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Ed Hamell Interview

We caught up with Ed Hamell while he was still at home in New York preparing for London run of his one man show “THE TERRORISM OF EVERYDAY LIFE” and peppered him with a few questions. Ed is at the Soho Theatre 12-16,18-23 Feb 2008.

LaughRiot: You’ve been performing since 1995 as a one man show, do you enjoy touring?
Ed Hamell: The easy answer is yes, for the most part I enjoy it. The physical act of playing, I really love, there is a bunch of other stuff surrounding it, primarily the comings and goings from the family that provide a lot of anxiety.

And of course certain gigs carry more weight than others, i.e. high profile stress inducing gigs, but for the most part it’s a lot of fun, I’m lucky that I love it and as my wife is quick to remind me very few people have a job where people rise, applaud and pay them at the end of their day.

LR: What is the “Songs for parents who enjoy drugs” album about?
EH: I was being approached by a lot of 20 and 30 something potential parents that were responding to some of the funnier political songs about parenting that I was singing during my show. They were reluctant to have children for a variety of reasons, i.e. the state of the world, the war, global warming, the Christian right, etc, and my response was always, no, now is the time to breed. The republicans are having kids.

If you are a creative, open minded, tolerant of alternative lifestyle couple thinking of having children, now would be the time. We need to compete, populate the earth and at least create balance. Also it appears that, at least over here in the USA that a lot of parents are a little too serious about the raising of their kids, no sense of humour if you will. We call them Nazi parents. So I thought that I’d liven things up with a little levity.

LR: Is there a theme to the album?
EH: It’s not a concept album no, generally I make albums over a two year period of time and I made the album in light of my 4 year old kid and the current administration over here this is what inspired it.

LR: I see that Bill Hicks is mentioned a couple of times on your Myspace page, what is the connection?
EH: My current managers, Peter Casperson and Steven Saporta owned the label Bill originally recorded for and in many ways were instrumental in “discovering” him.

LR: Did you ever meet Bill?
EH: No, as a matter of fact I only saw him once. My wife and I had moved to Austin, Texas. It was a career move on my part, I was signed to a small independent label in upstate New York who recommended that I move to Austin, it was the live music capitol of the USA and they would respond to my idiosyncratic style, which they did.

My wife, as a hard core feminist, or an easterner, or whatever, (maybe she was a visionary in retrospect and anticipated the reign of George Bush, who knows), anyway she really had a hard time with Texas. I tell you this so as to show the impact bill had live with the audience. I had never heard of him, my wife and I were in a movie theatre lobby, when I over heard a couple of people talking, and not only do they mention Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor but they add a name I never heard.

I introduce myself, apologize for eavesdropping and say “who is this other guy?” initially, because they said he was from Houston I thought he was a home town hero. A few weeks after this he played a club in Austin, could have been 1993, 94 at the latest, and my wife and I went and were completely devastated. I think my wife felt as if there were a bunch of things she wasn’t able to say, that her work environment was conservative, that the entire state was conservative, and here was this guy saying everything she wanted to say, it was a very, very cathartic moment.

I have hours and hours of Hicks on video, the HBO show from London, although great, is not as edgy or wired as half the stuff I have. He was particularly great when he was mad. Anger was a real motivator for him. That having been said that’s a tough, frustrating way to have to deal with your career, your life, your love. I speak from experience. I’m glad he got the recognition he so richly deserved over there in his life time. I don’t think there’s a message that Bill came up with that I didn’t pretty much agree with or least find funny which, after all, was the intent.

LR: Did you see and what was your view on the Hicks: Slight Return show and its message?
EH: You know I’m a huge fan of Hicks, I find him probably to be the most inspirational of all my heroes, and I have many. Bear in mind I consider myself to be a musician and songwriter primarily, not a comedian by any stretch.

LR: Hicks seemed to get more respect from UK than back in states – have you found that?
EH: In spades. There’s very little recognition of him over here, it’s sad and pathetic.

LR: From what I can work out “Hamell on Trial” is a combo of music, stand-up and satire. How did that work out?
EH: It’s what feels natural to me, very much an extension of my own personality. Plus, once again, I must reiterate how lucky I feel I am to have a job where I can do pretty much anything I want. I don’t take that for granted. A lot of people just work a job to get to do other things.

I really dig my job, the writing, performing and recording I think of as an “art project” if you will, and, in answer to your question specifically, I think, what would I want to hear if I was going to see a performer? Not what sells, or what an audience would think is cool, but what I would enjoy and it would have to have a bunch of elements: snappy humour, political rantings, cool rocking tunes, etc, with some insights that are as profound as they are gutteresque. Did i make up a new word there? Gutteresque? Linguistics too obviously.

LR: What are the differences between UK and US audiences?
EH: In my case UK audiences are bigger.

LR: What’s your mission/message in the work you do?
EH: Hmmm… I’m always reluctant to get too “preachy”, don’t want to come off as too Bono, do we? I guess there’s a whole shitload of them: tolerance might not be such a bad thing, let’s keep our radar up when we sense hypocrisy, might be good to laugh even if it means laughing at ourselves, ya got one shot, what ya gonna do with it?