Travis McElroy on bringing My Brother, My Brother, and Me to Uptown Theater tonight

Photo Courtesy of MBMBAM

As an expert in (not-so-great) life advice, dungeons and dragons, and minding your manners, Travis McElroy is no stranger when it comes to podcasting. Alongside his brothers, Justin and Griffin McElroy, he has hosted the podcast My Brother, My Brother, and Me since 2010, giving advice from the point of view of the middlest brother. He also hosts other podcasts, such as Shmanners with his wife Theresa McElroy, and The Adventure Zone with his brothers, along with the addition of their father Clint McElroy. 

Now, McElroy takes his voice on the road. The 20-Fungalore Tour kicks off in Kansas City this weekend at Uptown Theater, and we had a chance to talk to McElroy about ten years of touring, becoming TikTok trends, and plans for the future. 

The Pitch: You have been doing live shows for over ten years now. While fan enjoyment is of course important, how do you keep it fun for yourselves? 

Travis McElroy: The really nice thing is that we like having fun with each other. The most fun part of any tour we do is the show, but we try to do things together if the schedule allows. We’ll go see a movie together and go out to eat,  but it’s getting tougher now that our children are getting older. We try to bring our families with us as much as possible. We have been to children’s museums and aquariums all over this country, but honestly, it’s just fun to do the show.

Everyone is different because it’s not scripted, and we don’t have it planned out. Every night, there’s an element of anticipation, what’s going to happen on this one. It’s really helped that at this point, having been doing live shows for over a decade, we’ve really gotten the format figured out. This is what makes it go smoothly every time, and we’re able to just sit back and enjoy doing the show. The first live show we ever did, I was talking with my then girlfriend, now wife, Theresa. I was so nervous, and her advice was, “Don’t worry about the audience. Just focus on making your brothers laugh,” and that’s kind of been the plan ever since.

While you have some repeat stops, on every tour there is a new city you visit. Do you have a dream city to do a show in?

We’ve been talking about going to the UK for a long time, but it enters a whole new level of logistics to try to figure everything out. Even just going to Canada, that’s a whole new realm. Worrying about customs, getting merch there, we had issues getting our posters shipped in time for our last Vancouver show. They didn’t end up getting there until the day after the show. 

We have to think about flying everybody to the UK, do we take our families or do we just leave them for two weeks? But I would say, the UK is something I’d love to do. I’m trying to think now of places we haven’t been to. I don’t think we’ve ever done like Montana. Maybe we could do Missoula someday and visit Hank Green? That would be cool. Clearly, we need to learn more about Wyoming if you’ve watched the clip where we can’t identify the state. I’d also like to go back to New Orleans. That was a fun one.

Photo Courtesy of MBMBAM

How do you decide which cities get The Adventure Zone versus My Brother, My Brother, and Me?

So if we’re only going to be in a city for one night, we will do My Brother, My Brother, and Me.  That is a more universal experience between one or the other. I mean, those who don’t have an interest in fantasy or sci fi aren’t going to enjoy The Adventure Zone if a friend brings them. If you bring someone who has never heard of MBMBAM to a live show, it’s meant for everyone to enjoy. If we’re going to be there for two days, we’ll do My Brother, My Brother, and Me and The Adventure Zone, because The Adventure Zone is just a slightly smaller venn diagram or niche, and also, you have to want to watch us play a game on stage. Booking the cities and deciding who gets two nights is a much more intricate process based on availability and travel. 

With the rise of social media and TikTok especially, you guys are the voices and faces of many memes and trends and audios. Does that change the way you share content?

I think that as far as things catching on with people and people sharing and using them, trying to plan what will blow up is impossible, we can’t do it. We just had a TikTok video about how much 76 hotdogs weighs and Griffin said 76 pounds, and it’s been viewed like 2 million times. Like, why is that the one that people are interested in seeing? I don’t know. It’s such a specific thing, and yet people are like, “I love this,” and I have no idea why. 

I think that there is an urgency to be like, “Alright, how do we have the perfect clip and figure out the perfect thing,” but you’re never gonna be able to anticipate what people are interested in. So, it is usually stuff that makes us laugh and stuff that we think is dumb. We just have to say to ourselves, “This is funny, we’re going to share this one,” because I think we’d get way too in our heads about it.

My favorite is when it reaches a level of other influencers using our audio and have no context for who we are. And that’s so funny to me. Jennifer Garner has used my audio! It was the wildest juxtaposition of, it was my voice, but it was Jennifer Garner.

Recently the “It’s not Travis” audio has been used a lot in reference to Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift, how is it seeing those?

He and I are gonna have to fight for Travis dominance. No, no, but he has been my number one Fantasy Football draft pick for the last ten years, I love Travis Kelce. 

Photo Courtesy of MBMBAM

As the McElroy Family business grows, while your kids are young now, do you ever see them becoming a part of this world and creating content with you?

Oh, it’s so tricky. Part of the 15 years of doing this, me and my brothers—and I think this is true of any career—is figuring out where your boundaries are and when you need to hold things about your personal life back. That’s a big part of online content. You see this with musicians and actors, and so many people in this age of social media, it’s so easy to share parts of your life. I’m less worried about my kids dating or driving, or any of those things that parents worry about, than I am about how to instill in them this understanding that most people are good, but there’s also some people who aren’t good.

It’s such an amorphous learning experience of being safe. If my kids are wanting to record us playing a game of D&D together, I wouldn’t be against it and I wouldn’t be upset. But I’m more comfortable with that.

Finally, how can we apply 20-Fungalore to our lives this year? 

I think there’s a lot of manifestation of dreams and wishes in it. Sometimes it’s not about waiting for someone to grant your wish, it’s about speaking your wish out loud to yourself, into the universe, and to make your wish something that you are actively talking about and doing, not just waiting for it to magically be granted. 

Not to get into like a weird, metaphysical, kind of thing, but I think so often the things we want to accomplish, we keep that locked inside because we’re afraid to give voice to them. People will judge us, we’ll judge ourselves, we’ll feel stupid saying it out loud. And I think that saying it out loud makes it real, makes it something we’re going to do. Also we can wear a lot more mushroom print and cottage core outfits. 

Tickets to My Brother, My Brother, and Me at Uptown Theater on June 21 here.