Dan Cummins is quite the prolific comedian. Writing, hosting, and stand-up are all in his arsenal. It’s quite amazing how far he’s come considering how late he started stand-up, let alone how late he discovered it.
Cummins’ unique point of view has earned him spots on The Tonight Show (both Conan and Leno have invited him over to the couch), a Comedy Central half-hour and one-hour special, appearances on The Late, Late Show, Conan, Comedy Central’s This is Not Happening, and on many other late night and cable programs. He was also cast member for the the last three seasons of the continually re-airing World’s Dumbest on TruTv, and has appeared on several other pop up commentary series, including VH1’s I Love the 2000’s.
We caught up the Cummins to talk about his brand new album Don’t Wake the Bear. It’s the final installment of his five album deal with Warner Music Nashville. We find out where he’s going, learn about his upcoming podcast, and also what that moment was in radio that changed his life trajectory forever.
How are things these days Mr. Cummins?
Things are good. I’m getting ready to move out of L.A.
No more LALA Land for you?
Not for a while at least. I bought a house in Idaho. It’s where I grew up. My wife was a costume designer in L.A. for about a decade, she was working on Supergirl as recently as last December but decided to quit. She’s been staying at the house and I’ve been going back and forth between Idaho and L.A. just finishing out a contract with Playboy. That’s up in November and then I’m out.
That’s one hell of a mic drop. The Playboy / Supergirl mic drop. And those two things could easily be confused depending on who you are talking to.
Hahaha!
Well, the good news is despite where you may live at any given time is that you have a new album coming out on September 30th titled Don’t’ Wake the Bear. Congrats!
Yeah, this one was a long time coming. It was recorded last year but I’m really still happy about it. It was just a little bit longer waiting for the release. I’m extra happy to have this one coming out. This is my fifth one. I did a five album deal with Warner Brothers back in the day. And I remember some older comic telling me at the time, “Good luck even getting five albums.” Basically, that’s like most comic’s careers. It feels good to complete that five record deal. And the material that I’m touring with now is already a new hour since then. I still just love creating stand-up.
You are a workhorse. The five album deal is so old school. It’s like Aerosmith 1970’s development deal. That just doesn’t happen anymore.
It was the very end of that era when I signed that deal. The first album I did was actually in retail. You could go and pick it up off the shelf. And then right after that album came out, the next one was a piggy back off my Comedy Central special and that one may have been in stores. I remember already having talks with them about if I needed to do a physical release, even at that point.
I remember going to Best Buy to get records when that was a thing, and there was this four or five year chunk where each year the album section got smaller and smaller. I remember going there in 2006 or ’07 and picking up Dave Attell’s Skanks for the Memories and there was a whole entire comedy section. There were hundreds of albums. Then it all just went away. Comedy got mixed in with World Beat and Christian.
I didn’t know Enya did stand-up? What’s this bit about “Sail Away?”
Hahaha, yeah. All of these little niches would just keep getting combined. And now I haven’t even thought about going to any retail place to pick up a record.
It was fun to sneak out of work during lunch in New York City and see what albums I could score for $10. No more.
I was a big fan of the tactile and album artwork. It’s a bummer. However, what I really like about releases now, especially with social media and everything being digital, everybody can get it. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a tiny little town in the middle of Nebraska. You don’t have to worry about the record store carrying it.
You were going to say Idaho weren’t you?
Hahaha, it is my go-to. Well, I remember growing up in my little town in Idaho. 400 people. You couldn’t get a comedy album. I remember I had two growing up that got passed around. They were blank tapes with the albums copied to them. One was bootlegged, it was Andrew Dice Clay’s big album with the Nursery Rhymes bit, and then I had one actual cassette from the time of the BMG and Columbia House music clubs when it was 12 albums for a penny, and they were so dumb you could just use fake names. I had Eddie Murphy Delirious because that was the only comedy choice, the rest was music. And that was it. There was no record store in my town.
So I’m guessing a town of 400 couldn’t sustain a comedy club right? Did you have to go far to see it live?
After I graduated from High School, I went to Gonzaga University, the basketball school. And that was in Spokane, WA. And Spokane isn’t even a huge city. And I don’t recall ever while I was in college hearing about a comedy club. I graduated College never having gone to a comedy club and not knowing that they even existed. It just wasn’t on my radar. And I wasn’t a stand-up junky at that time. But I did do some sketch comedy for the school and had fun. And then I had that typical post-graduation “what the hell do I do with my life?” I was trying to figure it all out with a psych degree. I really had no interest in that. And then, my now ex-wife, but girlfriend at the time, heard about something on the radio I think. And said, you should go and try that.
She found out they had an open mic at a comedy club. I didn’t even know what that was. And so I totally started on a whim. And I was like, “Why not?”
Isn’t that Warwick Davis’ story about how he became on e-wok in Star Wars? Did you just lift that tale?
Really? That’s so weird!
I mean, to think where you’d be if she hadn’t heard that radio ad? It must have been the same as discovering porn for the very first time?
That’s a great reference. I remember discovering porn for the first time and being like, “This is just… available?” It was very similar. I invited some friends and there was this separate room in the back of this bar called the Season Ticket and it was devoted to stand-up. I remember watching Comedy Central for a couple weeks to study before I went up for the first time. I hadn’t done anything. I had to figure out what to do. I was so clueless. My first set I went up with a bag of props. I went up with a mullet wig, some aviator glasses, and some other things. I have this on tape somewhere. I did this because I use to do those sketch characters. So I went up and did little vignettes. It was almost like a weird one-man show. I had fun, it went ok. And I kept coming back week after week. My first few years of stand-up was just a constant conversation with myself asking, “How much longer am I going to do this?” I kept saying I’ll give it one more year if this happens. And luckily the first 6 or 7 years into it I was in for good.
Do you feel like stand-up will always be at the core of what you do or has it become a complimentary piece of Dan Cummins as a whole? You’ve now done hosting, writing, radio, etc.
I think so. I mean, I am trying to sell some projects like a lot of people. My heart is in that stuff but never to the degree of stand-up. And that’s part of why I’m moving out of L.A., I don’t really enjoy working on all of these other projects as much as I thought I would. It was nice to know that I could and it felt good to make some money and meet cool people, but none of it makes me feel as good as creating a good bit and sharing it with an audience.
I am going to be launching a podcast here in the next few weeks, but I even consider that an extension of my stand-up voice. It’s something to hold people over between albums. I still feel like I have so much to prove or do with stand-up. I’m happy with what I’ve done but not satisfied.
So where you are moving to, is there a comedy club? Or are you going to have to start the Dan Cummins Comedy Club?
Well, I will still be touring, it will just be my home base. And there actually is. It’s just called the Spokane Comedy Club. The club itself is awesome. It’s seriously one of the nicest comedy clubs I’ve ever been a part of and I’m not being partial. A beautiful room. Huge crowds. Great sound. And major headliners are always coming through. There’ll be open mics. But to be honest, I didn’t really ever do shows around town here in L.A. I didn’t enjoy that. I enjoyed touring.
Well this new album, Don’t Wake the Bear is a lot longer than most of your other albums right?
Yeah, I’m excited about it. It’s 75min. And now I’m excited to see what I can do with the next one. I mean, everything has just changed so much. I could do a self-release, it could be video only on Seeso or Netflix, or it could be a part of New Wave. There are just so many new ways to access stand-up now. But maybe because of the way I grew up with those tapes, the audio form of stand-up is just my favorite. Way better than watching a late night set or watching Netflix. Listening to comedy is comedy in its purest form because there is no hype surrounding it. It’s not dressed up with a fancy set or you don’t see the big crowd. When you listening to an album you are hearing just the jokes. They stand on their own or not. The comic either has it or they don’t.
You can order Dan Cummins: Don’t Wake the Bear right here.
