Music / The Axis of Awesome

aka: Axis Of Awesome

Take three Australian nerds: one singer, one singer pianist, and one rapper guitarist, and you get get the three parts needed to create a force to fight against the evils of the allied forces. This trio is known as The Axis of Awesome.

Jordan, Benny, and Lee, one fat, one short, one lean, made up a comedy trio with original songs, pop parodies, and hilarious live performances. Founded in 2006, they were primarily involved in improv theatre until they decided to try the same thing in music and thus the Axis was born.

Discography:

• Scissors, Paper, ROCK! (2007)
• Infinity Rock Explosion! (2010)
• Animal Vehicle (2011)
• Cry YOURSELF A River (2012)
• Viva la Vida Loca Las Vegas (2016)

In 2018, the band announced that they had broken up after about 18 months on hiatus.

Not to be confused with The Key of Awesome.

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Tropes associated with The Axis of Awesome include:

• A Wild Rapper Appears!: Parodied by Lee in "How to Write a Love Song".
• Actor Allusion: A song about Doctor Who to the tune of the DuckTales theme, inspired by David Tennant being announced as the voice of Uncle Scrooge in the revival of DuckTales (2017)
• Affectionate Nickname: "Chicken Little" for Benny.
• Affectionate Parody: Most of their songs.
  • Most notably, the official video for Four Chords parodies every single one of the music videos for the songs they do.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: In-Universe: In The Holy Trinity, Jordan and Lee interpret the Holy Ghost as a spectral rapist.
• Big, Thin, Short Trio: Jordan, Lee, and Benny, respectively.
• Blatant Lies: "We've been a comedy rock sensation for forty years now." They've been saying this since less than a year after their formation.
  • In that same song, the "4 Chords" song, Benny says that the reason they've never had a hit is because they've never used the same 4 chords as used by all the popular songs. Later, one of the examples of a song that uses the 4 chords is their own song, Birdplane.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: This is used in their song Birdplane
  I'm more than bird, I'm more than a plane
  I'm a birdplane! I'm a birdplane! Check me out, I'm a birdplane
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: "How To nos. 1-3" go from how to bake a scone to how to catch a duck to how to kill a hooker.
• Butt-Monkey: Benny, generally. Jordan and Lee sometimes introduce themselves as The Axis of Awesome, forcing Benny to then say "And I'm Benny". Notably in "The Glorious Epic of Three Men Who Are Awesome", where everyone gets to design their character for a Tabletop RPG, Benny is forced against his will to play a dwarf and have a giant chicken for a mount.
• Comically Missing the Point: When Benny notes on "Skeleton Man" that everyone is part-man, part-skeleton, and literally anyone listening to the song could be Skeleton Man.
  "Skeleton Man's listening to our song!"
  "He bought our album!"
  "Or stole it off the internet."
• Comic Trio: Jordan is the Leader, Lee is the Fool and Benny is the Complainer.
• Cover Version: The final track of Viva la Vida Loca Las Vegas is a dead-serious cover of Against Me!'s "Transgender Dysphoria Blues", prefaced by an announcement from Jordan that she is transgender.
• Dem Bones: Averted with Skeleton Man, who is "part-man, part-skeleton" and looks like a regular man.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: When Jordan came out as transgender, the group published The Elephant In The Room, a song about the drastic change of... Lee going bald.
  Jordan: Ever since he was a child, Lee's been thoroughly aware that he's been a bald man all along trapped inside a man with hair.
• Everything Sounds Sexier in French: That was the intent with their song "The Language of Love" but Benny didn't know how to speak French, only German. Hilarity Ensues.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: "Birdplane". "Rage of Thrones" qualifies as well.
• Fan Disservice: Jordan (pre-transition) occasionally appeared shirtless, such as in "The Glorious Epic of Three Men Who Are Awesome", looking pretty much like what a stereotypical flabby, pasty D&D player would look like dressed as a Barbarian Hero.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconceptioninvoked: "Rage of Thrones" is all about this in regards to A Song of Ice and Fire fans and their relationship with Game of Thrones viewers.
  Jordan: WELL I READ THE FUCKING BOOKS!
• Flat "What": In "The Glorius Epic of the Three Men Who Are Awesome", Lee says one when he realises that all his character can do is play the guitar.
• The Four Chords of Pop: The entire point of one of their more well known songs "Four Chord Song", a medley of pop songs from the past 40 years that use the same progression.
• Groin Attack: A pretty epic one in "The Glorious Epic of Three Men Who are Awesome".
• Hitler Ate Sugar: According to "Do They Know It's Pizza?", Joseph Kony cuts pizzas into eight slices.
• I Want My Jetpack: "Why Aren't Lasers Doing Cool Shit" is about lasers not living up to the hype because we don't have Eye Beams, Frickin' Laser Beams and Laser Blades yet.
• Incredibly Conspicuous Drag: One of the costume sets in "Four Chord Song".
• In Da Club: "In The Club Tonight", where Lee styles himself after Pitbull, the song has a Dubstep break, and it has a shout out to 17-year-olds who snuck into the club.
• Jesus Was Way Cool: Their song What Would Jesus Do, dedicated to why Jesus is a bazillion jillion times more awesome than you, starts out as this, then turns into Kung-Fu Jesus at the end.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Part of the point of "Rage of Thrones".
  Don't tell me about "spoilers!" Winter has been coming for sixteen fucking years!"
• Letting the Air out of the Band: The end of "Can You Hear the Fucking Music Coming Out Of My Car?". Presumably because the car thief turned off the stereo.
• Lyric Swap: "Birdplane" for "Superman" in their parody of "Superman" called "Birdplane".
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: The traditional introduction to the band
  Jordan: I'm Jordan.
  Lee: I'm Lee.
  Jordan and Lee: (cutting off Benny) And We are The Axis of Awesome!
  Benny: And I'm Benny!
• Only Sane Man: Benny regularly serves as this on the Animal Vehicle album, particularly during "Skeleton Man" and "Harry Potter and the Drunk Teenage Animals Escaping from Zoos."
• Retraux: The music video for "Why Aren't Lasers Doing Cool Shit?" is in the style of an ultra low-budget sci-fi film from the late 1970s or early '80s.
• Self-Demonstrating Song: "How to Write a Love Song".
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: "Titty Bar" is a two and a half minute set up to a Your Mom joke.
• Shout-Out: To Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in "The Glorious Epic Of Three Men Who Are Awesome". Benny is established as a dwarf with six brothers who saw a fair maiden running away from a magic mirror.
• Silly Love Songs: "How to Write a Love Song" parodies this.
• Something Something Leonard Bernstein: The joke of "Songs To Sing Along To": stylized as an advertisement for the titular CD, we keep being presented with samples of the songs on it... with Benny and Jordan attempting to sing them.
  Benny: Blinded by the light... / Reb blup like a douche in a nunna unna night!
• Sophisticated as Hell: This verse of "Glorious Epic:
  And in the misty halls of Asgard
  Where the gods watch over man
  They tried to curse the Axis for our pride
  But alas, we were too awesome
  Their powers weak against our might
  So we kicked them in the balls and then they cried.
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: Non-explicit performances of "What Would Jesus Do" have the following:
  Did you give your life up to save humans from bad luck?
  Were you born a virgin birth or did your parents... have sex?
• Take That!: Getting beaten up and thrown out into the back alley of the titular "Titty Bar" is compared to season 7 of Friends.
• The Quiet One: Lee, in songs that have mostly singing parts.
• The Unintelligible: "Songs You Can Sing Along To"
• This Is a Song: "How to Write a Love Song".
• Together We Are X: One show has the band introduce themselves this way:
  Jordan: Good evening ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jordan!
  Lee: I'm Lee!
  Benny: And I-
  Lee and Jordan (interrupting): And we are the Axis of Awesome!
  Benny: ... And I'm Benny.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • In "One in Three," Lee lights Jordan's pants on fire when he trips over the heater, then leaves the pants burning when he leaves for the video store. It's implied that he burned down their apartment.
  • Lee also is not allowed to use the stove
• Truck Driver's Gear Change: Parodied in "How to Write a Love Song".
• Two Guys and a Girl: Benny and Lee with Jordan.
• Your Mom: the punchline of "Titty Bar"

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