Q&A with political comedian Jamie Kilstein

A co-host of the Citizen Radio podcast show, a stand-up comedian and a musician, Jamie Kilstein is a force in the progressive comedy world. Arts & Culture Editor Sarah Vassello spoke to him about his show at DSI Comedy tonight, his childhood and why political comedy is important.

Daily Tar Heel: In addition to stand up comedy, which has been getting a lot of national attention from shows like "The Conan O’Brien Show," MSNBC’s "Up with Chris Hayes" and "Melissa Harris-Perry" show, and NPR’s "Weekend Edition," you’ve also co-written a book and have a podcast on failures in news media. How do you merge all of these things together and why are you so into talking about the news?

Jamie Kilstein: I think that initially, we hit all these mediums and now, I’m also doing music and doing music with my shows and playing music festivals. The original reason was desperation. When we met and when I was doing standup and Alison was writing and we started Citizen Radio when we were literally living around our car, driving around the country trying to get gigs, we were just trying to be heard in any medium possible. It’s hard enough to make it in the news business or the entertainment business, but it’s even harder when your topics are like feminism and institutional racism and stuff like that. It shouldn’t be — it shouldn’t be controversial topics, but they are, even amongst progressives and liberals. So, already this interview doesn’t sound like I’m promoting a comedy show, but this is what we’ve dealt with essentially our whole career. So, we were like, ‘Well, let’s just give them a fucking onslaught. If they don’t like standup, maybe they’ll read Alison. If they don’t like that, then they’ll hear the podcast.’

One of the reasons I’m playing music now in my set is because it was my first love, but also because I don’t think my audience who doesn’t know who I am yet would go to a comedy club because when you think of a comedy club, you think of an old white dude and a two drink minimum and some asshole telling rape jokes and a bunch of black and white head shots of comedians who died of cocaine overdoses in the ‘80s, you know what I mean? I don’t think that’s going to get a bunch of cool artist-y progressives, they’re not going to see me at a standup club. I’ve been playing mainly music venues, but the club I”m playing in North Carolina is an improv club, and improv people have much more of a musical vibe to them, much more communal and supportive — which is the only reason I’m playing it.

That was the original idea and the message means to much to us and people relate to it. Politics is scary — it’s so easy to be apathetic. I was really apathetic for a long time because I think intelligent people watch the news and they seem the same rich guys who led us into the last war invited back to talk about the next war instead of, like, having to sit a war out because they were wrong, and they think, ‘Well, this seems like bullshit.’ But they can’t really put their finger on why, and that’s where you kind of make the decision like, ‘Okay, well do I just say the news is bullshit and do nothing and become apathetic,’ which is what I did for a long time when I was young or do I do something about it or seek out alternatives, etc.

To us, the theme and everything — whether its the show, the book, the music or the comedy — is that we try to be funny and relatable so that people don’t want to die because the news is awful right now. It’s always been and it's the worst. Like all artists that came from a rough childhood and have depression and have dealt with addiction and all this stuff, the thing that’s gotten me through has been humor and laughing and music, so my thought was if that got me through my personal stuff and it's still getting me through today, why not apply that to larger issues? Because once you can laugh and discuss and talk about things, that’s kind of like the first step and then you can do something.

DTH: How would you describe your comedy style?

JK: I have no idea. I know that every newspaper in like London and the UK will try to compare me to George Carlin and Bill Hicks — I think that’s just because I’m political and I do better over there than I do in America.

DTH: That’s so interesting, because you’re talking about American politics.

JK: Totally. But the concepts are everywhere — there’s sexism everywhere, there’s homophobia everywhere. When people hear political comedian, sometimes they think of an old man who brings a newspaper on stage and is like ‘What’s going on in the news today?’ which I’m not. I try to deal more in concepts.

But now, I don’t know man, what I’m doing now is fucking weird. I can’t really describe it, especially now with the music because I take the music really seriously. And my musical influences are anywhere from like Mountain Goats to Jimi Hendrix, and that’s reaching a new audience. People from like Talib Tale and Lucinda Williams who are from two totally different music worlds, both like award winners and stuff like that, both promote my stuff, so I honestly don’t know. But what I do know is that if you’re a weirdo outcast artist progressive feminist vegan who has to fight with their parents every time they go home for the holidays, you’ll probably like me.

DTH: Did you think this is what you were going to be doing when you were younger?

JK: I mean, that was my only option. It was the first thing I fell in love with. I have crazy ADD and OCD and all that stuff and I thought I was really stupid for a really long time because I was failing all of my classes. My high school English teacher has actually become a really big fan of mine. He’s become a really big fan of mine and he comes to all of my shows, and now that I’m playing music I want him to play with me on stage. But, I got a 12 in his class. And not a 12 like I went to some hippie school and I got a 12 out of 20 — I had a 12 out of 100 because I didn’t give a shit and I couldn’t concentrate. 

Once I started playing drums in the school band and eventually guitar in bands outside of school, that was the first time I was like, ‘Maybe I’m not a fucking idiot. Maybe I’m actually good at something if I care about it.’ I actually dropped out of high school at 17, I think, and just started playing music and doing comedy and training in New York to do open mics and stuff like that. I kind of set myself up where if this wasn’t the thing I was going to do, I was fucked.

My mom’s first memory of me is watching the Muppets show and playing the drums and piano along with the Muppets music, so it’s always been there. I was like If I’m going to do it, I’m going to work harder than I’ve worked at anything, and all that energy I’m not spending on school or healthy relationships, I threw 100 percent into making stuff that I like.

DTH: Are you currently touring? Why is Chapel Hill a stop for you?

JK: What I’m trying to do is this guy from HBO and Moby, the musician who came and saw me in LA, really liked it and we went out to dinner afterwards and they started talking about making a documentary and stuff. There’s been a camera crew — I don’t think they’re coming to North Carolina — but they’ve been following me around and following this sort of me saying fuck you to the regular stand up world and playing music and collaborating with these cool musicians and stuff like that. It’s going to end with me making an album, but like my first music album. My standup albums all went to number one, but I didn’t really like them? I guess I did, but I wasn’t excited about them But now with music, I’m so excited. The people that I know we can collaborate with from Bad Religion to Talib Kweli, it’s fucking dope. Essentially what I’m doing right now is just testing things and getting ready to record the album and finish up the documentary.

For North Carolina, the thing is it’s very easy for me to sell out New York and LA and London and Chicago, but what I really want to do is kind of take a risk and maybe lose some money and do some smaller shows and play at places where maybe it’s not as big of a liberal hub, but the people who will like me will like me a lot. So even if I lose money, it’ll be worth it to play for a hardcore audience who maybe doesn’t get to hear it as much. So, like, I’m doing four shows in Atlanta, and the Atlanta shows will be fine, but before I got to Atlanta, I’m going to drive to Alabama, where I’ve never been before, and I’m going to do a house party with a punk band.

I’m trying to balance the fucking LA shows that Moby will go to with the Alabama punk shows. I love North Carolina — my brother was a teacher in Charlotte, and every time I go there I really like it, but I haven’t been able to get a gig there in like eight years, and I’ve never played your guys’s area. It’s an experiment and hopefully it goes well, hopefully I make some new fans. Hopefully it’ll go well and I can keep coming back every year, and that’s really the goal.

DTH: Will you be incorporating your music into your DSI show?

JK: Yeah, definitely. It’s not a music venue, so were going to jimmy some stuff up, but yeah. The rants I’ve done to TV I’ve put to music. They’ve always been musical — if you’ve seen my rant on Conan, I’m tapping my foot, I’ve always envisioned music. Then I started doing songs with the same content. In New York, I’m playing with a band with Lauryn Hill’s bass player and the drummer who played with Bob Dylan — it’s going really fucking well. The songs have the same sort of theme to them — whether it’s political or about kind of outcasty nerd stuff. 

They’re doing better than my standup, which is crazy because I was like maybe I’ll just do one or two songs because I'm having a midlife crisis or a quarter life crisis, and then the songs started doing better than the rants and then the new songs started doing better than the song rants and everything started doing better than stand up. 

So, I’m like, fuck man, if this stuff is doing better and this is literally what I’ve dreamed of doing since I was 15, let’s just incorporate it more. I bought some cool pedals for my electric guitar and I want the music to be just as good if not better than the the stand up. I don’t want to be one of those musical comedians who’s a half-assed guitar player and a half-assed comedian, but like he can do a fucking Beach Boys parody with a bunch of dick jokes and sell out a Charlie Goodnights or whatever your club is.

I care about the music just as much as I care bout the stand up, if not more. I want people to be able to, like, if they want to hear the politics, they can watch the politics; if they want to hear good music, they can hear good music; if they want to laugh, they can laugh; if they want to get sad with me, they can get sad. I’m trying to kind of, like we talked about in the beginning with different mediums, hit it from all angles. 

You know, maybe it’ll be a clusterfuck or maybe it’ll be awesome. 

arts@dailytarheel.com