A uniquely consistent musical comedian, Stephen Lynch combines dark, dirty and incredibly funny lyrics with a gentle voice and capable acoustic guitar playing-like a John Mayer for the \South Park"" crowd. Growing in fame from his Comedy Central specials and his frequent guest appearances on the popular radio show ""Opie & Anthony,"" Lynch has a deep arsenal of wonderfully twisted songs. His material includes ""Grandfather Die,"" a song from a grandson waiting for his grandfather to die so that he can collect an inheritance, to ""Lullaby,"" in which a father sings his young daughter to sleep with graphic details of the reasons her mother left him. Lynch spoke to The Daily Cardinal before his Thursday show at the Barrymore Theater with co-headliner Mitch Hedberg, about touring, the married life, and overzealous animal rights activists.
The Daily Cardinal: You have the cachet of being a musician in addition to being a comedian...
Stephen Lynch: Yeah.
DC: So how do the ladies respond to your formidable pairing of these two talents?
SL: Well, in my heyday... I can't say anything now because I'm married. But let's just say there were some good old days of the touring, rock 'n' roll comedy lifestyle. Especially in the college towns. Those are always good for a good time.
DC: The life of a married comedian-what's that like?
SL: It's incredibly dull. Now instead of partying after the shows, I just come back to my hotel room and watch Pay-Per-View movies... No, that's not true. I still hang out. I just don't do anything... inappropriate.
DC: A settled home life seems odd for you. When was the first time someone in your family heard ""Lullaby"" or ""Grandfather Die""? Do you still have any grandfathers?
SL: No, they're both dead. And they left me nothing, so this is my revenge on them.
DC: But how does your family react when they first hear your material?
SL: Well, it depends who in my family you're talking about. For example, I have a brother who performs with me and cousins who are my age or younger, and they love it. And then I have older relatives who don't like it too much. [laughs] And then members of my immediate family, like my parents, they've always seemed to get a kick out of the songs. Even if some of them cross the line a little bit, they still laugh.
DC: So how much do you censor yourself for different audiences?
SL: Unless you're talking about TV or radio, I don't, really. Once I specifically can't use certain words or sing about certain topics, like on network television or the radio due to rules and regulations, I don't. But I know most people who buy tickets to come see me know what they're in for.
DC: There doesn't seem to be a clear path for musical comedians. For most comedians, there's a clear next step to movies or sitcoms or something like ""Saturday Night Live."" What's the path for someone like you? Is there a next step or do you just do what you've been doing?
SL: I think there's a next step. I think the stuff that I do will somehow lend itself to a broader audience who hasn't been exposed to me yet via, I'm not sure exactly what, but especially in television, I think there's a million things we could do. You already have situations built into all the comedy in that they're all nice four-minute songs, so they kind of lend themselves to situational things. Not a sitcom, I don't think that would work. But I've been talking to a few people about it recently, and we've been trying to come up with some ideas. We've got a few that are pretty good, so I don't want to jinx myself. I'm hoping something comes out of it, because I enjoy touring, but who wants to do that until you're 50? Not me.
DC: With the success of ""Avenue Q"" and its dirty musical comedy on Broadway, have you thought of attempting a longer musical narrative for the stage?
SL: I've thought about it, but I like the show as I do it now, which is kind of semi-improvisational, and more extemporaneous than a Broadway show that's an hour and 20 minutes long and you do the exact same thing every night. And I don't think I want to do the same thing every night.
DC: With that style on stage, do you ever just completely mess up?
SL: I like to mix it up a little. I mean, I'll have a set list and I'll do those songs, and that's what remains constant, but what goes on between the songs always changes. But yeah, I've fucked up. I've forgotten lyrics in the middle of songs, broken guitar strings during the show, all manners of things. People run up on stage, attack me, steal my beer. That's what makes it fun, though.
DC: Do you take a lot of heat for your songs from people who are offended?
SL: I took a lot of heat for the ""Kill a Kitten"" song from some overzealous animal rights groups.
DC: They thought you were serious?
SL: I don't know what they thought. Whether they knew I was kidding or didn't care didn't seem to matter. They really thought I was influencing children to harm animals. But that's really the only song I've taken a lot of heat for, surprisingly enough. I have songs about priests and fathers who troll strip clubs looking for new stepmothers for their children, but for some reason it's the joke about kitten-killing being a solution to life's problems that drew the most heat. That died down, but it rears its head every couple of years when someone hears it for the first time and takes it seriously or thinks it isn't a joking matter.
DC: So what do you do if you have a kid some day who stumbles across ""Lullaby"" and thinks you have ""sores on your naughty parts oozing with puss""?
SL: That's a question I've asked myself many times. But the way I figure it, any kid I have I will hopefully teach at an early age that some things in life that aren't meant to be taken seriously. Plus, I won't expose him to that stuff until he's old enough to understand... like two. Two or three. Or maybe I'll just let him think I do have sores on my naughty parts. What the hell? It's my business.
DC: Do you ever have any temptation to play it straight and go with a non-comedic song?
SL: Not at this point in my life. Maybe someday, but right now it's more fun to write a funny song. Plus I'm a really bad poet.
DC: That never stopped most singer-songwriters.
SL: That's true, but see, I recognize that in myself. I'm sparing the world from my awful love songs.
DC: Even when your humor is dirty, there's a certain good-natured quality to it. Are there any comedians out there who genuinely scare you?
SL: Um...
DC: Don't worry, this is a local paper. You can tell us without them finding out.
SL: Not with this new-fangled Internet, my friend.
I think Dave Attel is insane.
Don't get me wrong, I think he's one of funniest guys in the world, but I think he has to have lived some of those things in order to know that much about them. But no, he doesn't really scare me.
DC: When you were starting out, was there a big element of surprise that repelled a lot of people?
SL: I think for the most part, people got what I was doing. I mean, if you can't figure out that I'm kidding, there's something really wrong with you. I can understand people taking offense to something I say. But to not understand that that's my humor, that's my job... I don't think people thought I was actually doing the things I was singing about. At least I hope not. Whether or not they found it funny is another thing, but I think most people figured it out pretty quickly.
DC: Is there any topic you would never touch ising about it?
SL: I haven't come across it yet. I'm sure there's something. But I have songs attributed to me on the Internet that I didn't write, and I don't know why people would think I wrote them or how they got that idea. Some of them are just awful.
DC: Unfunny?
SL: Well, there's one called ""Dead Puppies,"" which is this 30-year old, kind of underground hipster song and people have listed me as the singer. And I didn't sing that song or write it. And there are others, too. I can't remember the names of some of them, but every time I'm at a show, someone shouts out a song from the audience for me to play and I'll just have no idea what it is. You know, ""But it says right here that you wrote this song."" I didn't.
-Interview conducted by Amos Posner
