The Singular Fredness of Armisen
2024-07-09 01:04:20
<p>To be human is to fail – period. And not just to fail once, but to fail a lot. As the author Samuel Beckett said: “Fail again. Fail better.” This saying means a lot to me and my family – so much so that my daughter got a tattoo of it. Why are we, and so many others, so deeply concerned by failure? And if it’s something we all do so often, why are we so afraid of it – especially those of us here in win-at-all-costs America? In this podcast, I sit down with successful, thoughtful people like Ben Stiller, Bette Midler, Sean Penn and more to talk about failure – or what they labeled “failure,” but what was really an unparalleled opportunity for growth and revelation. I even want to delve into my own hardest moments, when I wrestled with setbacks, shame, and fear. We’ll still fail again. And again. But maybe if we fail better, we’ll feel better -- and maybe if we can all laugh together in failure, that's a start.</p>
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Lemonada.
So I'm talking today with Fred Armisen, who's a friend of mine and he's a disarming individual. Fred seems like the sweetest guy you've ever met, but you know that he's always observing and watching in some way. I don't exactly know how to put it. There's a hyper-awareness to Fred, but there's also this disarming kind of niceness. There's just something otherworldly about Fred.
I will say this about Fred too, he's like the comedian's comedian in a way. Like you. talk to people who do funny for a living and they love Fred. I'll say when we were on set and we have this kickoff dinner beforehand, and Fred just took over that dinner, had everybody just laughing at this table. Funny people, Keegan-Michael Key, Pedro Pascal, just tickled by Fred.
He's not a punchline guy either, he's a character guy. I wouldn't say that people say, oh, he disappears into these characters and impersonations, but my sense is always Fred kind of, yeah, yeah, he disappears. But there's always something quintessentially, Fred, that remains when he's doing it. I'm not saying that he's not committing fully, but there's just this quality of Fredness. It's very strong, very strong, and I want to get at it today, if possible, the Fredness of it all.
I'm David Duchovny, and this is Fail Better, the show where failure, not success, shapes who we are.
Fred Armisen is an actor, he's a comedian, and he's a drummer. That's a strange combo. He got his start in the punk band Trenchmouth in the late 1980s in Chicago. But after struggling for years as a musician, he pivoted to comedy, which people don't do and they certainly don't get cast in SNL, Saturday Night Live, right after doing that. But that's what happened with Fred.
He followed that up with Portlandia, and Documentary. Now, all while he was appearing in so many other movies and TV shows, but usually small, but always memorable parts and characters. He's still a musician at heart. He's the band leader for the H.E. Band.
on Late Night, with Seth Meyers. We shot a film called The Bubble that came out in 2022, and we had a fight scene together, and that's where we started. We started with a fight. Here's my conversation with Fred.
Whoa.
Hey, Fred.
Hi.
Where are you, Fred?
I'm in Dublin, Ireland.
You are? Yeah. What are you doing there?
The second season of the show, Wednesday.
Okay. Great.
The Addams Family show.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're enjoying it?
That's why my head is all shaved. Oh.
Uncle Fester?
Yep.
Who was the original Uncle Fester? What was that actress' name? He was a child actor. Jackie Coogan. Yeah.
Yeah. I loved that show when I was a kid. Did you?
So did I. Oh, I loved it.
Yeah.
I want to talk a little bit about our Bubble fight scene, because I know you want to talk about that.
Yeah. It's like a movie within a movie, and I, as the director, am choreographing the fight scene.
So it's like the director's coming in to say, hey, let's do this, and you come under, and you defend yourself here, push you down. And in my mind, I'm like, I'm doing a fight scene with David Duchovny over and over and over. So it's one thing. on SNL, you do a fight scene, and you don't see the person, but it's kind of intimate. I'm like, I'm really looking at his skin, David,
for a long time, early in the morning, over and over. Our arms are hitting each other over and over. It's like choreographed and looks kind of lame in its own way.
Yeah. And that was the hard part, I found, in the actual doing of it, was to, how do we do this? in a way that looks like we're trying to be good at it, and yet is still, it's still, it's still, lame. There's that fine line between, you know, winking that you're really sucking at this,
Yeah.
and actually trying hard to not suck, but sucking even worse.
Well, my way out of that was just trying my best all the way through. So, however lame it looks on screen, that was me really trying to do a good fight scene. Like, I didn't, in my mind, I was doing a really good job.
That's, I think, I feel like that's kind of a key for you in general, in a lot of the characters that you play, that we can touch on later as we talk about it, but there is kind of a blissful unselfawareness of how bad you might be coming off.
Yeah. And just,
and just pushing on through, just like no self-doubt, in a way. No, I'm like,
I try to pretend like. I really like the character. So, this way I'm not like ever making fun of the character or anything.
What does that mean, that you pretend to like the character? I understand what not making fun of the character means, and I am the same, but what does it mean to pretend that you like the character?
So if there's a character like?
a dictator, I've done sketches on SNL where I play the dictator of Iran or something. Even if I'm doing that, I just try to think like, I try to take away any baggage about him and just think, and by pretend I mean I just ignore everything that I might think I know about him and think, okay, this is a person and I just want to portray the person without the rest of it. So this way, and it's not for any other reason than to just make it, I just try to make it a likable character.
I think what you might be saying there too is that the idea is that most people actually like themselves in a fundamental way, right? Yeah. And I think that's true of what I see in your work a lot is that there's a wonderful kind of oblivious self-love in a lot of the characters that you'll do, and somehow that goes around the horn from being like, if you saw that in life, you would probably detest that person, but you do a magic trick somehow where you make it funny and light, and I'm not sure how you do that. Maybe you just do it instinctually, but I think that's kind of a gift there to play that kind of self-absorption in a way. that is, you can both laugh at it, and you're in on the joke, although you're not winking.
I don't know, it's a complicated thing you're doing, and I'm not doing a very good job of describing it.
No, listen, that's very kind, and I appreciate it coming from you,
and I think some of it comes from being on SNL, where, if you do a character and you're starting to make fun of them or you're starting to be mean about them, the audience there starts to check out a little bit. They do start to kind of, I don't know what it is.
Why do you think that is?
I think people just, I can't speak for everybody, but it's a thing where people don't want to be bummed out. They're bummed out enough as it is, and they're like, I don't need, also, maybe there could be a thing also of people not needing a character to be explained to them.
By the way, this is a bad guy or something. I think people are, my instinct is that people are like, yeah, I'll make my own decision. I don't need you to point out the faults of this person. I'll figure it out. Don't worry about it.
Interesting, and do you have examples of where you might have gone too far in that direction? and you felt like, oh, I fucked that one up. I commented on it or I spoon fed it.
No, because I don't even think back. really. I don't in that way. I'm just like, either it worked or it didn't, and if something didn't work, then great.
It's like having, if you have an album and there's one song that isn't that great, you go, oh, well, I don't know, skip over it or something. You don't have to listen to that one.
Well, yeah, and I think on this thing, on this podcast, I always try to figure out, thread the needle between the failure and the pain of that and then the lesson in that, if there is a lesson, or if it's just one of those bumps in the road, and it seems to me that, at least on SNL, there was something about the speed at which you had to do it, because you had to do next week, whatever. You couldn't really obsess on whether or not that character was going to hit or not, right? You just had to move on. You had to move on.
You had a day. We had Sunday.
You had a day of mourning.
Yeah, and the longer I was on the show, the more I realized that was a waste of time obsessing about like,
oh, how could I have done that better? Did you obsess at first?
Not too bad, but enough that I started to think, how did I make a mistake in that sketch? So let's say my early years at SNL,
everyone's heard about sketches that don't go on the air. As the night goes on, something else will get cut, and then something else, or a short film will get cut. In my early days, I would sort of think about how can I do it again so that I get it right?
Are the other writers upset that I tried to write this sketch that didn't work? A lot of things that were like, look, just, treating it as if it's the only time, that it's the only chance I had.
So over the years, I discovered, oh, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You come up with something else later. Sometimes those characters slip into some other character that does eventually go on the air. So it just took a couple of years of that, of, oh no.
And then after a while, oh, it's nothing. It is really like, it is like a river. It's like it constantly just goes and goes and goes. And you start to get stronger at not wasting time and being precious about your own comedy. That was like, I went in there like, oh, I got this audition at SNL and I did it.
I must be a really, you know,
brilliant writer. I must be so great. And then you realize it's not, just go, go, go, go, go, go. It's okay.
And how did you feel about, I've had those feelings when I'll be driving home from set and I'll be obsessing on a scene that I did that day. And I, for whatever reason, I feel like it could have gone a different way. And I don't do that anymore. I'm just like, fuck it. What happened was supposed to happen.
Very kind of fatalistic and not really my philosophy at all. Like whatever will be, will be. That's not me. But on the way home from set, I'm usually like, well, I did my best, or whatever in the moment. And usually the intellectual part of my mind is not the one coming up with the creative ideas.
So in the car, that's the part of my mind that's going, oh, you should have done this and you should have done that. And then I'll go, that is exactly wrong.
You know?
So it's usually the part of my brain that is instinctual and emotional and reactive, that is making the decisions on set. Because, as you say, it's a river, even any set is a river. It's flowing fast. You got to do it now. So you have to rely on that part of yourself that is not intellectual, not rational.
And that's scary. though. That's scary at first. It is scary. Because there's no foundation.
The thing that's funny about that is that you also imagine everyone else on set applauding and going, whoa, I can't believe you did that.
And it's just impossible. I never do that.
No, I'm meaning like, if I think like, oh, if I went back and I did it differently, oh, they would have just, everyone would have been laughing. and it doesn't work that way. It's like, no. There was something about the chemistry of that lighting, the time of day, what the director wanted. And it's almost none of my business of how it came out.
It's like, it just came out how it came out. The director was happy.
Isn't that fascinating that your performance is none of your business? That's such a wonderful, counterintuitive thing to think. You know, my dad, who knew nothing about acting, I never knew an actor growing up. I grew up around the same time you did. You were in Long Island, I was in New York.
And I'd love to talk about that a little bit. But my dad came, we had one shot on the X-Files pilot, actually, this was like 1993, that we had to shoot on a gimbal, on an airplane, you know, a fake airplane, where, you know, we go through turbulence, shit comes out of the overhead luggage bins and Spooky Mulder says, you know, oh, this must be the place. But you know, whatever, it's a character thing. And my dad was an extra, and the stuff comes down, you know, and we do it like 10 times. And he says, how many times are we going to have to do it?
You know, firstly, like, you know, people are always amazed that it's that repetitive. And then at lunchtime, we're getting lunch and he says to me, you know, the trick of it is not anticipating.
Yep.
I was like, well, you know, it took me about 10 years to learn that, but well done, dad, for learning that on the first day.
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If you know me, you know that I am constantly traveling. I was just in Greece for a shoot, and I had an amazing time, but when I came back to the U.S., I was already getting ready for my next trip. To be honest, I don't think I even unpack my bag fully. One thing about traveling that's not so fun, besides having to squeeze everything into your suitcase, is how often it means leaving your home sitting there underutilized while you're gone. And if you can relate to any of this, then you should definitely think about becoming a host on Airbnb.
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And I really loved meeting you on the bubble, and I loved working with you. Oh, yeah, anytime. And I loved getting to know you a little. And it was during the pandemic, so... Yeah.
We just really.
. We were kind of all thrown together in London that way. And one of the kind things you did was, I was writing this book that turned into The Reservoir, and I asked you to... I had to do the audio book or something, and I asked you for a German accent. Oh.
I'm bad at accents. I'm just not confident. You know, I'd love to have to do one and to have time to figure it out. But what I thought when I saw that, aside from your facility, was, gee, I wonder how this kid grew up. You know, like, what kind of a person learns to do all those voices?
And it made me an accent, and it made me just wonder about what it was like in Long Island at that time for you in the family you were in. If you could just speak a little about what little Fred Armisen was up to back then and what he felt like and what he was thinking.
Well, thank you for that, by the way, for saying that about the accents thing. I grew up on Long Island, but my dad is German, and my mom is Venezuelan. So they already had accents.
Oh, they were from Germany.
Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm first-generation American. And so we landed in New York, which is, like, accent-heavy.
Yeah.
And then, while I was in New York, we moved to Brazil for a couple years. My dad worked for IBM, so we had to go to Rio de Janeiro while I was in 2nd and 3rd grade, and then back to New York. So there was just a lot of exposure to different accents. That's all that that is. It was just, like, travel.
Simple as that. Like, my parents had accents. You know, they taught me Spanish and stuff, and then New York is filled with accents. And then just the travel is what kind of, you know, sharpened my ear to that kind of thing.
If I'd met you when you were a kid of, like, 9 or 10, and I said, Fred, what are you going to do? What's up? What's the plan? What's the plan for 10 years, Fred?
9 and 10, I was really into The Beatles. And I think I was, like, somehow focused on going towards whatever that was. And this is, like, after they broke up. This is 1976 or so. So there was already Paul McCartney and Wings and all their solo stuff.
But I saw it all as Beatles. To me, I was like, it's all Beatles. So I would say that was a focus of my attention. It was like, how can I learn to play instruments, to get closer to what they are?
What was it about The Beatles? I mean, I love The Beatles too, but what was it about The Beatles for you that was so magical?
There was something, you know, I don't need to explain The Beatles, but you know what I mean. I want to hear. The drums are what got me first. On. I Am The Walrus.
But there's something about them around Magical Mystery Tour, that album, where they're kind of in costumes and they kind of, like, have masks on and stuff. So something in there attracted me to, like, it seemed like an other place. It seemed so not like Long Island. It seemed so not like Brazil. It was like this other, what is this place, England?
What is this place where they come up with music like that?
Huh.
So you were going to drum your way to England. somehow. You know, I remember loving The Beatles as well, and it was kind of bittersweet because they were the band that my parents were okay with me listening to. And that kind of killed it a little bit for me, so I kind of gravitated towards The Stones more.
Oh, I see. You needed to rebel more.
I needed to rebel. And I think it's interesting. what you're talking about is it was a rebellion. You were talking about growing up in Long Island. Your dad's an IBM 9-to-5-er.
Did he live to see your success as an actor?
Yeah, oh, yeah.
That's wonderful. And has that been a very satisfying kind of...
So satisfying because he's tickled by it.
What do you mean by that?
Meaning like we don't come from that kind of.
Showbiz.
He didn't raise me to be like, I really want you to get into comedy and music. And so it's like a nice surprise for him, and it's a nice surprise for my mom, because she watched SNL or, you know, whatever, watches SNL. But the thing that was funny about it is that we have the same name. My dad is also Fred Armisen. So he likes...
So he loves seeing that card.
To him, it's funny to him. And he's like, oh, my God, that's like my name. Yeah. And there I am, you know.
Was he a performer at all? No. At home?
No, but his dad was.
His dad was.
His dad was raised in Japan and was a Japanese dancer, like a performance artist, dancer in Japan. So it sort of skipped my dad, and then it just went to me.
What is that guy? like, the grandfather?
Visual. Avant-garde. Really creative. Had a fascinating life. He had traveled all over, had kids all over the world, or all over Europe.
And I went to his, like.
You didn't meet him.
I met him when I was a kid, a couple times.
Oh, you did, yeah.
Yeah, but I didn't have, like, a close relationship with him. But a musical guy who, like, did these, like, dance performances as different characters. I went to his museum or library or something in Tokyo, near Tokyo. Like a dance studio, and there's pictures of him as different characters.
What do you mean? There's an actual museum?
It's like the upstairs part of a dance studio, and it's set up like a museum, and you sort of go around and you look at, like, his costumes and his promotional photos and stuff. He had all kinds of, like, theory on dance and kinetic movement and electronic music. He's incredible. Masami Kuni, K-U-N-I.
So, if we go back to you, when do you start drumming? How old are you when you start?
I must have been 10 or 11, or something. Like, fourth or fifth grade, I started taking drum lessons.
Did you have a mentor?
Did you have a mentor at school or a drum teacher or somebody that said.
I had a drum teacher who came to my house and gave me drum lessons, and his name was Joe Martignette. And he was, like, the first cool guy I ever saw, like a rock and roll guy.
Oh, he was rock and roll?
Yeah, not totally, like, long hair, rock and roll, but kind of longish hair, rock and roll.
Yeah, Long Island, rock and roll.
Long Island and very, like, sort of, like, thin in that rock and roll thin way, you know?
And he really, like, taught me not just about drums, but he was like, you should learn every instrument. So that when you're in a band, you know what they're all talking about and what they're all doing. Like, you should pick up the guitar, you should know the bass. So it was very band-oriented. And we would talk about records.
He'd be like, well, that guy's pretty much just copying Keith Moon, so try to know more about Keith Moon. It was the best. And I think about him all the time. Like, he really changed my life. Like, it wasn't just, like, a teacher.
He was more like, this can actually be fun. This can be, like, a fun part of your life.
I mean, it's so important. My mother was a teacher, and I think about it a lot. You know, you're lucky in your life if you come across that one person. You know, that one person that can seize you. It's really a moment when that teacher actually sees the person in front of him.
It's not about teaching them a certain thing, but sees the soul in front of them and can say, hey, maybe this is a possibility. You know, you're not there yet. You're just a kid, but this impulse you have to drum, that's real. Honor it. It could be fun.
It doesn't have to be work. It doesn't have to be just practice. That's a good thing.
What did your mom teach?
She taught first and second grade. She taught kids how to read. And I walk around the village. I grew up in the East Village, and she taught at Grace Church School. I don't know if you know where that is, on 11th Street and Fourth Avenue.
And I walk around the village now, and people will stop me. three generations of people will stop me and say, your mom taught my mother, your mom taught my daughter, your mom taught my granddaughter. And she was that teacher that made that difference. And she was somebody, she was a fierce protector of, she was a Scottish woman, grew up with nothing, and she just protected people that had nothing. She always protected the kids that were the underdogs.
And she would fucking fight for them. And it was just the most beautiful part of her. And when I walk around the village, I'm reminded of that. I mean, this guy said to you, you could be a drummer. And look, you did it.
Yeah.
It would have been so easy to squash that.
Oh, totally. Or just turned it into, here's your rudiments. This is what the book says. Just practice this. It was very,
he just really helped me grow as a drummer. He was really great. But also, to your point about the East Village, it's funny thinking of, because I remember finding out that you grew up in the village, which is so rare. I barely know anybody. And it's funny thinking of the East Village as a small town.
It is. Your mom, your mom.
Local teacher.
All that stuff. It is a small town, but it's hard to see it that way.
Yeah. And you mentioned Rebellion, too.
Yeah.
And I wanted to talk about that because I'm a little older than you, but we both grew up kind of at the tail end of the 60s, as the 60s faded into what it became. And you went into punk. I never went into punk, but I think we share the failure of the 60s. I think our generation are really the inheritors of,
it didn't work. The revolution didn't happen. And in fact, those people kind of cashed in. And you, I think, you've described punk as the rebellion against the rebellion. And can you speak on that?
I guess so. We have a different view of New York, because you experience it really from the inside. I'm from Long Island. So I felt like with high school, it just seemed lame. I was like, I don't like the sort of stoner, jean jacket, wizards, potions and all that stuff.
I just wasn't into it. And things like John Waters movies and Devo and Talking Heads, that seemed like the right thing to bring into high school. It made so much sense to me. That's what I was rebelling against. It was how lame that stuff.
And also a lot of that music, although I appreciate it now, was too slow and lumbering. It was just like something about it. I needed an up-tempo. As a drummer, too. Yeah.
As a drummer. It was also a way for me to bond with my friends. I didn't really want to shock my parents. I got a Mohawk, but I remember playing Kraftwerk. Do you ever hear Kraftwerk?
Sure. The electronic band from New York.
The Autobahn.
I liked playing them on my stereo loud, because that's a real surprise. If I played screaming solos of rock music, that's like a cliche teenager. So what? But to play Kraftwerk was great in my house because my parents weren't offended or upset. They were like, what is this?
It was that kind of rebellion.
I, for the most part, got along with my parents, so I wasn't out to prove them wrong or anything.
But you were out to get out of Valley Stream, for sure.
Yeah. At this point. I wanted to get to the city. I remember wanting to be in the city all the time.
So the dream is forming of, I'm going to be a drummer. At what point is the dream forming that I'm going to be in a band and that's going to be my life?
It's people like Mark Mothersbaugh, the singer from Devo, and David Byrne, where I was like, I wanted to be that kind of person. Who's that kind of person who is making music, but also very visual?
It's almost like a performance art you're talking about.
I was like, what is that? I would see these bands on TV and I was like, that's where I want to be. And I remember seeing a lot of these bands, the B-52s on SNL. Oh, I love that. They're so great.
And whatever that was, the B-52s were so colorful.
and fun and up-tempo that I was like, how do I get towards that? I don't know if it's drumming, I don't know what it is, but I want to go towards whatever that is.
Was it an intense yearning? Yeah.
It's so intense.
What did that feel like?
It's so intense that I feel it now. I can watch that B-52s performance. or I'll go see them or Devo.
or David Byrne, and I still get that feeling. And it actually still feels like a fight. Even though I'm not fighting against anything, it is like a victory. Just watching them, I still feel like, yeah, this is how it should be. I still live in it.
I don't know if that's.
I think it's beautiful. It's like time travel.
It's like time travel.
When you got to that point where, let's jumping ahead and you're like, you're in Trench Mouth and you're in a band. You feel like you made it? You made it. Is that it? I'm in a punk-ish band and I'm playing the music that I like.
But was there more that you still wanted at that point?
Yeah. I remember we had a great time. We toured everywhere. I learned a lot. I drummed a lot.
Made really good friends. But we didn't get to that level of like, it sounds so corny now, but of like being on TV, being a musical guest of a talk show on TV or having like overseas fans, that kind of thing. And that felt kind of rough at the time. I felt stagnant. I was like, this is great, but we're not moving ahead the way that I want to.
So you have to kind of admit that this is failing on some level for you.
Yeah.
Failing on some level.
Yes.
And you have to take a chance, because how old are you now? What have you got to fall back?
I'm already like 30-something, you know?
Yeah, that's terrifying. 30?. This is terrifying.
And I'm just thinking, I know it worked out for you, but I'm thinking I want to know. I just want to know how it felt at that inflection point in your life, and also just the perseverance that you would have had and the belief to go, okay, I'm going to march in this direction. Where did that come from?
It was more, less than fear, it was frustration. So if you could picture the word like, darn, you know when you mean the word darn?
I don't know.
You know, and you're just like, I worked so hard for eight years on this band. Damn it, you know? It's like really walking up to a wall. And so my way out wasn't even like trying to get out. It was.
what can I do in the meantime while I figure out what the problem was? What can I do in the meantime?
First thing was that I was playing drums for a Blue Man group in Chicago. And I would play these shows, and I was in a Blue Man, I was a drummer in the band, one of the drummers in the band.
And I was starting to earn money from show business. Like I was like, ah, this is an actual check.
And the audiences were always sold out, so I was a little bit like.
Right, they loved me.
Or there's people out there.
Yeah, okay.
So playing in the band was like, where is everybody? They're not here. I don't know where they are. Maybe there's no such thing as crowds.
And then at Blue Man group, I was like, okay, people do pay money to go see stuff, so they're out there. And then my wife at the time, Sally, who was like in a band, this band, the Mekons, was really into like...
A successful band. Yeah.
Really into British comedy. And she'd show me these tapes of this comedian, Dennis Pennis, who would do like pranks with video cameras and stuff. And I was like, there's a way... I was like, something about. that is intriguing.
So I bought a video camera, and I went to this festival called South by Southwest. This was 1998.. And I did this thing where I would like interview people.
as characters, fake characters, a German interviewer, a blind interviewer, a college student, all these things that like ended up being one videotape that sort of made the rounds. A friend edited it for me, and it ended up being a sort of calling card to get to do stuff, to do comedy. I showed that at a club, and the local people wrote about it. And then, little by little, I started getting more jobs as a comedian. And that never stopped.
That moment in 1998 was where I would get one gig with HBO. Someone somewhere else wanted me to do something. And little by little, I was doing it more as a living. So the moment of darn it, of damn it, I'm going to do this thing in the meantime. That thing I was doing in the meantime snowballed.
It had a snowball effect of like. that turned into, thank God, a route away from it. I got to escape the fear of I'm not a good enough drummer.
I didn't have to address it. even. It was almost like, I'm going to put the drumsticks down for a minute.
I didn't know that it was fear of not being a good enough drummer. I thought it was fear of this band not making it big enough to satisfy some ambition that I had.
It's a combination, but you do tend to, because let's say that the band was breaking up. I would really, I would want to think, I hope some other band hires me. There's always in the back of your mind like, do the Red Hot Chili Peppers need somebody? Does Fugazi need somebody?
And I was just getting older. So that's, I guess, where the fear was. I was like, man, I'm early 30s. Whatever, I was, 32, 33.. Who wants this drummer?
who, you know?
So that was, to put it this way, it's just kind of a lucky break of things that happened between Blue Man Group and making that video. that set me on my way.
And then you auditioned for MADtv, and you didn't get it, right?
Yes, I moved to LA. But auditioned for stuff.
And I remember, yeah, I auditioned for MADtv.
Were you auditioning for like sitcoms and shit like that? Because when I moved out to LA, I didn't get so many shows. I can't tell you how many shows I didn't get.
I don't think I auditioned for, I think I did not audition for any sitcoms. I mean, I must have not had an in to even be considered. Right. But I auditioned for MADtv, maybe because of characters and stuff.
Right.
And I remember really wanting it. Like, this is it. Here's my big chance.
And, you know, when I didn't get it.
Now you're 35, you're 34.
Yeah, I'm 34.
. Yeah. I just remember thinking like, whoa, that was my big chance.
Right. You know?
And by the way, it's not that I'm not an ambitious person or a confident person. I was just like, I just thought. that's how things work. Right. I don't live in New York.
How would I ever get an audition to SNL? By the way, that feeling of not getting it, it lasted a week. I don't think it lingered.
It doesn't sting anymore.
No, no, no. Yeah. And it was fine. It wasn't like, you know, I don't know. It was okay.
It was just, I wasn't devastated. It was more like, oh, that would have been a good opportunity.
Yeah. I had plenty of those pilots that I went up for when I was first out in LA, and I thought each one was going to be the break. Yeah. And I just needed to be able to pay my rent, too. That was an important thing, because I just wanted a job.
Yeah. And yeah, I would get pretty devastated for a week or so, and then you just have another audition or whatever. You just got to keep going forward.
Isn't that funny? Because sometimes you look at some script and you're like, this is it.
This is going to change. I auditioned for all three parts on Full House.
You did?
Yeah. Yeah, I tested. I tested at the network. At first they had me for, I think, the dad. Yeah.
And then they had me for the Stamos character, and then they had me for the other guy. And I was thinking, I got to get one of these, and it's going to change my life. And, by the way, I was really bad at that kind of stuff. I did not know how to do that sitcom stuff. I don't know what they were thinking, that they thought I was going to exist in that world.
I mean, I guess I could have learned, but I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready for that kind of energetic performance that they need.
I mean, that really worked out for you, apparently. But I remember now that, see, I have not thought about this, but I remember I auditioned for a couple things. God knows even what they were. I don't even know what they were, but they were stuff that was like improvised. This is like, you know, 2001..
And they were like, yeah, this is happening now. A lot of, you know, improvisational comedies. And I always felt like, oh, I'm going to get this. This is something I'm going to get. I don't have to learn lines.
And, oh my God, I've never heard back from any of them. I don't even know what those shows were.
And I remember- It never blocked your confidence. And I'm saying for myself too, I would say, if you had asked me, even though I had a hundred auditions and didn't book a job, I would have said, I'm doing something. I'm doing something. I know I'm doing something. Somebody's going to see it.
Somebody is going to see it, and I'm going to get a job, and it's going to be okay. Because I know I'm doing something, even though nobody is telling me I'm doing something.
I was already leaps away from what I'd been doing three years earlier, which was loading drums into a van. So I was like, hey, I'm in LA. I'm really in LA, and I'm walking into these studios, and getting to have a parking pass at some fancy studio. So I was already way ahead of where I wanted to be when I was in a band. So I was pretty psyched.
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One thing that I think I perceive in your characters and in your work and in your love of music and the way you have incorporated that into the stand-up that you've been doing, is you have, you're this really volatile mixture to me of. I think you're a satirist. You're satirizing much, but you're also really nostalgic and have a lot of love for the thing you're satirizing. Like I listen to Catalina Breeze. I'm hearing Glamour Profession by Steely Dan.
I'm thinking, I bet he loved Steely Dan, but he also can see through Steely Dan. I feel like you're constantly perched between love and almost a disgust.
That must be a very interesting place for your head to be in and to be able to create out of that place.
Yeah, it definitely all comes from love and admiration for all the punk stuff that I did, which is satire. Still all about bands that I loved, and then for documentary. now we did a parody of Talking Heads. Same kind of thing where it's like, of course I love Talking Heads, but it was still a parody of their movie.
Yeah, yeah. So the question becomes where did you get the confidence in the instinct, the confidence?
to overcome other failures? The confidence to overcome...
I think it's like a feeling of nothing to lose.
And I have a suspicion that some of it is from moving around so much. when I was a kid from country to country. Something in there was like whenever I landed and was, you know, back in school or whatever, it all worked out for little, Freddie.
Yeah.
You described yourself as an atheist, and this is very interesting to me. Is that fair to say that you're an atheist?
I feel less that I'm an atheist. I feel more like I believe in God.
Oh. Are you maybe an agnostic?
Sure, sure.
Well, I was going to ask because what I find to be a fascinating discussion is, you know, people are scared of atheists because they don't think they have ethics, because they think the only ethics come from the Bible, but in fact, you know, you can get ethics, you know,
anywhere. Philosophy.
I was just wondering.
how did you grow your ethics if you weren't, you know, you grew up an atheist, I guess, or you were an atheist, for.
most of your life? Kind of, yeah. I felt like atheism, was like a youthful.
like.
. A punk rebellion?
Yeah. It was like a tool of like, well, I don't, it's like. every time I would see something in the news about you know, some sort of like new religious movement, I was like, well, I'm an atheist, so it doesn't matter. Like, it's a very like, well, there's no God, the Bible doesn't make any sense. anyway.
Look at it. So, and not that I follow any religion, but more so, and it's such a cliche of getting older, the way that the good things that have happened to me and just the how amazing life is, I have to have a sense of gratitude and.
when friends of mine die, I have to have some sort of. it has to have some meaning to me besides like, oh, well. So it just helps me like, yeah, it's just something that like, helps me. it actually keeps me like, grateful and actually it makes me like, just appreciate everything more.
Yeah.
That's just me. I know.
No, I'm not judging at all. I mean, I find gratitude to be like WD-40.. It's the most versatile lubricant there is. I mean, nobody doesn't like gratitude. In fact, there's something that happened to me.
I went to rehab in whatever year it was, and then I was at a meeting afterwards and I had to go to the Golden Globes and I was terrified, because, you know, they're going to ask me questions.
and I said it to the group, I said I gotta go to the Golden Globes tomorrow. Big shot. You know, but. and this guy next to me said, I said, what are they going to say? How's the family?
You know, like all these questions I'm not going to answer, you know, none of their fucking business and.
stuff that I'm hurting over, you know, and I'm afraid when the question comes, I'm going to cry, you know, and the guy goes. just be grateful for the question and I go. oh, that could be fun. so I get on the red carpet and somebody from like entertainment's like, oh Dave, it was a tough couple months, huh? Ooh, Howard, how's the family?
You know, and I go. you know, I'm not going to talk about it, but I'm really thankful that you asked that question and I'm really grateful that you care and thank you for asking about them and me, and I saw the person's face just. he started to like himself more. I know that he went in with that question, kind of like a vulture, and then when I.
all I did was thank him for asking about me, and it was such a lesson to me. obviously it's a little manipulative in the situation, a little self-defensive, yes, guilty, but I've never seen a situation in which gratitude is not a magical.
thing. It just stops time a little bit, too. It also protects me from like getting in my head about something. it's nice that, you know. it's nice, like you said, it's nice that you're being asked to do something.
right. it kind of fights the ambition part, that's like where am I going? why is that guy doing that thing and why am I not doing that thing?
yeah, all that stuff, or like, why are they making me film in Toronto?
you know, it's so far, the flight's so long. it's like, wait a minute, it's awesome.
Toronto's beautiful.
stay in a hotel. stay in a hotel. I'm sorry that it's not right outside your door in LA, but
if you want that, you'll have to do it yourself.
our next job, next job will be there.
so, have you grown your ethics in a way, with your burgeoning belief in some kind of god, have your ethics changed, or, I'm sure you have?
I feel like my ethics have just changed with age. I think I feel, hopefully that it's that and a little bit of like, just a little bit of time to kind of like, see things differently. I think that's the two things that have sort of changed ethics.
yeah, I think as you get older, you've been on both sides of the ball, usually, and when you're younger, you're probably playing one side more than the other, and then, you know you go through it from the other side, and then all of a sudden, your perspective changes and you go, I can be better.
yeah, whereas when you're younger, it's like what's everybody's problem?
I'm just living my life.
yeah, and after a while.
as you get older, you live your life too.
yeah, it's like, well.
take care of yourself.
and also, there's also like. there's also the feeling of like your friends love you, so your friends love you. how can, you know, how can I exist with that in a sort of even way? it's hard to describe, but it's like how do you honor that?
honor your friendships?
yeah, just kind of like, honor your friendships.
so it's not just like, honor the person that you're in a love relationship with it's honor.
it's the, yeah, the whole group, and I feel like I also feel better about myself in that I had a girlfriend for seven years, recently, Natasha, and I was with her for a long time, and I felt like it was a successful relationship, like I liked the feeling of that, I was like, that ended well and like we're still friends, and it made me feel like that was like part of getting older that I was like, I can approach being in a relationship in a different way and I can look back at the, I can even look back at that relationship with a sort of peaceful happiness, like that's how it was, and that's where gratitude comes in and that's where, like that's where I, that's where, like, you know, the idea of God comes in, where I'm, like you know, that's what helps.
me through it. Well, we're so programmed to believe that if a relationship ends, that it's a failure of some kind. Exactly When, I think that's a benighted way of looking at things, relationships can be raging. successes that don't go until death. do us part.
Yes. But we don't really discuss it in that way in this culture, I mean we have an all or nothing kind of view of the success or failure of a relationship, and it's supposed to last until you close your eyes for the last time.
Exactly. And then I see, as I get older too, I see that, like, so many couples, I know break up. I don't mean that in a negative or a cynical way, I mean like it makes me go, like, life is like this. Life is like this, and there's different versions of relationships and different versions of success, so it's a little bit like it's. what's great is that it just calms everything down, like don't, everything, it's alright.
Yeah, and you're.
carving out a particular individual life that looks very, from my point of view, very unique, and you, you know, being true to you in many ways. and what else are you going to do? You know, you can't live your life by somebody else's strictures, and you know. No. Although, God knows, I feel the pressure sometimes, we all feel the pressure sometimes.
Yeah, yeah. That's okay. And it has ruined many, many a night in my life where I've felt like, I'm fucking up.
I think we should probably.
But everybody feels that way. Everybody feels that way. Like, I think, or whatever, most, a lot of people feel that way.
I think they must. And I think just saying it out loud is such a such a fucking relief, you know.
Fred, when you come back to LA, we do have to get together.
We've tried.
We should do it. Let's just like, let's be grateful for this. And let's act on that gratitude by actually, you know, I'm not asking for a lot. We're not asking for a lot. You know, it's just, it's a meal every now and then.
I still have a framed picture that you sent me, where it's me and you looking in a mirror. Yeah.
Oh, it's so cool. Where is it? Where is it hanging?
I have an office in Frogtown in LA.
I'm glad you like it. Yeah, so let's do it. And thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it. Much pleasure.
I really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you.
I did too.
Thank you.
Other things I was thinking about with Fred is like he's, there's something ironic about him. And he's a satirist at heart, I think. And we talk about this during the discussion, as you know, the love behind it. Because he loves Devo. I think that's his number one band.
And he either said this to me during the podcast or I read it somewhere. But he said he was amazed to hear that Devo thought they were making like funk music or soul music. And he got it too when they said it. And I really wish that I had asked Fred, you know, I'm getting what you're doing, but I wonder what it is you think you're doing. Like, that's the one thing.
What style are you doing? I know he thinks of Andy Kaufman. That's an obvious inspiration for him. I know David Letterman's a hero. Lorne Michaels is a mentor and a hero.
But does he think he's doing soul music? Would it surprise us if we asked Fred? Would it surprise us as much as Devo thinking it's doing soul music? To hear the kind of comedy Fred thinks he's doing. Or the kind of acting Fred thinks he's doing.
Maybe I'll get a chance to go back and ask him at some point. But I think, even if we don't have the answer, I think it's a good way to think of Fred. Or the Fredness.
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Fail Better is a production of Lemonada Media in coordination with King Baby. It is produced by Keegan Zemma, Aria Bracci, and Donny Matias. Our engineer is Brian Castillo. Our SVP of weekly is Steve Nelson. Our VP of new content is Rachel Neal.
Special thanks to Carl Ackerman, Tom Krupinski, and Kate D. Lewis. The show is executive produced by Stephanie Whittles-Wax, Jessica Cordova-Kramer, and me, David Duchovny. The music is also by me and my band, the lovely Colin Lee, Pat McCusker, Mitch, Stewart, Davis, Rowan, and Sebastian Modak. Special thanks to Brad Davidson.
You can find us online at Lemonada Media, and you can find me at David Duchovny. Follow Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts, or listen ad-free on Amazon Music with your Prime membership.
voicemails from her fans on the Sarah Silverman podcast, and don't miss Freedom, where Scott Ackerman, Paula Tompkins, and Lauren Lapkus hang out, tell stories about each other, and see who can make the other two laugh the most. And the best part? You can listen to all of these podcasts and more from Lemonada Media on Amazon Music.
I'm Sam Smith, and welcome to The Pink House.
I love being in The Pink House with you.
Join me as I talk to my friends and some amazing queer icons about their idea of home, like Elliot Page, Joel Kim Booster, and Gloria Estefan.
Music was always my escape, it was my happy place.
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