Acclaimed US comic Stephen Lynch brings his unique style of musical humour to Dublin in September for two dates at the Olympia Theatre. Lynch, who hails from Michigan, initially found success playing New York clubs in the mid-’90s, where he would perform his wickedly funny songs on acoustic guitar. Interestingly, Lynch still considers himself a musician first and a comedian second.
“Outside of music, I have no real interest in doing comedy,” he admits. “I don’t think I’d ever want to just stand in front of a brick wall with a microphone and talk. I respect people who can do it, I just don’t think it would really be my thing. I enjoy writing songs and that’s the biggest thrill for me. I love that I can get an idea when I’m sitting in my basement, and 10 days later it’s an actual song. Performing is not even close to the thrill of actually of writing a song. For me, song-writing and composing is what it’s really all about.”
Does Stephen just get a bigger kick out of performing humorous tunes as opposed to straightforward songs?
“I don’t know what it is, I sort of had a knack for it,” he replies. “When I started doing it, it was probably 17 or 18 years ago, and there wasn’t a big demand for comedy songs. So it’s just something I did as a lark, to make my friends laugh in college, and then it turned into a career somehow. I don’t know how it happened, but I’m not going to complain!”
Lynch has certainly built up a devoted following for his inventive tracks, which tackle subject matter ranging from Jesus Christ’s little known brother, Craig, to being caught in the act of masturbation (sample lyric: “Well it seems last night you caught me spanking it/No use denying it, I was really cranking it”).
He has released a string of successful albums and in 2006 starred in the Broadway adaptation of the Adam Sandler movie The Wedding Singer. How did Stephen find the experience of treading the boards?
“It was great fun,” he reflects. “Theatre was always a passion of mine when I was a kid, but I sort of gave up it when I moved to New York and discovered I had a knack for writing these songs. That sort of became my career, but I always had a soft spot for theatre, and musical theatre in particular. So I told my agents to keep an eye out for any Broadway parts that might be interesting, because I had some background in it, having studied acting in college and so on.
“Then a week later they got back to me about doing The Wedding Singer. I was familiar with the movie, and liked it, but really had no interest in just recreating the film onstage. But then I learned that they were writing new and original music for it, and tailoring it for the stage. So I listened to the music, and thought it was really clever and funny, and fun to sing. Then I auditioned for it and got the job.
“A year and a half later, I’d had my fill of the Broadway experience, because it’s a really grinding schedule, doing eight shows a week. I was glad when it ended, and at that point I said I’d never do it again, but now I look back on it with fondness. I met great people, a couple of whom I’ve performed with outside of the show. All in all, it was a fantastic experience, although I still don’t know if I’d ever do that schedule again.”
The stint was also very successful, with Lynch even being nominated for a Tony Award.
“All I could think of was, ‘Is this going to help me sell tickets to my shows?’” he chuckles. “It’s great when you’re in the theatre world, but if you’re trying to sell tickets to a comedy show in Lincoln, Nebraska, nobody gives a shit if you have a Tony nomination. I actually had to perform at the Tonys; we did the opening number, so I was sort of blind with fear. I don’t why I got so nervous, because the theatre holds about 6,000 people, and I’ve performed to similar sized crowds at different venues around the country.
“But for some reason – I don’t know, maybe because it wasn’t my own material or something – I was a wreck. The feelings are started to coming back even talking about it; the knot in my stomach and being kind of unfocused. But it went off really well, and then I could sit down, relax and enjoy not winning a Tony that night.”
He may not have been triumphant on that particular night, but Stephen has had plenty of other notable achievements to celebrate. He has recorded a number of specials for Comedy Central, and toured with some heavyweight stand-up comics, including Hoot Press favourite Louis CK, who is noted for his antagonistic stage persona (he has been known to open performances by telling the audience, “I fucked all your mothers”), and the sadly deceased Mitch Hedberg.
“I didn’t really get that close to Mitch,” says Stephen of the late comic, who struggled with drug problems. “I was delighted when that tour was booked, because I thought he was such a talented performer, but there was some other stuff going on at the time. There were nights when he was great, and there were other nights when he wasn’t so great, and you didn’t really want to stay and watch.
“The gigs with Louis were last year; we did some shows on the Opie and Anthony tour. Opie and Anthony is a radio show based in New York which we’ve both appeared on quite a bit. Louis is great; he has that slightly confrontational style of comedy, which is what I love about him.”
Finally, looking forward to Stephen’s Dublin shows, can we expect any new material?
“I’ve been working on some stuff lately. There’s one about a drug mule; one of those guys who have balloons filled with coke stuffed up their asses. But that’s all I’ll say about that. You’ll just have to wait to hear the rest of it!”