Comedian Brian Redman joins Jemele to discuss his upcoming show at The Comedy Store, how he got started in comedy, and how he went from being a radio DJ to being a full-time stand-up comedian. Plus, a look back at the early days of his comedy career, and a look ahead at what's in store for him in 2020 and beyond. Tickets for the show are only $10 and on sale now! Buy them here! Don't miss this one, it's a must-listen! Plus, you won't want to miss the rest of the night's comedy lineup, including: Dom Irera, Ben Glebe, Mike Lawrence, Tony Hinchcliffe, Mark Saratella, and Secret Guest, who are national headliners and very hilarious guys! Brian also discusses how he became a radio host, and what it's like being a standup comedian in the 90s and early 2000s. And he talks about his early days in Hollywood, and why he decided to go to college to pursue his dreams of being a DJ! And how he ended up in the entertainment business. It's a wild ride, folks! Enjoy the ride, and be sure to check out the show tonight! Thanks for listening, Jemele! XOXO. -Jon Sorrentino and Zachary! Logo by Courtney DeKorte. Music by PSOVOD and tyops by Suneaters, and our new album "Blame It On Me" by Fuse_dave_ and our ad music by my adidas. Thank you so much for all the love and support and support! -Jemele and I'm so much love and respect, and I hope you all have a great day! xoxo -Sebastian and I'll see you next week! -Jon and I have a good night! -Bryan and I can't wait to see you in LA next week :) -Eugene and I will see you soon! -Jamey -Todays show is Tuesday, June 6/27th, 7/8/9/19/10/19, 8/30, @ 8/9, -The Comedy Store Main Room @ 8:30 @ 8pm -Bryant's Place @ 7/6 @ 9/16 @ 9pm
00:00:24.000I don't know how to pronounce his last name, but he's hilarious.
00:00:26.000AG. He's fucking hilarious, but I always ruin his last name.
00:00:29.000Dean Del Rey, fresh off of a fucking motorcycle accident, The Kid Can't Be Stopped, Brian Moses, Jesus fucking Christ, what a lineup!
00:00:37.000Brian Redband, Mike Lawrence, Tony fucking Hinchcliffe, Mark Saratella, and Secret Guest, two of them which I know which are national headliners and very hilarious guys.
00:02:10.000My first time on stage, this is how retarded I am, not just my first time, my first three or four times, I tried to dress like a comedian from that movie Punchline, you know, like I would wear like the sneakers with a denim, like a jacket, like a blazer, but with the sleeves rolled up and maybe a wacky t-shirt,
00:02:27.000or I had a wacky pin, like a pin with a smiley face and a bullet hole in his head or something.
00:03:11.000I came up with these marketing schemes.
00:03:15.000When I first came out to Los Angeles, I'm coming from Chicago, and I come from a family where my father's a hairdresser, my mother's a secretary.
00:03:24.000Nobody's in the entertainment business.
00:03:26.000So I'm like, how am I going to crack into this?
00:03:28.000So what I did was I went and I took some modeling shots off the expressway and some weeds.
00:07:20.000If you're not trying to get laid, you can wear that fucking thing.
00:07:23.000Or if you don't give a fuck if you get divorced, you can wear that thing.
00:07:26.000But if you're a guy, if you're a young guy hoping to impress a gal, and you walk around with a fucking bag bolted to your waist, you gotta wear what they want you to wear.
00:07:54.000If there was no women, if it was just removed from the equation, if no longer, if there was no, like, not only were there no women, like, we didn't need to reproduce.
00:08:01.000People live forever and every guy that's here is gonna be here forever.
00:10:54.000And she's like, those are fat people pairs.
00:10:58.000And I go, first of all, you're fat-shaming, okay?
00:11:01.000Second of all, if you are not overweight, I'm not an overweight person, so if I'm wearing these, what do you give a fuck if I'm wearing fat people jeans?
00:12:17.000Every time I go by, it's like a new store that's opened up, a new coffee shop.
00:12:20.000A lot of skateboarding shirt stores and things like that.
00:12:25.000Did you see that skateboarding video that I posted on Instagram yesterday or YouTube yesterday?
00:12:29.000We played it on the show yesterday because we had a woman that had suffered from severe head trauma.
00:12:35.000This fucking kid is going 70 miles an hour down a road in Colorado.
00:12:40.000He's on this super deep, steep hill, and he's just tucked like a skier, like one of those speed skiers, and he's fucking flying, and it's just...
00:12:48.000Your hands get clammy, your feet start twitching, you're like, oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh Jesus.
00:13:58.000He posted on his Instagram, his whole side just skinned off.
00:14:02.000All his tattoos on his arms, where he skinned his arms, his tattoos look brand new now, because it just took a layer of skin off, and so it looks like he just got his tattoos again.
00:15:42.000I'm like half of two different people.
00:15:44.000Fucking terrified of everything, and I do a lot of dangerous shit, but no, I don't have a motorcycle.
00:15:49.000I came close, but I was actually going through the motorcycle safety course, the whole deal, with a couple buddies of mine that still ride.
00:15:56.000My buddy Peter Hirschko, he's still riding.
00:15:58.000But when we were doing it, two people I know wiped bad.
00:16:01.000That was when Frank Mir, who was the UFC heavyweight champion at the time, got hit by a car.
00:16:55.000Yeah, you hear all these things about, I got a scooter, and I pop around town with the scooter, and you start seeing stuff like this, and you're like, maybe we should give the scooter a rest.
00:17:06.000But I got to tell you, to drive around in L.A. in a scooter is, I mean, it's shaved some time off, and park right in, and bounce out.
00:17:16.000But, you know, you don't think anything's going to happen, but then you hear someone like this with the carjacking, and then you're exposed, so...
00:17:23.000I think the best move for those things is when you're on the highway and it's bumper to bumper and those motherfuckers are cutting the lane.
00:17:30.000Because people at home, I don't know where you live and you're listening to this, but in LA, for some strange reason, you're allowed to drive in between cars legally.
00:17:49.000I had some friends that came out and visited, and one of the first things that they said was, like, dude, everybody's breaking the law on the highway with the motorcycles.
00:18:57.000You get that scooter up to 35. I tell you.
00:19:00.000See, I think that's a good idea, because I live in Burbank, and that wouldn't be bad to just, like, go to the store, you know, go to, you know, do little things here and there.
00:19:08.000You should get one of those hovercrafts that got Wiz Khalifa arrested.
00:20:48.000You know, I don't like the fact that someone's counterfeiting someone's work, but I love the fact that we live in a world that's so crazy that there's a part of the world where you just accept that they're just going to copy everything.
00:20:57.000They have a whole fake Apple store in China.
00:21:55.000Like, America's known for being a very creative part of the country.
00:21:58.000And if you look at, like, African Americans.
00:22:00.000African Americans are known as being, like, some of the most creative and innovative people, as far as, like, culture, as far as, like, the way they dress and the way they talk.
00:22:38.000What is it that makes America a hub of innovation?
00:22:42.000There's some innovative places in the world, but this spot, especially when it comes to art, especially when it comes to stand-up comedy, what we do...
00:26:29.000I ran into a guy at the improv the other night that was an open-miker when I was an open-miker from Boston, and he just decided, he goes, yeah, I haven't done comedy at all.
00:26:37.000I haven't been on stage in 16 years, but I thought about it all the time, and I decided to come back.
00:28:55.000But I listen to certain things in the room, and I think you, I mean, you don't do, you don't hear, like you're trying to make somebody laugh.
00:29:04.000There's some people, like you hear Joey Diaz laugh.
00:29:31.000And then one night, I was doing a set, a late set, and there was like fucking 20 people in the audience, but I used to do those sets like the place was packed, you know?
00:29:41.000I don't believe in throwing away a set, you know?
00:29:43.000If I'm going to do a set, I try my best.
00:29:46.000And I heard, HA! Which is Mooney's laugh.
00:33:31.000I don't want to give it away, but it's one of those bits where it's dependent upon your rhythm and everyone understanding how you look at things.
00:33:49.000But the way I work is it's more of like a way you say something or the timing or a pause or a look.
00:33:55.000And it kind of all gels together for some reason.
00:33:58.000And that's what I noticed, that people were kind of gravitating towards watching my act, was all this kind of physical and all this kind of weird faces that some other people might look like, is this funny that the guy's doing all these faces or whatnot?
00:35:28.000But if you saw that on paper, you would go, that's not really funny.
00:35:32.000But then you go see him live, and you're dying to this day.
00:35:36.000If I'm bored and I'm in my car, I have a playlist on my iPhone where I have some stand-up on it, and I'll go to that Hedberg CD to this day.
00:35:45.000I've heard it all a hundred times, and it's squeaky clean, squeaky clean, and fucking killer.
00:35:51.000But it's just like he found his style.
00:38:58.000Started out in Los Angeles, 1998. I did comedy at my college.
00:39:03.000I went to Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, and they had like a comedy contest where you auditioned in front of like the student council, and then I got to open up for the national headlining comedian.
00:39:52.000I didn't know what the hell Sandman was at the time, but I found out later at Showtime at the Apollo, that's what they call when they want the guy to come out with the hook, the Sandman.
00:41:52.000Jerry Lewis like Jerry Lewis would become he was like this nutty professor and they would become this really fucking cool guy Who would smoke cigarettes and the chicks all fawned over him so he became like that guy But now there's the blurred line between who he was like Andrew Silverstein and then the Diceman he's that's gone He is the Diceman now you run into him at fucking Ralph's he's got weightlifting gloves on yeah He taught me how to get this fanny pack.
00:43:41.000Anyway, we developed this kind of weird little friendship and he asked me if I wanted to go do Las Vegas with him at the Stardust Hotel and I'm like, I call my parents, I go, I'm opening up for Dice Clay at the Stardust.
00:51:02.000Like, I couldn't believe how pretentious they were and ridiculous and pampered.
00:51:07.000Like working with actors was fucking mind-boggling to me because I was used to comics who you know, especially like East Coast comics Constantly busting each other's balls always joking around and there was like a camaraderie with comics like we would go on the road together like comics would give each other taglines and We'd always say,
00:51:25.000hey, that was a great set, you know, this and that, and ba-ba-ba, and, you know, there was, like, a feeling of, like, belonging.
00:51:30.000And then all of a sudden, I was out here with these actresses, like, oh, God, I can't even talk to these fucking people.
00:51:36.000They were all backstabby, and they would fuck with you before your scene and say creepy shit to you, and there was, like, there was so much weirdness.
00:51:46.000There was just so much weirdness and fakeness.
00:51:49.000They would say things that you know they didn't really mean.
00:51:52.000They would love to say, like, they meet people, they had this fake way of talking, like, oh, nice to see you.
00:51:56.000Like, it was like, there was like this fucking, they would pretend to be this person who's like super professional, so that they could get hired and do something else.
00:52:04.000Meanwhile, they were a boiling cauldron of crazy under the service, just...
00:52:10.000Just trying to keep it together until they fucking got into their car and just scream all the way home and then pop pills or do whatever the fuck they did.
00:52:17.000So I got another development deal from the Hardball show.
00:52:22.000I got a development deal with NBC and I was supposed to do my own show.
00:53:45.000And it was me and two or three other guys that looked like they were about to go to NOM. They were pale and sweaty and nervous and going over their lines.
00:57:57.000I didn't really do a lot of feature work.
00:57:58.000I just kind of honed it in here in Los Angeles.
00:58:02.000And worked at the Four Seasons in the meantime, just kind of hoping something would break, just doing the Comedy Store and just local sets.
01:00:06.000to stand up and an introduction to like you know like you're in the big leagues like real real quick like you're on a podcast that gets seen by or listened to by hundreds of thousands of people and you're there with Don Marrera judging you and Tony Hinchcliffe and Sarah Silverman and all these different people that are really funny comedians are up like watching you do stand up putting you in these like super high-pressure situations you're doing one minute in front of a microphone and then you kind of get to say hi to those people they become They seem like normal.
01:01:02.000Half the shows are that, you know, you're an open mic.
01:01:04.000I mean, when I started, it was Chris D'Elia, Dean Del Rey, me, and we'd go to the same four different open mics every day, and it was just like, oh, my audience lasts, you know, hour.
01:01:16.000You know, it's the same audience over and over.
01:01:18.000It's just an audience of five other comics that went from one open mic to another.
01:01:23.000Yeah, that's where some comics, they fall into that trap of doing stand-up for the back of the room.
01:01:27.000They do, like, really obscure shit that only the comics think is funny.
01:02:30.000If you're out and you're just like, oh, I need to write a note, you just take the pen out and you can be like, oh, you can just write it right here.
01:03:22.000The problem I had with the Edge is that while the Edge was neat to look at, the corners where it's wrapped around the side, I was constantly hitting buttons.
01:03:30.000It also had a really sharp edge to it, you know, the feel of it, which this doesn't.
01:03:35.000This is more like an iPhone, so it's nice and soft on the side.
01:04:01.000So if somebody sends you a PDF and is like, hey, I need you to print this out and sign it, now you can just edit it right on the fly, send it back.
01:06:21.000So we'll go through the whole entire website, and now it just made it a huge JPEG. So you could have like a whole JPEG saved to your gallery.
01:06:28.000So it saves websites, and then you could like write on it and send it to people if you wanted to.
01:06:32.000Is that how the fat Jewish steals all of his stuff?
01:07:51.000Well, he goes online and he actually makes videos of these.
01:07:54.000For the longest time before Amazon fucked him, he used to have this great thing he was doing where he would buy something, like buy a camera, and then he would review it and then put up a link from his Amazon, so if somebody bought it, he would get a kickback.
01:08:08.000So I'd get free stuff, pretty much, because I would just do such good reviews on these cameras that so many people would click on it, it would pay for the camera.
01:08:14.000So it was a way for me to get stuff like cameras and stuff I couldn't afford.
01:08:24.000Somebody reported me as saying that I had porn on my website, and so they would go, oh, we can't have porn on the website.
01:08:30.000I was making up to $7,000 a month in just that Amazon stuff.
01:08:37.000You didn't really have porn on your website, did you?
01:08:39.000No, it's just because it was Death Squad, and there was an episode that had a girl on it that was a porn star, and so they probably just went there.
01:09:23.000They also released a new Apple TV, which is the thing that I am the most interested in because now it plays games, it does apps, and it's the first one to actually In the future, you're going to have a Joe Rogan app finally.
01:09:37.000So when you're opening up your TV, you're like, oh, CNN. Oh, Netflix.
01:10:49.000If you click on that little Instagram thing, go to his page.
01:10:52.000He's got, I mean, look, it's all booties, cars, look at that gold-plated pistol with a BMW. Yeah, you scroll down, you'll see more asses, more cars.
01:14:44.000It's interesting, this culture that has kind of come out of nowhere.
01:14:49.000When I was a kid, I mean, shit, man, fucking 15 years ago, you used to be able to go to Cancun, you go to Mexico, nobody thought about, like, gang violence from drug dealers in Mexico.
01:15:19.000But guys like El Chapo, like that crazy fucker that got out of jail by digging a tunnel that's a mile long with an electric scooter inside of it.
01:16:28.000Yeah, the whole world exists because of illegal drugs.
01:16:32.000If drugs were legal in this country, there wouldn't be this gigantic demand and this ability to make insane amounts of money from these cartels.
01:16:40.000But you make drugs legal in the United States, right?
01:17:00.000If we were in this room, this is my example, If this room was the whole world, or the guys in this room, and we were all hanging around and Brian wanted to smoke weed, and we're like, hey man, we got fucking laws.
01:17:10.000You can't smoke weed, we're gonna lock you in jail.
01:18:17.000There's a lot of things that are terrible for you.
01:18:19.000Pills, popping pills are terrible for you.
01:18:21.000Eating shitty food is terrible for you.
01:18:23.000I'm watching this documentary on sugar right now, and it's blowing me away.
01:18:27.000It's blowing me away of how much processed sugar is in what people think is health foods, health drinks, and how much processed sugar is in people's diets.
01:18:37.000There's a lot of things that are bad for you, but it's up to you to decide what to do and what not to do.
01:18:42.000I think the problem is when companies lie about what things are good for you or not good for you, like what the tobacco company did for the longest time, those tobacco companies.
01:18:52.000Lied about nicotine being addictive, cigarettes being addictive.
01:18:55.000They just lied in order to keep making money.
01:20:25.000I know a lot of models that get paid, they'll get 20 models, send them to a party, and they're just there to make the party look hot and pretty.
01:20:35.000But if they sleep with somebody at the party, that's the same thing as being a prostitute.
01:21:21.000The girl that we were talking about that Tommy Bunz and I was talking about we were Ian Edwards and I were in Vegas and we're coming back and we ran into this girl that Ian knows she's a stripper and She had coffee with us at the airport at the little coffee bean thing and she was talking about working at the Rhino and that this I told the story the other day that this girl that she was with said how lucrative do you get?
01:27:15.000It has MCT coconut oil in it, and it's grass-fed.
01:27:18.000Well, Jambos is my favorite, because these guys are making, it's all organic, all healthy, no processed sugar, no high fructose corn syrup.
01:27:26.000Everything they make is, like, very good for you and puts you on fucking Pluto!
01:28:32.000But after it's over, you're just like...
01:28:34.000With your body, your fucking insulin spiking, and your body's trying to process all that dough that's sitting in the bottom of your stomach, and your body just turns it into straight sugar.
01:28:43.000I mean, you might as well be eating bowls of sugar when you eat a big plate of pasta.
01:28:48.000No, I had a sensitivity test, like a blood sensitivity, and I have a sensitivity to those products.
01:29:47.000I mean, it's not the worst shit in the world for you, but I think I'm going to give myself just a cheat day a week, and then for the rest of the week, I think I'm just avoiding gluten from now on.
01:29:57.000Well, just I'm going to avoid breads and processed sugars.
01:30:00.000I just work out so much, and I take such good care of my body that those things, that when I do those things, I'm going to limit my alcohol consumption to one day a week.
01:30:12.000I've cut mine in half in the last two weeks.
01:31:52.000I just did a Playboy interview for him, or with him, for his business, and he showed me all his new products.
01:31:58.000He has these pins where, you know, rechargeable batteries, and you just buy a new tank, and it's 500 hits per tank, and I think he said it was like 40 bucks or something.
01:32:06.000It's so much better, and you can just do it in public because it doesn't smell like weed.
01:32:42.000Nothing like doing an interview, though, with a publication like Playboy and then being so stoned, though, that halfway through you're just like, huh?
01:33:18.000Well, they did this documentary called The Union, which is all about the business of marijuana in British Columbia and how it's such a part of the economy.
01:33:28.000If you pulled weed out of British Columbia, the economy would fall apart.
01:33:32.000Like Vancouver, like that area, is almost entirely dependent upon weed.
01:33:55.000This one drug that has all these medical benefits, this one drug that helps all these kids with autism and people with wasting disease and glaucoma, intraocular pressure reliever, all these different things that it does for you and it's illegal.
01:34:08.000But then, you know, look at all the stuff that is legal and how all the side effects of all the shit that marijuana would replace.
01:34:16.000Well, they went into it way deeper with the culture high, and the culture high just showed how fucking insane it is and how much bullshit is being spread about what addiction really is.
01:34:27.000Like, people say that weed is addictive, which is why I got so mad at fucking Dr. Drew.
01:34:37.000What the addiction is is the same addiction that you would have if you were addicted to anything, whether it's gambling or jerking off or fucking people are addicted to all kinds of crazy shit.
01:34:46.000Those thrill seekers like that kid that was on that skateboard, guarantee that kid's addicted to adrenaline.
01:34:51.000Yeah, I mean, when you see the people, though, that smoke the marijuana where they're like having a joint and they have a second joint ready just for it, if they didn't have joints, it would have been something else.
01:37:06.000It's the best thing you could do with your wife or girlfriend because it's just like truth serum and then you add the acid to it and now it's like you're in Alice in Wonderland.
01:37:21.000I've always had a fear of doing any of these things because I feel the time I do it, my body reacts to it and people are going to go, we've never seen this happen before with a candy flip.
01:37:31.000Guy's foaming at the mouth and he's losing blood.
01:37:35.000I've always had that fear, so I don't do any of it.
01:38:53.000And I had to go back to my room and by myself was in the room hoping that this kind of would end because I thought I was going to be this way for the rest of my life.
01:40:56.000Yeah, there's a great, uh, that Bikram's yoga on La Cienega, that's the Bikram, that crazy fucker who's, um, like, he's always been charged with, like, sexual assault and all kinds of weird shit.
01:41:07.000I don't know what the fuck the guy did or didn't do, but highly regarded as a yoga instructor.
01:41:20.000You know, one of the reasons why I do it is because Rhonda Patrick, the doctor that I have on the podcast a bunch of times, she talks about the benefits of sauna, about heat shock, like heat shock proteins.
01:41:31.000And when your body heats up like that, there's a compensatory response that your body's like, holy shit, we're dying.
01:41:38.000We have to produce something to deal with this.
01:42:59.000You know and a lot of people they don't work on that it's not fun You know it's fun to go and do some curls and then look at yourself You know that's fun.
01:43:37.000But if you, like, in an ideal world, if you could step outside yourself, if you were, like, giving yourself advice, and you were like, you know, Brian Redband, you need to get your shit together.
01:43:46.000I'm going to help you, and this is what I'm going to prescribe.
01:43:49.000What would you prescribe that you should do?
01:43:51.000Move from L.A. Move from L.A.? Why would you move from L.A.? It's hard living here.
01:46:36.000I mean, there's a lot of opportunities out there for...
01:46:39.000I mean, I think if Uber was around when I was coming up, I definitely would have been an Uber driver, and I would have kept my car unbelievably clean.
01:46:49.000I always used to take pride in cleaning my car, just the way it smelled, vacuuming, nice.
01:48:17.000And how he used to make it smell good was he used to take a little towel, cut it into squares, and then roll up the little squares, put them in cologne, and let that marinate overnight.
01:49:17.000Your uncle was ahead of his time, because they have new cars now that actually have that as an option.
01:49:21.000They have a scent that you can plug in, like the new BMW 7 Series has several different scents, and you turn them on, and they slowly filter into the cars.
01:49:33.000Yeah, they have, like, a woodsy scent.
01:49:35.000But meanwhile, how much cancer are you getting from that stuff?
01:49:38.000Breathing in some fucking fake smell that they pumped into your lungs.
01:49:42.000If you can smell it in, you're inhaling it.