Funny or Die’s Oddball Comedy and Curiosity Festival
5 p.m. Aug. 10. $53.35-$123.90. Aaron's Amphitheatre at Lakewood, 2002 Lakewood Way, Atlanta. 404-443-5090, www.livenation.com.
Comedian and musician Reggie Watts will be performing for thousands of people when he hits Atlanta this weekend as part of the Funny or Die Oddball Comedy and Curiosity Festival, but he’s not sweating it.
“I don’t have any plans,” Watts says. “I’m just going to show up and hopefully something great will happen. A lot of it just depends on the vibe and the environment. That sort of informs the show. But I’m excited about it.”
His calm bespeaks his keen ability to improvise, as seen during his stint as an opener on Conan O’Brien’s “Prohibited From Being Funny on Television” tour and on the IFC series “Comedy Bang! Bang!,” based on the popular podcast of the same name. Watts serves as co-host and bandleader, coming up with comedic songs seemingly on the spot and participating in the show’s often absurd sketches with co-host Scott Aukerman.
Watts discusses the Oddball Fest — which also includes Louis C.K., Aziz Ansari, Chris Hardwick, Marc Maron and Hannibal Buress (read an interview with him here) — composing theme songs and anti-diva behavior.
Q: I know this isn’t the case, but I’m imagining you, Louis C.K., Aziz Ansari and Hannibal Buress all packed into a van, driving together from stop to stop on the Oddball Fest tour.
A: It would be great if that were possible. I think I'm driving myself. It's a lot faster than flying.
Q: Do you have anything crazy on your tour rider?
A: It's not really that exciting — it's two organic apples, six cans of Zevia, a low-calorie, all-natural soda. A drink made from green coffee beans, and bottled water. Oh, and a chocolate peanut butter organic bar.
Q: Are you ever tempted to act like a diva and ask for caviar and champagne?
A: There was a time when I'd tour with other people and I'd look at their riders and they'd have all these crazy top-shelf liquors and all these things, and then I'd notice at the end of the night that a lot of it wasn't used, and that really bothered me.
Q: So it’s not that you don’t want it, it’s that you’re afraid you’re going to waste it.
A: Yeah, it would just be wasted. I mean, obviously there are people in the green room where, if there's something nice, they'll just give it to somebody. But I kind of like not asking for much in the first place. It feels more rebellious.
Q: You recently played the original song “I Once Knew a Horse,” on “Conan.” How did that come about?
A: We created the song a few hours before we played it. Travis (Stever, of the group Coheed and Cambria), I met him a couple of hours before the show and we created a couple of chord changes and just kind of ran over it a few times. I came up with some ballad-y ideas and some lyric ideas, and that was kind of it. And then Billy Gibbons, the guitar player from ZZ Top, stopped by the studio. I had already chosen a guitar player for the song, but he came by anyway, and I was like, "Well, now that you're here, you might as well join in." The idea was to create high-quality music with little or no practice.
Q: Were you inspired to write the song by an actual horse that you once knew?
A: No, the title came just hours before the show. I just kind of thought of it. I was like, this! No, this! Wait, no, this, I think this'll be better! So it all just came together really quickly. (Jim Pitt, the music booker for Conan O'Brien) gave us leeway and helped us out with ideas, so it was pretty cool.
Q: You’ve composed several theme songs, including tunes for “Comedy Bang! Bang!” and the Comedy Central sketch show “Key & Peele.” How is writing a theme song different from the other songwriting you do?
A: I'll ask, "How short should it be?" And I find out what the time is and I just sort of improvise something that fits in that time frame. In the case of "Comedy Bang! Bang!," it was something I just came up with really quickly. I did one pass of it and I was like, "Cool, I like it," and so we used it. And then for the show, we rerecorded it, spruced it up with some guitar and horns to make it sound more TV-y. For "Key & Peele," I came up with four ideas and just kind of improvised them for a couple of hours and sent it to them, and they picked one of them that became the theme song.
Q: You recently tweeted, “Today would be a good day to write a lovely note and slip it in/under a strangers pocket/door.” Did you actually do that?
A: No, I never did that. But it seemed like a good idea.
Q: You’ve performed in Atlanta several times. Have you gotten to know the city?
I’ve been to Atlanta a handful of times, but every time it’s been for a show, so I don’t really get much time to explore. I think once I got to roam around a little bit. I met a friend of a friend for lunch and we had lunch and drove around. That’s as deep as I’ve gotten, but it’s always been fun.
Q: So you don’t have a preconceived notion of what Atlanta’s like based on hip hop videos?
A: Things happen in small clubs or the recording studio, but you're never going to really see the action, and most of the time you hear about it too late anyway. It's like moving to Seattle during the grunge thing. You're like, "Where is it?" You're looking all over for it. But yeah, in Atlanta, it seems like a place where a lot of cool things can happen. I never got the chance to check out any clubs or nightlife, so maybe while I'm there this time, I'll try to see something other than the Oddball Festival.
