When was the last time Fabio cornered you on the power of protein? Or you got paid to be Bill Murray? Or totally fooled the world into thinking that you were the Red Hot Chili Peppers? Such are the life and times of comedian Jon Daly, costar of Showtime’s new series I’m Dying Up Here and a regular on Comedy Bang! Bang! Join us as we raise the bar on fucking around with that other John Daly, jamming with Kenny G and hanging with the riff raff of Hollywood.
HUSTLER: You’re a lifer with the Upright Citizens Brigade. It’s always been a comedy training ground, but I hear they’ve recently become accredited and are giving students actual grades. What do you think your grades would be?
JON DALY: Oh! They have grades for the classes now? It would be A-plus for all of mine. Actually, I’d like to think that I tried my best every class, but there would be some Saturday classes where you’re like hungover and not giving it your all. Just because of raw talent, I would get A-plusses and then feel really guilty about it. That’s my thing.
There have been notorious stories about the original UCB, which was a strip club before it was converted to a comedy venue.
I remember there being a table. It was there from the old days. There were prostitutes and strippers who would blow dudes in the basement, and there was this table that was covered with the dead gum of strippers who would take it out to blow Hasidic Jews. Let me back up—I dated a girl who was the office manager there early on. So I would go there during the day, and most of the customers who still thought it was a porno theater would come in and go, “Where the girls? Where the girls?”
Some of your parody work has blown up without people even knowing it was a parody. The Pepper Men had folks thinking it was an actual track by The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
We built this website called RHCP2014.com and released it as if it was a free download from the Chili Peppers to their fans in anticipation of the 2014 Super Bowl, when in reality it was my fake song. People bought it because we had a really nice website that made it seem real. So it got around, and Yahoo Music and a couple other outlets did reviews as if it were the new Peppers track. Scathing reviews came out. That was probably the most satisfying thing, that people thought it was real. Because if you listen to it, it’s insane. But Cyrus [Ghahremani] is so good at bass and all the instruments that you can’t really tell. Plus, I do a pretty good [Anthony] Kiedis.
You do an amazing Kiedis.
But my Kiedis breaks down after the first two verses. So if you’re still on board after those first couple verses, it’s on you. Especially if you’re a music reporter.
