Over the phone, you wouldn’t know that San Francisco native, Greg Behrendt, has had one of the most difficult years in both his personal life, and his career as a stand-up comic. It’s evident he came up during a time where the Bay Area was a breeding ground for distinctive, sharp comedy. When your counterparts include Patton Oswalt, Janeane Garofalo, and Dave Anthony, your offerings to the comedy table have to be innovative, diverse, and at times even indulgent. Greg Behrendt was able to do that and even more.
Co-authoring a self-help book titled He’s Just Not That Into You would catapult his career and make him a household name — at least among women who didn’t have their shit together when it came to relationships. The book would go on to be adapted into a movie of the same name, starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Aniston. Greg would go on to appear on Oprah, host two short-lived TV shows, and deal with the pressure from other comics who thought he traded comedy for being known as a relationship advice guy.
In May of 2010, Walking the Room went live. A weekly podcast hosted by Behrendt and long time friend and comedian, Dave Anthony. The first handful of episodes were splattered with technical difficulties, and were recorded inside Greg’s closet. Those circumstances were befitting the nature of the podcast, which was a brutally honest window into the lives of two comedians struggling to get their careers back on track, all while supporting a family.
The podcast built a loyal fan base, and equal praise from fellow comedians. It also allowed Greg to indulge in music, something he’d been doing even before comedy. The Reigning Monarchs were born – a self-proclaimed surf-punk-reggae instrumental band that put out two fantastic albums and shared the stage with acts like Norah Jones.
Through the podcast’s five-year span, Greg dealt with everything from a dwindling career to losing his sobriety, and just as things started to pick up, his biggest obstacle was still around the corner. Greg was kind enough to spare his time to have a chat about the events surrounding his life this year, and about the new things on the horizon.
Thanks for sparing some time to chat, I would like to start out by having you give us a rundown of the crazy year you’ve had.
Well, you know, I was writing with a friend of mine, I’d just done something cool at Sketchfest and I was going to Australia to do this one-man show that I’d written and I was like, “man things are finally back on track. I’m gonna make 2015 my bitch. This is gonna be my year” [laughs]. But I had a little bit of a stomach ache the whole time. I thought I had gas, like I had serious gas. I went to the doctor and they said there was no gas related activity. There was no actual gas, it just felt like my stomach was always bloated. So I went to the doctor [again] and he was like, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, your vitals are good and you look like you’re in good shape.”
So I go to Australia and by like, the eighth show, I was just crippled…it felt like my insides were burning. I got myself to the E.R. and in their sweet Australian accent they said, “you got some tumahs, mate” which sounded a lot better in Australia. Let me tell you that, if you’re gonna get diagnosed with cancer, and I hope you don’t, Australia’s the place to go. It just sounds better. You know just [the word], “cansah,” it goes off at the end.
So they found some tumors in my body and they sent me back to the states. They opened me up and found out that I had lymphoma and that it was aggressive, but treatable. If it had stayed in me longer it could’ve killed me, but it was one of those ones they sort of found a way to melt. So I did six rounds of chemo, which I finished two weeks ago, and as of three days ago I’m cancer free, or full remission.
Was your career the last thing on your mind while you underwent treatment?
Well I cancelled all my touring work for the year and it really put me in a tight spot. Look, here’s the thing, I have gratitude to be alive, so I get an opportunity to fix everything that’s broken so I feel okay about it, but it kicked my ass. I couldn’t get hired because of it, and I also couldn’t make any money because of it, and the dates that I had booked had to get cancelled and it was quite a bit of money. To the point where it’s caused us to have to reevaluate our situation.
It’s was a bit of an ass-kicker. It’s been tough. But it’s been harder on my wife because she’s had to deal with it. You know, when you have somebody who has cancer you just have a dead person who needs juice. They’re useless and you need to put juice in them. At least if I would’ve died she would have gotten a nice hefty insurance check.
What are some of the things you want to accomplish now that you have the chance?
During the whole time I was hitting the road, I decided that I want to write, because I can be home and write. There’s this girl I’ve been writing with who works on Conan, and she and I came up with a script idea that we’re going out with next month. We’re also gonna shoot nine pages of it as sort of a “sizzle reel,” with a really good director and great actors. I’m gonna try to put my career back together as a writer. I also wanna make another special, but I also have to get back in line like everybody else; I don’t get to start where I was. I have to start hitting open mics again. The only other thing I have going for me is 25 years of having done stand-up, but I have to sort of reintroduce myself into the comedy world.
Does it feel like starting over at square one with comedy? Will that be the toughest thing to rebuilding a career?
I don’t know. It all depends on how much the people like the comedy that I’m doing. I don’t mean to be cocky, but I feel like I’m funnier now since the cancer. I feel lighter, I feel like I’m more interested in doing comedy than I’ve been in a long time. A lot of my resentments and weird career things sort of melted away along with tumors, I’m just grateful and that shows up a little bit in my work. My outlook is positive and I have a lot of material now about cancer…I definitely have a point of view because the last six years have sort of been a little crazy. So I just feel like, fuck it, enough already.
During your treatment you constantly posted videos of yourself jamming out on guitar, is music and your band (The Reigning Monarchs) something you also want to start again?
You know, partly I put those up so people didn’t think that I was laying around dying, you know what I mean, it was just the easiest thing to post up. In fact I was just playing the guitar, before I was like,”fuck, I gotta call Alan!” I play all the time and I’m always wanting to play music, so the Monarchs are in the middle of making a new record. So, I’m always gonna do that, but it’s never gonna pay my bills. It’s like a hobby that pays for itself, if that makes sense. The records sell and people come out to see us sometimes when we play, and it pays to make records. No one makes any money off of it career wise, but it also takes care of itself.
I recall your episode of Jonah Raydio were you talked about music being your first passion way before comedy. When did you realize that while music is something that moves you, comedy had to be the way to go?
I came down here to Los Angeles with a band and you know we just…we just failed. It was discouraging. I really didn’t have the musical chops, and I couldn’t sing. I didn’t have a vision and I just got burned out. I’d been in this band for six or seven years and there was just a lot of in fighting. Bands are complicated, and I was always able to just be funny, and I thought I have that skill set I should concentrate on it, because comedy seemed to go better for me than music did at the time. I would do comedy and people would go, “come do more comedy.” Whereas the band would play and people didn’t give a shit. It sort of chose me, I guess.
I was living with David Cross at the time who was making ‘Mr. Show’ and I was doing shows at Largo, and I’d done a special for HBO and I was like, “this is my thing, this is what I do.” So I chose that, but I always liked music more. You know, I say this all the time, that if I had been born later on and YouTube was around, and I didn’t have to take guitar lessons I could just learn from YouTube like I do now, I might have a different career. I always found music teachers and lessons frustrating, but you can watch a YouTube video a thousand times and nobody knows that you’re still trying to get the same three notes to sound right. Nobody gets frustrated with you and it doesn’t cost you anything. It took me a long time to figure out my musical identity where as my comedy identity just showed up.
Having come from a music background, was it tough adjusting to how corporate comedy can be sometimes?
Yeah, kind of, but I came up in a scene where none of us could get work at the Improvs or Comedy Store or any of that stuff, and that’s how we would end up in what would later be termed the “alternative comedy” scene. We were doing people’s laundromats, backyards, and Mexican restaurants after closing hours and all those places. We were doing all those alternative venues, you know? It was me, and Patton, and David, and Janeane, my whole era of comedians. I sort of discovered the “punk rock version” of comedy, I guess when I started. I think that was part of the appeal too. I was around all these real innovators.
Fuck, I watched Kyle Gass and Jack Black write their first song and play their first show. I saw all that stuff come together. Will Ferrell used to be on a three person improv group called Simpatico. They would come out in unitards holding the Canadian flag. It was a time of great invention. The biggest star at that time was probably Garofalo, because she’d been in some movies, and [Ben] Stiller, and even he would come and do sketches. It felt like what it might have been to be in the punk scene in England in the late 70s. A small group of people dedicated to working outside the system.
Having come up with all these truly amazing comedians, do you feel like you’re in good hands now that you are starting up your career again? Do you feel good knowing you have some great people on your side?
It’s so funny you say that. I do feel exactly like that. You know, Patton’s asked me to do some shows and I’m doing a thing with Bill Burr, definitely there’s support there for sure. I also have support among club owners and bookers and all those kinds of people. People have been unbelievably kind to me. I mean, in some radically weird, horrible way it’s probably the best thing that’s happened in my comedy career since the podcast [Walking the Room]. People are focused again and they’re like, “oh shit, that guy!”
I think sometimes when people think you’re about to lose somebody they go, “fuck I should’ve been paying attention to them.” I guess there’s a little bit of luck in that. People have been offering me jobs and opportunities are coming, so I definitely feel supported by those people.
I don’t think you’re gonna have to search too far. You’ve already built a loyal following. From the book to the podcast, I think the audience is there and ready to listen.
I hope so. I think sometimes you also have a career that confuses people when you do so many things.They’re not really sure what it is you do. Sometimes you have to prioritize and go, here’s what I’m doing, I’m doing comedy. I’m doing stand-up. I’m going on the road, I’m gonna do stand-up. And then I’m also gonna do The King Sweater show here in Los Angeles because I wanna turn it into a musical, and I want it to be its own separate little thing. But I’m gonna really try and get back out in the clubs again, I’d easily go and open for somebody for $100, I don’t really care about the money as much as the exposure and being seen again.
I definitely do think there’s a crowd out there. I don’t think I ever paid enough attention to it before, I don’t think I respected it enough. At one point I tweeted that I might do another special and it got more likes than anything I had ever tweeted before. For me, it was like, oh there’s people that would like that, you should honor that and not be so cavalier about it.
So what’s your main focus?
Well, the thing I have to focus on the most is making money [laughs]. That’s the truth. I have kids in school and I have a wife and three dogs to support, so that’s my main goal how ever I do it. I’d love to be able to do it by writing. The pilot I wrote with my friend, I really love. Second would be to go out and do stand-up again and be able to make money doing stand-up. Third would be to continue to make music projects the way that I do. Eventually, earn up enough money to own a barber shop. All comedians get free haircuts, but I have to see your reel first. Like, just get up and do a quick ten. If it’s funny then we’ll give you a free haircut.
I do think that at one point I got discouraged because I think there’s so many comedians. I felt like, how am I gonna get people’s attention again? But then I thought, that’s the dumbest thing ever, you know? You can think about that with everything. There’s tons of bands. There’s fucking tons of barber shops. There’s tons of everything.
Would you go through an experience similar to when you released ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ again in order to be able to do the stuff you really wanna do?
Yeah, we’ve been working on a marriage book for the last two years. I like this one a lot more than the other ones because it’s not about dating and that stuff. It’s about the experience of keeping your marriage from sucking, and I definitely have opinions about it and it’s definitely funny. What we’ve written so far I’m really proud of. It’s not stuff that’s on my list of my favorite stuff to do, but it definitely helps us with money. At this point the priority is, how do my girls get through school? How do they get a college education? My ego doesn’t enter into it.
I’ve also come to terms with the fact that I’m good at some of that stuff, so why not just also be good at that too? I think it’s a different time. I think before the Internet you got defined as something and that’s what people said you were. Now because of the Internet you can go and…I mean…Aziz wrote a fucking relationship book. You can be a bunch of different things now. People can see you as a fuller, more robust human being. I think people know me as everything from a fucking dude with a weird haircut to a relationship author, to whatever, but they can have the whole experience and be able to digest it.
What are some worries that cancer got rid off, like petty worries, and how has it changed how you feel about things in your life?
I think probably petty jealousies and fears that I wasn’t “getting mine.” There was a time where I couldn’t even watch ‘Maron’ because I think I was probably jealous that Dave [Anthony] was on it. Like, how come I didn’t get asked? I think there were things that had nothing to do with me or my career. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it, it was that I was afraid to watch it and feel bad about myself, and I was afraid to get involved in things that made me feel less than. I definitely think that stuff sort of melted away. An appreciation for what my peers do.
Also, just that I have this really great life. I have been very, very lucky and very blessed. I wrote this the other day, I don’t have the biggest fanbase in the world but I might have the best fanbase in the world. The people that are my fans are just incredible. They’re very loyal, very kind, super smart, and interesting people. Everyone, from the girls that read the books to the people that like my comedy, to the weird German people who love the band.
Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Greg! The Reigning Monarchs latest album Black Sweater Massacre is available now via the group’s Bandcamp page. More info on Greg’s upcoming shows can be found at thekingsweater.com
-Alan Madrigal
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