothers used to put on plays for their grandparents and parents when they were younger. “We did redo Zorro. I was Antonio Banderas. Justin was my horse Tornado. This is our first acting gig since then, so it was really cool. And the work with Anthony Anderson and Trippy and everybody has been super dope as well.”
Listeners leave Sonic Leap feeling like they know Hero The Band better. That’s not just because the group’s music – a blend of infectious hooks, soulful vocals, and guitar rock dynamite, creating something that defies genre and classification but is undeniably cool — is woven throughout the series. The way they approach their lines feels legit, with a natural delivery. “We made it our own, that’s for sure,” says Ocean. “Zach [Selwyn of Audio Up], who wrote the script, gave us leeway to make it our own in ways that we would feel comfortable saying things. He gave us a blueprint, and we took it and made our own architectural [design].”
“Getting to be who we are, pretty much being ourselves, so it made it pretty much easy,” says Goku Love. “Just pretty much easy just being ourselves. Zach did a hell of a job writing the script along with Jason and Jared [Gutstadt] and the huge team over there, Audio Up. So it was pretty easy and natural for us to improvise and just super blessed to have that freedom and range to add in our spice.”
Sonic Leap was created after the music featured on the podcast was written and recorded. The group was hanging out with Jared one day when he brought up the idea of making a podcast to introduce the band to a new audience (and to stand out among all the new songs being released each week.)
The themes of feeling alienated from the world, of thinking you were born at the wrong time, are common, and a bit of Sonic Leap’s story mirrored that of Hero The Band’s. The group does not fit nicely within a box and one that eschews convention for creativity. “Feeling out a place at times, obviously that’s a given with what we do,” says Nikky Jupiter. “Just being black guys doing rock music in a sense, sometimes you can feel out a place. But I think even with the people we’ve gotten around, and even with Jared and everybody and their team, everybody accepted it for what it was and what it was we were doing.”
“I think that’s what took so long for it to come out as well because a lot of the times, it was just like trying to get the right depiction of us as characters and trying to make sure that the music is where it needs to be,” he adds.
“When we first went out to LA to perform the podcast, we did it in a matter of two days,” shares Ocean. “And then Donovan, who we’ve been working together with on numerous projects as far as the music, they brought him in to do the sound, to paint the picture a lot clearer, and so we ended up scratching everything that we did at LA to re-perform all of the parts that we did as far as acting.”
The making of this show was a process, from the music being written in 2019 to the 2020 pandemic (which became the setting for the fictional world) to it being announced in 2021 to its final release in 2022. The whole process, from start to finish, was summed up in the mantra repeated throughout Sonic Leap: “Slowly, slowly. Surely, Surely.”
Is the band ready for the moment that a fan comes up to show them a “Slowly, Slowly. Surely, Surely” tattoo? “I embrace it all,” says Goku with a wise laugh. “I embrace it all. “We’re ready for anything,” adds Nicky. “Yeah, we embrace it all,” says Nikky. “Hey, freedom of creativity, man. Let’s do it, let’s get it, let’s be a family in this together.”