CHRIS GETHARD:
COMEDY MEETS PUNK ROCK MEETS WEIRD MEETS FUNNY;
Or, It's A Small World After All
I remember the first time
I saw Chris Gethard perform: It was one of
my first times seeing improv at the Upright
Citizens Brigade Theater in New York City,
and his group was easily the funniest of the
night, let alone of anything I’d seen
in a while. As I began to follow more comedy,
I realized I recognized him, and began to
search out other things he was involved in.
I thought he was hilarious, but was also intrigued;
From an Ergs! shirt in one video, to a Hüsker
Dü song in the background of another,
I realized that besides bringing a theater
full of people to hysterics, he could also
make a great mix tape. In addition to being
on one of UCB’s featured improv teams,
he’s also a regular contributor to the
long running comedic-music fanzine Go Metric!
and helped organized the popular storytelling
show Nights of our Lives. Chris was nice enough
to talk to me one night before a performance,
about comedy, punk rock, and why sometimes
it’s just funny to see people hitting
their breaking point.
Interview by Joe Evans III
Joe: What were your first experiences with
music and writing?
Chris: I guess my initial experiences with
music were when I was around thirteen or fourteen
years old. My older brother and his friends
were very much into the local punk rock scene,
so like anyone at that age would, I followed
and I just kind of got lucky [Laughs]. My
brother’s best friend, who I wound up
going to college with, and is still a good
friend today, did this fanzine called Marcia.
He kind of became one of the leaders and organizers
of the punk scene there, so he used to put
on shows and stuff. I don’t know if
I ever wrote anything for Marcia, but they
ran an underground newspaper in our school
that I wrote for, and then another friend
of ours started up a fanzine which I wrote
for. I just sort of got lucky that my older
brother was sort of involved with this crew
of people that were organizing shows, and
had a couple of fanzines out, so I got involved
in that whole “Northern NJ, go see very
shitty bands in church basements and stuff”
very young. [Laughs].
Joe: And you also went to Rutgers in New
Brunswick…
Chris: Yeah, but I think when I was there,
the impression I got was that there was kind
of a lull in the music scene, and I actually
fell out of things. I was pretty locked in
to that whole Jersey pop punk scene, but when
I got to Rutgers I actually stopped going
to shows, which surprised me. Like there was
this band called Boxcar that was really good,
and I used to see them around New Brunswick
a little bit. I know its huge now, but when
I was there The Melody Bar was there, and
the Court Tavern, so I was too young to get
into a lot of those, and I don’t remember
there being too many basement shows then.
I think I was there at a pretty low point.
But I do remember Fid, who I think is still
down there.
Joe: Yeah, his main band now is The Measure
[SA].
Chris: He rolled with a bunch of friends
of mine down there. My punk rock friends used
to, they kept trying to hook me up with the
girl, but I once had a disastrous incident
where I threw up in front of her. And then
my friends, that same guy who wrote Marcia
fanzine wound up living in a sort of punk
house where The Automatics came through town
and stayed at that house, and the I Farm guys
used to hang out there a lot. So I guess I
was around and aware of a scene there, but
I was struggling with all kinds of other shit
so I stopped worrying about music for a few
years to be honest with you [Laughs].
THIRSTY - Photo by Jim Testa
Joe: Do you remember seeing Egghead.? And
do you have any sort of connection with them?
Chris: Oh yeah. The way I discovered Egghead.
was kind of strange, and I still have connections
with those guys. There was a band called Thirsty,
and Dave Thirsty ran a fanzine called Muddle
that was really pretty big, and was really
great. He was close with the friends of mine,
who would have Thirsty on shows all the time.
At one show in a backyard, Less Than Jake
played and no one knew who the fuck they were
[Laughs], they were just some weirdos. Thirsty
headlined AFTER Less Than Jake, and they started
throwing all these copies of different fanzines
out into the crowd, and I just happened to
grab Go Metric! number two, out of the sky.
And I read it, and was like “This is
fucking AWESOME, it’s so funny,”
and I thought it was great. I believe Go Metric!
was just largely an Egghead. promotional tool
early on, and they played in Jersey at a show
Dave Thirsty organized. They were the funniest,
coolest guys, and I bought their 7-inch, and
tape.
That’s actually how I got involved
at UCB, strangely enough, because when I started,
they were so horrible about getting their
information out, you couldn’t find ANYTHING
about classes. I had never seen a show there,
but I knew that it was cool, and that I wanted
to do comedy, so I called up one day and was
like “Yeah I want to take a class”,
and the guy on the phone introduced himself
as John Bowie. He told me “Sorry, there
are no classes available.” This was
when there was one class every three months,
where as today it’s huge, there’ll
always be an open class. But I was like “Holy
shit, I have to wait another three months?
I’ll be back in school, that sucks,”
and he says “Sorry man, there’s
nothing I can do to help out.” I said
“So you said your name is John Bowie,
huh?” And he’s like “Yeah…”
and I ask “You wouldn’t be the
bassist from Egghead. would you?” and
he was like “Yeah…”, and
I go “Wow that’s crazy. Well that
sucks about classes, but I’m a really
big fan of your band, I’ve got your
7”, I saw you play in Berkeley Heights
New Jersey, I think you guys are fucking great,
I read Go Metric! all the time,” and
he goes “Hold on a second”, and
there’s like thirty seconds of shuffling
papers, [Laughs] and he comes back with “Alright,
your class starts Sunday.” I think he
was just flattered that I knew Egghead. so
he put me in my first class. He was kind of
my mentor around the New York comedy scene
for my first few years, and then I started
reading Go Metric! again because he was around.
Dyna Moe was also around UCB, and I’ve
known her for years, and she mentioned Go
Metric! one day and I was like “You’ve
got to be kidding me, I haven’t seen
a copy of that in years,”. And (Mike)
Faloon started taking classes here for a little
while, and we linked back up. And I’m
still pretty amazed that my knowledge of Egghead.
got me started in a career path in comedy.[Laughs]
Go
Metric
Joe: Did you also start writing for Go Metric!
as well?
Chris: Yeah, which was funny, he’s
such a humble guy, I don’t know if Faloon
knows just how much it means to me that I’ve
had things published in there. He really enjoyed
the UCB scene, and was always very supportive
of it, which I thought was really cool. He
asked me to contribute, but I don’t
think he knew how I’d literally been
a fan since I was fourteen years old. So that
was, as strange as it is, one of the things
that I’m most psyched that happened,
that I got to write for Go Metric!
Also, music was weirdly connected to UCB,
because in my level one improv class, on the
very first day I befriended a young man who
would go on to become famed international
rapper mc chris, which I still get a kick
out of. I remember our level one graduation
improv show, and afterwards Chris was like
“You know everyone should come back
to my house in Jersey City, we’ll hang
out there”, and we went and it wasn’t
until years later that I realized that was
the infamous Souse House.
Joe: The Dirt Bike Annie house?
Chris: Yeah, and all the Dirt Bike Annie
guys were always around, they were Chris’s
friends, and I knew of Dirt Bike Annie, they
were always hanging out. The Ergs! were hanging
out there, I believe before The Ergs! were
“THE ERGS!”, they were at UCB
a bunch.
Joe: You mean when they were 75% Off, or
The Flatliners, or one of those incarnations?
Chris: No, they were The Ergs!, the thing
was Dyna Moe, who draws a lot of the covers
for Go Metric!, and she’s done stuff
at Whoa Oh Records, right?
Joe: Yeah, like the Dirt Bike Annie/Kung
Fu Monkeys split, as well as the Kung Fu Monkeys
collection covers.
Chris: She’s known The Ergs! forever,
and did a one woman show about being a nerd,
like going to nerd camp, and the first time
I’d ever heard of The Ergs! was because
they played every show she did, they were
the backing band for her show.
Joe: “Honolulu Hornrims” was
the theme song I believe.
Joe
Erg
Chris: Yeah, and I thought that was pretty
funny that she had a band, especially because
that was in our old theater, which was like
a tiny little box compared to now. And then
she put together a show called Girlcrush 2040
that was like a live action anime. I was in
it, and Joe Erg used to come up and help out.
I think it was on Fridays at Midnight, and
we always used to hang out, and Joe and I
hit it off. I was writing for Weird New Jersey
at the time, and he was a fan of that, and
gave me a copy of Three Guys Twelve Eyes.
He was trying to give them to everybody, like
“Hey guys, check this out!” I
have a feeling he doesn’t have to do
that anymore [Laughs], people probably go
out of their way to find it now.
I remember one time after a show I gave him
a ride, we were going to a party and my tire
popped, and he jumped out and changed the
tire in like two minutes, I believe he’s
an Eagle Scout?
Joe: I didn’t know about that, but
I do know he’s an engineer.
Chris: That guy’s handy with a tire,
I’ll tell you that. But I always felt
bad, I had some super bad shit going on, I
had to drop out of that show, and lost touch
with Joe, and I always regretted that because
he was a really nice guy.
Joe: How did you get involved with
working for Weird New Jersey?
Chris: I just had all these strange things
sort of randomly happen to me, I’m realizing
during this interview like the Go Metric!
thing getting thrown. The Weird New Jersey
thing, I grew up out there, you’re from
there too, right?
Joe: Yeah.
Chris: What part?
Joe: Up in Bergen County.
Chris: I grew up in West Orange, like right
on the border of Montclair, so I always used
to walk to Montclair because there was a record
store there called Let It Rock, did you ever
go there?
Joe: I haven’t been there, no. I’ve
been to Vintage Vinyl a bunch of times though.
Chris: Is that Fords?
Joe: I believe so, yes.
Chris: Yeah. Let It Rock was this little
store on Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair, that
just sold mostly vinyl, they sold CD’s
just a few years before it closed down. But
it was just this guy Bob, who’s kind
of legendarily stand-off-ish, and never talked
to anyone who came in, and you’d always
be embarrassed if you bought some 7”
and he thought it was cheesy, and you’d
always be worried about what he thought. I
used to go over by there and buy records,
and one day I was walking back on my way home
I’d always go past this comic book store
to see what they had, and in the window there
was a copy of Weird New Jersey, and I was
like “That looks AWESOME,” and
went in.
I was maybe sixteen at the time, and just
started e-mailing them about shit, from around
West Orange where I grew up, and it turned
out that one of the publishers lived literally
two blocks away from me. So I was writing
him, like “There’s this guy on
Main Street in West Orange, he throws his
pennies and then runs up and yells at them,”
and he wrote back, “I know that guy,
I see him all the time.” So we kind
of hit it off when I was just a kid. Then
when I was in college at Rutgers, at the very
end of my sophomore year I e-mailed him and
was like “You know if you guys ever
need help, I’m in college and have nothing
to do,” and he wrote back that day,
like “This is really odd, but we were
just about to call you to see if you wanted
to come work for us.” And I’ve
been working for them on some level ever since,
which is the most fun job in the world.
Joe: And you were also the main person in
charge of the Weird New York book?
Chris: Yeah, I did that all myself. There
were a lot of contributors, but that was kind
of put in my hands which was really nice of
those guys. I had moved out to Queens in 2004,
after a short stint in LA, and when I got
back I started freelancing and editing for
Weird NJ again, and that was right when they
had published a book called Weird US, that
became pretty surprisingly big. It got them
a lot of press so they started going state
by state, and I did New York, which was just
fun. It’s just fun that my job at times
has been like “Drive around, take pictures
of an abandoned mental hospital.” But
I also was at Weird NJ when it was the two
guys working out of their houses, so it was
me and the one guy in his little spare bedroom.
I lifted boxes, drove all over making deliveries.
When their mailing list was only four thousand
people, it was me licking four thousand stamps.
It was pretty funny to be there when it was
that small, and now it’s so big. I mean,
their office is still just them, but they
have all these books, and it’s such
like a big success. But if there’s anybody
who deserves it, those guys do. But yeah,
Weird New York was great to work on, I feel
like that was a great accomplishment that
I’m proud of. I hope that doesn’t
sound conceited.
Joe: I remember you mentioned once how after
the book was finished, and you were done promoting
it, you said you took a month off, but you
started to get a feeling that you “Needed
to get your ass kicked” again. What
did you do?
Chris: Well, it was actually more than a
month. I’d said a month, because Weird
New York was like a full year of every day,
researching, writing, driving around, taking
pictures, and editing, it was a pretty intense
process. And before that was four full years
of doing Weird New Jersey, which was kind
of preparing for that. So I was like “I’ll
give myself a month off,” and then it
became two months, three months, and it was
getting dangerous, so I signed up for Brazillian
jiu jitsu classes. I weigh 145 pounds, and
have a joint disease that my Mother had, and
I’m just the worst person for it, but
I’ve had a lot of fun with it. I entered
a tournament and got beat in less than three
minutes, a guy ripped my arm out of its socket,
which was not pleasant. Actually as of this
week, I think I’m going to quit, because
I pinched a nerve in my back, and in my left
knee, I popped this thing called your bursar
sac, so my left knee, it’s super swollen.
And I’m like “I’m getting
injured left and right, I’m a young
man, I don’t want to be crippled before
I’m thirty.” So I think I’m
going to quit, but I do like to get involved
in strange things from time to time, and jiu
jitsu is definitely one of them, it’s
just like Brazilian men fighting me.
I got good enough that they
let me into the advanced classes, but I was
easily the worst person in there, and the
smallest, so I was kind of like the mascot.
So when the black belts wanted someone to
fight on an easy day they’d be like
“You, lets spar.” And one guy
once, this one black belt grabbed me, turned
around and threw me head over heels, before
I could react at all, hoisted me back to me
feet and threw me again in the other direction
and pinned me down and said “You wanna
talk about it?” and I was like “This
is BRUTAL,” but it’s very fun.
But I think I may wrap it up and find a new
weird hobby.
Joe: You said you’re also a fan of
“Unplanned public craziness”,
as well as people hitting their breaking points?
Chris: Yeah, I think that’s a real
fun thing to witness, when people go nuts.
And I know I’ve had some kind of public
breakdowns that have led to some very bad
moments in my life, but some very creative
things. I feel like it’s just inspiring
to see someone go nuts. When I lived in Astoria
I remember once walking home and just seeing
a guy pissing in the middle of the street
and we made direct eye contact. I was just
“I thought this was a good neighborhood,”
and he shakes his head and says “Not
so much man,” as he’s peeing.
I was like “Man, that’s amazing.”
Even just today I saw a good one, where I
was on an escalator, it was one of those subway
stations with the escalator to transfer that’s
just super steep, and these girls were walking
down and bumped into this guy who just goes
“OH, I GUESS YOU CAN’T SEE ME.”
And they turn around, and he’s like
“DO YOU SEE ME NOW? AM I A GHOST, OR
DO YOU SEE ME?” And I see that and think
that’s kind of why I get out of bed
in the morning, sometimes just to see people
meltdown in public. I just find it very inspiring.
Joe: Another quote of yours is: “Most
of my comedic career is doing a more socially
palatable version of my brother’s real
life.”
Chris: Yeah, that’s true. The town
where grew up, I don’t know if it was
the same for you, or just around the time
we grew up, it was just fucking weird all
the time. There were all these burnout greasers,
and everyone around us was just constantly
trying to look tough.
Joe: Right. I think it was like that for
me too, just different styles of cliques.
Chris: I had the luxury of being two years
younger than him, because he went through
life and was just blindsided by maniacs, and
bullies, and I just kind of got to come up
behind him and see how it worked. I kind of
feel like my brother is kind of the one who
inspired me to start doing this. He dealt
with it all by being this funny and weird
guy, like he used to wear an orange corduroy
jumpsuit to school, he looked like Devo, and
he was always just super funny [Smiles]. I
actually do this bit, I did a show and people
still ask me about it which is kind of embarrassing,
where I pretended I was Daryl Strawberry.
And that was his idea, he used to do that,
during college there were these hippies that
ran a coffee house open mic, and he used to
go and read selections from Daryl Strawberry’s
autobiography, and just go on and on and ruin
their open mic night, and I was like “That’s
amazing.”
I definitely feel like I got my humor in
the same way that my brother kind of was part
of a music scene that I locked into, like
comedy, he’s always had great taste,
and always been kind of a strange, ballsy
guy in his own right. I definitely think because
he kind of leading the charge and taking it
on the chin growing up, he definitely has
always been more of a loose cannon, so I was
always like “Oh, I see what he’s
doing there,” and able to control it
more. But we have a pretty good relationship
like that. He does comedy too now, down in
Philadelphia.
http://www.ucbtheatre.com
Joe: What made you decide to start Nights
of Our Lives?
Chris: It was February 2006, and I’d
had the idea kicking around for a while. Really
what it was, at this theater, I feel like
it’s a really good community in the
same way that music communities can be, there’s
a lot of talented people around here, and
you see someone set the bar, and you want
to be as good as them, and you want to match
the standards that are set, and I think they
have that in common. UCB has always had great
improv, and great sketch, and it started to
have more of a stand up influence, but I knew
a lot of people from around here who were
just, simply put, great story tellers. There’s
a bar called McManus that all the comedians
hang out at, like Curtis Gwinn, who has done
so many of the Nights of our Lives shows.
You put that guy in a bar and have ten people
watch him, and he’ll hold court, and
have people crying with his stories. And there
are a lot of people like that. I don’t
think I’m half as good as Curtis is,
but I grew up and my whole family was that
way, the way I think I learned what funny
was by listening to my Aunts and my Mom sit
around telling stories about their horrible
childhoods, but laughing about it, so I knew
that I liked story telling. There were a bunch
people who were really good at it around the
bar, and there were all these other story
telling shows in the city that I think were
good, but back then I think they leaned a
little bit towards the pretentious side, like
a little bit towards having a message, and
a point. But there wasn’t something
like “Let’s take people doing
what they naturally do with their friends,
and throw it on stage,” and we had the
luxury to do that. The real coup to that was
I’ve known Dave Martin for years, who’s
our host. He’s always had that vibe
about him where he has sort of a faux pretentiousness
about him, and I was like “I bet he
could do the most pretentious character as
the host,” and he does. I feel like
he’s the heart and soul of the show.
He’s just such a fucking funny, weird
dude. So that’s kind of how it came
together, like “We should have all these
funny people I know tell stories, and Dave
who’s the fake version of a pretentious
host.” And I was psyched, Faloon did
the first one, [Laughs] I keep bringing it
back to music. But it’s the most fun
show.
Joe: The last question I have is about your
newest “project,” called Gallagher
Three.
Chris: Oh yeah, I hope I can keep that going.
I’m kind of embarrassed about it; I’ve
been going around dressing up like Gallagher
which makes me kind of ashamed, because the
other thing I think I’m most known for
is going around dressed up like Daryl Strawberry.
So I feel like that’s probably really
bad as a creative person, like that’d
be known as being in two gimmicky cover bands
[Laughs]. But the premise is that Gallagher
sued his brother for smashing watermelons,
so I’m going to smash watermelons and
challenge him to sue me so that comedians
can feel free and creative again. I’ve
done it a few times, it generally gets a good
reaction, but it’s this weird thing
where it’s not even people laughing.
I’ve been doing comedy for a pretty
long time now, I don’t know that I’m
great, or wildly successful, but I’m
pretty experienced, and I have a pretty good
feeling about most of the things I do. But
this doesn’t even get laughs so much
as a weird adrenaline from the crowd. I had
people come up on stage and one guy hit the
stool and smashed it into pieces, UCB got
a little upset with me. It’s definitely
an event every time I do one, I want to keep
those going.
In November I’m going to start work
shopping a one man show where I tell all my
different stories from Nights of Our Lives,
and my Mom is going to be the co-star, so
that should be pretty weird. Mostly I just
like to do things that are weird, and funny
[Laughs].
Chris Gethard’s new one man show
begins November 13th at the UCB Theater, and
Nights of our Lives runs the last Wednesday
of every month. You can find more information
at www.ucbtheatre.com or Chris’s blog,
www.chrisgethard.blogspot.com.
JOE
EVANS III: COMEDY CORNER
