Adam Friedland Is America’s Most Reluctant Star Interviewer
Adam Friedland doesn’t really know how he got here.
“I don’t understand how it’s happening,” he told Mediaite editor Aidan McLaughlin on this week’s episode of Press Club. “I’m faking it.”
The comedian and host of The Adam Friedland Show has built one of the most viral, adored, and quietly influential interview programs on the internet by turning stand-up instincts and a self-styled “schmuck” sensibility into something that, by his own admission, shouldn’t be working.
He’s developed an odd knack for coaxing something real out of big guests, especially the ones who rarely stray from pre-prepared talking points. “The show is sometimes a little bit better when someone is trying to figure out what to make of me,” he said.
Friedland’s secret weapon is disarmament — not through flattery, but through absurdity and self-deprecation. His episodes with guests like Chris Cuomo and former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) show how quickly he can cut through. “When someone’s being macho, I’m kind of good at — I’m a little bit of a shithead. I can break through, I can disarm that.”
When the show started, he had no idea how to make television. “We very publicly stated we were going to make a TV show,” he recalled. “We didn’t know cameras or anything.” Four months of pre-production and more than $150,000 later, he had something resembling a Dick Cavett–style interview set, a season of interviews in the can, and a loose philosophy that guests, when confronted by his absurdity, would either drop their guard or come off looking like an idiot.
“You’re talking to the guy who pooped his pants on Cum Town,” Friedland shrugged, referencing the podcast he hosted alongside fellow comedians Stavros Halkias and Nick Mullen that sparked his fame. “I’m a schmuck. Naturally, the guest will either have a choice to continue to be a know-it-all, which people don’t like, or drop their guard and open up a little bit.”
The show has become the rare kind of digital confessional where the actually unexpected happens. Friedland lured Cuomo into a scandalizing question about Dua Lipa. He prodded Weiner into reflecting on his sexting scandal. He asked Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) about “the biggest dildos in society” — tech barons like Elon Musk who emanate from the congressman’s district.
When Khanna emailed asking to come on the show after Donald Trump’s re-election, Friedland said it felt like a turning point. “Asking people to do the internet three years ago was a really difficult sell, and now it’s probably seen as more legitimate media,” he said. “Thanks, President Trump.”
Still, he bristles at the idea that he’s a bonafide political commentator now. At a time when Americans are increasingly getting their news and opinion from comedians and podcasters — who are often credited with delivering Trump to the White House — Friedland is cautious of the lines he doesn’t want to cross.
“I’m not qualified to be talking about that stuff,” he said. “I’m a freaking nightclub comedian.” He added: “I see other comedians popping off and I’m like, ‘How the fuck do you know about any of this shit?'”
While he’s happy to joke about elections, billionaires, and whatever “cultural malaise” the country’s in, he’s uncomfortable pretending to be an expert. “I want to be careful not to speak in a way that I’m not qualified to speak,” he said. “That bothers me.”
He has been foisted in that position before. In a June appearance on Chris Cuomo’s NewsNation show, Friedland spared with fellow panelists expressing outrage over pro-Palestinian campus protests, which they decried as anti-Semitic. “Complaining about a college student protesting us giving $25 billion to a war — the term anti-Semitic loses its meaning,” Friedland said. “It’s not good for Jewish people.”
As for where the show is headed next, he has no idea. “The question is, is it more worthwhile to keep doing it myself or through the traditional entertainment industry? And I don’t know what the answer is there.”
For now, the focus is on momentum. “I’ve got to just do more,” he said. “I have to get Obama first.”
You can subscribe to Press Club on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Read a transcript of the conversation below, edited for length and clarity.
Aidan McLaughlin: How are you enjoying the new show?
Adam Friedland: It’s not enjoying, right?
You don’t enjoy it?
Well, you feel good when something comes out. You just have to keep doing more of them.
You’re toiling?
Sometimes you try something and it works, and you get really excited temporarily.
Okay.
But the only way to, I think, be productive is you have something you think is a good idea, you try it, and then you’re like, ‘I’m a fraud this sucks,’ and then fight your way through it. Then you cobble something together and everything you’ve ever done, you see, and you’re like, ‘I would change this, this, and that.’ But the moment you’re done with one thing, you just start the next day on the next thing.
Keep it moving.
You have to treat it like you’re going to the accountancy firm, right? It’s just like a job. If you’re considering where things exist in the discourse, in the Zeitgeist, it just does nothing.
When you say treat it like an accountant, are you also looking at the numbers, or are you purely talking about the editorial process?
Just making the show.
Are you going to have any mayoral candidates on the show?
I think so. We’re talking to Zohran’s team, and I would love to have all of them.
You’re not planning to flee New York in anticipation of Zohran’s mayorship?
I’m rooting for Sharia law because I think that I could get maybe an Upper West Side co-op, right? If all the deadbeat Jewishes leave, I’m gonna get a fabulous pre-war. I’m hoping for this goddamn Sharia law. Because those folks, that generation of terrified-of-Zohran people, they bought their places for like 150k in 1992. And now it’s like 2.5 million and their kids are all gone and they won’t freaking sell it. So hopefully this Sharia law will get them.
He’s an Arsenal fan by the way, Zohran.
He’s big-time. I saw tweets from like 2020. During the dark times, when we were 10th, and we were just being humiliated over and over again, we would release a new kit after each terrible humiliation. And I saw a tweet of his, quote-tweeting it, being mad about a kit release. That — it means so much to me.
He’s in the trenches.
It means so much to me that he understands what that is.
So you have representation in this new mayor.
I mean, I feel like such a loser that I even care, right? It’s a team in London, England. But I think about it so much, and the fact that he’s also a loser in the same way as I am. That’s Wakanda for me. That is Wakanda.
So, new show, just guests-wise, is having a pretty extraordinary run. You had Anthony Weiner on, and Sarah Jessica Parker.
He disliked me. Before we cut it down, it was like a two-and-a-half-hour argument.
Forgive me for this question, but you seem have good chemistry with Weiner, Cuomo, real alpha, no-bullshit New Yorkers. Have you noticed that at all?
Yeah, because when someone’s being macho I’m kind of good at — I’m a little bit of a shithead. I can break through, I can disarm that.
And that yields a better interview?
I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s the same with both of those guys. I think with Weiner, I mean, I’m in my family, so I’ve been arguing with Jewish people my whole life, just stubbornly. I can tell that both Weiner and I, you just never apologize, you keep sitting there at the dinner table. That was the training I received in my family. There is some familiarity with like — it felt like my dad and I were arguing about freaking Bill Maher or something, whatever he watched that weekend.
What’s the concept of your show?
It’s a talk show. The goal is to kind of do something that isn’t just another podcast. It’s more produced and cohesive, and we modeled it somewhat after Dick Cavett to revive long-form interviews. Cavett was able to talk to people that we thought we knew and were very famous, but talk to them in a way that they didn’t talk publicly very often. Talk shows are like — it’s such a weird, archaic format. There’s no real reason for them to exist anymore.
Right, and especially the late-night talk shows are totally useless.
They probably lose money at this point.
Viewership on the traditional late-night shows is around a million viewers.
Yeah, it’s just like you say a story about how you just went on vacation, then you say, okay, ‘What’s the movie?’, and then you play a clip?
There are a billion interview shows. Did you look at that landscape and think, ‘Okay, I need to do something different because I can’t just be another guy interviewing other people?’
I don’t really know. I mean, I was on a podcast that was successful, and then one of the guys left — Stavros, who’s now incredibly successful, a very funny guy, and also a friend of mine. Nick, another guy I did the podcast with, and I wanted to keep doing…
Will I get shadow-banned if we say the name of the show, should we use a euphemism? “Jizz Village” or something.
I don’t know. The New York Times — it kind of protected us from hit pieces.
Oh, because they couldn’t write about it?
They couldn’t write it, yeah. Because it was such a disgusting name. I think they would say, ‘A podcast whose name we can’t even say,’ like Voldemort. It was kind of a smart move.
It helped you?
Yeah. Nick had this idea to turn it into a current public affairs show, and I was kind of the least popular one on the podcast. I was the schmuck and Nick was like, ‘No, you have to listen to me,’ and I owe a great debt to him for encouraging me that way. And I think I was pretty bad at interviewing at first. I didn’t know how to do it.
How did you learn?
I accidentally decided to just start trying for the first time in my life at 35. And then I was like, ‘Oh, it’s kind of better to try. ’
It yields better results.
I’m not wasting my life. I’m not fast-forwarding to being dead.
But when you were wasting your life on Cum Town, you guys were still fairly successful.
Well, yeah, but I had to work like two hours a week. I’m not talking about… I had to work two hours a week, and then I’d get in maybe three movies in a day. I’ve said this before, but then you’d have a girlfriend come home and she’d talk about her day, and I’d be like, ‘I did a lot too today. Why is it always about you? I watched three movies, actually.’ I started taking notes on movies to act like I was working.
That’s tough.
At a certain point, you’re a middle-aged man. And then you’re like…
This isn’t a life.
Yeah. But then we started this talk show. We didn’t really know how to do a TV show. We very publicly stated we were going to make a TV show. We didn’t know cameras or anything. And we kind of built out this facsimile of the Dick Cavett show set.
It’s a great set.
And then I started to enjoy it and wanted to get better, and then I tried to figure out how to get better, and I found that I was doing things that were like, ‘Oh that’s all right,’ you know? It kind of encouraged me to keep wanting to get better.
What would you say your interview style is? And how did you come up with the way that you do these interviews?
At first, I did stand up. So there’s no real two-way interaction. It’s one-way. The only interaction you have with the audience is crowd work, which is like making fun of someone. And at first, when I was doing interviews, I think I was kind of being a douchebag. And then Nick actually gave me the most useful advice, where he was like, ‘I don’t understand why you have this affect.’ I was like, ‘Oh, here you go again criticizing me.’ Then he was like, ‘You’re a nice guy and you make people feel nice when they’re around you, and I don’t understand why you don’t just do that.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I have to figure out what about me is good.’ Because [as a stand-up comedian] I would be like, ‘What do you do for a living? You’re a kindergarten teacher? Sounds like you’re a pedophile.’
That’s how you typically interact with the world.
I don’t walk around that way, no. That’s just what stand-up training is. At first, I Googled journalism. I read the Wikipedia for journalism.
What’d you learn?
I think I was reading it and I was like, ‘I knew all this crap already. Yeah, whatever.’ And then I was like, ‘Who’s good at interviewing?’ So then I was like, ‘Well, Joe Rogan is very successful.’ What I think he does is that he tends to agree with people. He’ll have Bernie and then he’ll have like — I don’t know. A member of the freaking Panzer Brigade. And then he’ll be like, ‘That’s trippy.’ He’ll agree. But then I think the guest feels like they’re crushing. The guest feels like, ‘Oh, I’m crushing right now like I’m convincing this person.’ So naturally, they say more and more stuff.
So it relaxes them to reveal more.
I think that’s why he’s successful. But I can’t really emulate that because, naturally, I sound like a sarcastic Jewish guy. It doesn’t sound like I’m being honest. The guests will be like, ‘Are you fucking with me right now?’ So then I was like, ‘Okay, well Marc Maron is good,’ and I listened to some of that. His thing is that he talks about himself. He makes things about himself. And so naturally, that kind of disarms the guest. But I was like, I can’t really — that’s his thing. And he’s really good at that. ‘Starting stand-up in Boston when I was addicted to cocaine,’ and the guest is like Dame Judi Dench. She’s like, ‘Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m talking about.’ And then I realized I listened to Howard a lot growing up. So then I started watching a bunch of old Howard interviews. And I’ve said this before, but the thing he is so good at is that within the first 90 to 120 seconds, he’s your best friend. He disarms you immediately. And he preys on you, and he’ll be like, ‘You’re a huge star. Everyone wants a piece of you.’ So again, I can’t really emulate that because it sounds like I’m being sarcastic. Instead, I modified it to be in my own voice. I’ll just be self-deprecating. I’ll be like, ‘You’re talking to the guy who pooped his pants on Cum Town, like I’m a schmuck.’ Naturally, the guest will either have a choice to continue to be a know-it-all, which people don’t like, or drop their guard and open up a little bit.
Were you upset that your GQ profile opened with you…
I didn’t read it.
…shitting your pants? It’s actually very generous.
I saw that. It made me too nervous to read. But I got added to my girlfriend’s family’s group chat.
That’s a win. Thank you, GQ!
No, it sucks. They added me to the group chat because I’m a proper member of society.
Oh, you’re esteemed.
So now I have to see freaking, ‘Does anyone want this free dresser?’ Now I have to know about that.
When you’re doing interviews, how much are you improvising?
Oh, I prepare a lot.
So, the infamous question you asked Chris Cuomo about Dua Lipa…
No, that was not planned.
That was improvised?
I think he asked me if I thought AOC was hot or something. I was like, ‘I don’t know. For a politician.’ I mean, these people are disgusting-looking. She’s attractive, and then I think I just said ‘Oh, I like Dua Lipa,’ and then the rest was not planned. That was just a magic moment.
I think that’s why people watch your interviews and other comedians’ podcasts, because when you have someone like Chris Cuomo on a show where they could be asked a question like that, it makes the show more interesting. Do you think that’s part of the appeal?
I think that the show is sometimes a little bit better when someone is trying to figure out what to make of me. I think that it’s kind of fun for me, too. A lot of the prep is trying to figure out what to expect, what kind of person this is, right? And what’s gonna piss them off and what they’ll respond to. If there’s something that you feel is off limits, it’s cool — you’re a journo — it’s cool to be like, ‘How do I get there?’ Instead of directly asking something, how do I lead it there? It’s fun. While you’re doing it too, you have to adjust on the fly. That part is fun. But I kind of like the editing and the prep more than the actual interview.
Are you nervous during the interview itself?
Not nervous, but sometimes we have like three guys in the room — I’m used to stand-up. So if something doesn’t get a pop, I’ll be like, ‘Am I bombing in front of my own people?’ I pay these people.
On many of these new shows you have the producers chuckling in the back. Do you tell them to laugh when there’s a good joke?
No, but I think it kind of makes it more fun. I guess a studio audience, if you relate it to late night, that feels like there is an applause sign. Instead, this feels like these are the 23-year-old camera operators that are just sitting there for a day rate, and if they like it, it makes it more present or fun.
Do you think it’s a problem that everyone now gets a lot of their information from short-form videos or podcasts, or people like Steiny, who you had on your show?
Does he give information to people?
I feel like for a lot of people, the only Trump interview that they watched was the Nelk Boys one.
It probably got him votes.
Is that something that disturbs you?
I don’t know. I think it’s probably smart for Trump to do the Nelk Boys.
No, I mean the fact that Americans get all of their news from short-form videos and podcasters now.
I don’t know that it disturbs me. I want to be careful not to speak in a way that I’m not qualified to speak. That bothers me. I don’t know about freaking — I had Ro Khanna on. What’s the value of me to say like, ‘Well, HR 273.’ I’m not a wonk. I’m not qualified to be talking about that stuff. I’m a freaking nightclub comedian.
You have some political experience, do you not? You took Middle-Eastern studies.
Yeah, what the fuck is the value of that? What, like in 2009? My degree was pre-Arab Spring. Literally everything I learned was like…
Irrelevant within two years?
It’s still the liberal arts. So every book that we would read would be like, ‘What happens next? We’ll see.’ And then the Arab Spring happened, and I was like, ‘Oh, so my entire degree I didn’t really learn anything.’ I don’t know. I’ve always liked politics and I have my own opinions, so I feel fine speaking to that. When Ro Khanna came on, I felt comfortable asking him like, ‘Hey, you know, no one likes the government now and you’re in the government. Why do you want to be in the government?’ In a simple sense, I can speak to that, but I’m not freaking Anderson Cooper.
That’s why a lot of these shows hosted by comedians will focus on the personal. Like Theo Von telling Trump about doing coke. Theo Von is not going to ask Trump about repealing DACA.
That was really funny. ‘It’s hard stuff.’ What did he say?
He said, ‘It’s really tough stuff.’
It’s hard-core. Trump’s like a teetotaler, right?
Full teetotaler. His brother was a drunk.
Fred Jr. Yeah, it destroyed his brother. Did you see the movie?
I did. I went to a screening of it.
I thought it was great.
I was shocked by how good it was.
I thought it was gonna be terrible, and it’s awesome.
Because it’s difficult to not make an embarrassing, Resistance Trump movie, I think. And they did not do that at all.
He captured the character, but he wasn’t doing an impression, which I thought was great. And then Roy Cohn is just like…
The greatest character of all time.
In American history. In Angels in America, that scene where he’s dying and then the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg comes, and he’s just like ‘Ahhh.’
Is that Pacino?
Pacino, Meryl Streep. It’s the best acting ever. But he’s such a fucking psychopath, fascinating, maniac figure in American history.
Do you like talking about politics from your position? Americans, by and large, especially those of a certain age, are getting their news from podcasters and commentators.
Yeah.
Do you think that’s too much political responsibility being placed on the shoulders of people like that?
Yeah, that’s why I want to be careful not to like…
Wade into it too much?
Well, not to say some shit that I have no authority in saying. Like I can speak to — I’m an American. I’ve lived in America my whole life, and I can see that there’s a cultural malaise. This is the most bummed out people have been since I was a kid. That’s an experience that I can kind of wade into.
Why do you think that is? Is it the internet?
Yeah. I mean, it’s a series of events. In my lifetime of like 38 years, there was 9/11, then ’08, and then Covid.
And I think that the internet certainly has a big part to play. I think people just spend a lot of time alone.
I heard you talking about this on Chris Cuomo’s podcast.
That was stressful.
You guys really got into it.
He was asking me about what’s gonna happen with Iran.
But this is the point. You were asked.
He was asking me what was going to happen with Elon and Trump. I said they were in pain. Like, what are you asking me this for? I want to be careful in that regard because I see other comedians popping off and I’m like, ‘How the fuck do you know about any of this shit?’ But on the other hand, the responsibilities aspect — more people are watching Joe [Rogan] than watching Anderson Cooper. It’s probably ten times more people every day.
Where do you get your news from? Do you watch cable news at all?
Basically, I get a briefing from Israel every day.
Mossad?
Yeah, yeah. Fax. We use faxes still.
Wow.
No. Where do I get my news? I don’t know. I read the New York Times, I guess? Just the normal places? The thing that bothers me — I’ve mentioned this before — but I got called gay for liking politics. I cried at school when Bush stole the election and someone was like, ‘You’re gay.’ And now everyone likes politics and it should go back to something that’s for losers.
Has Trump’s win made it easier for you to book guests because people like Ro Khanna see the value of coming on a show like yours?
He emailed me after the election. I do think it’s legitimized the platform. Asking people to do the internet three years ago was a really difficult sell, and now, it’s probably seen as more legitimate media. So thank you, President Trump.
One thing I wanted to ask you about your interview with Chris Cuomo — you guys got into it on a couple of things. He called you ‘a self-loathing Jew.’
That was before the election for his bro, too. Yeah, that’s driving me nuts right now.
Why?
I was on his show, and Andrew Yang was telling me about what antisemitism was. It’s absurd to me. The annoying thing is I have Jewish friends who live here too, and all of our parents won’t stop calling us because they think it’s like the Warsaw ghetto in New York.
Because of Zohran?
Because the news tells them that there are mobs and murders. It’s New York City. It’s a nice place. There are nice restaurants. No one’s killing Jewish people in New York. It’s still New York. I guess it didn’t work as much in the primary because you can’t tell people who actually live here that it is like what they’re saying on the news.
Andrew Cuomo’s campaign was that the city is a crime-infested, antisemitic hellscape.
I’ve never had a fundamentalist Muslim terrorist give me any crap in New York City. If anything, the only people I have problems with in New York — I’m fine with saying this publicly — are the Hassids. The traffic is terrible. They just stop in the middle of the road. What are you doing? Have you tried driving through South Williamsburg?
I have not in a while.
It’s infuriating. Is that anti-Semitic? I guess I’m being anti-Semitic. It’s just rude. It’s rude to be just gridlock parking in the middle of the road… I’m doing a bit.
We hereby apologize to the South Williamsburg Hassids.
I don’t.
Has that been a recurring problem, being Jewish and being told that unless you are supportive of the state of Israel you are anti-Semitic — by people who are not Jewish?
What I will say is that complaining about a college student protesting us giving $25 billion to a war, the term anti-Semitic loses its meaning. It’s not good for Jewish people. I think I said this to Cuomo, but in the ’60s and ’70s, they were saying that college protesters were pro-VC. Now, they’re saying that they’re pro-Hamas. They’re acting as if it’s unprecedented. And it’s not true. Like, they fire-bombed university buildings in the ‘70s.
They took over Columbia.
They’re acting as if Hamas is sending 19-year-old kids to be the sleeper cells. It makes no sense. And also, I think the way Zohran has been treated just makes it seem like Jewish people are racist. I’ll say it. I guess some of them are. I don’t know. He’s just Muslim, right?
He’s a Bronx Science kid. He’s from Queens. He could not be more New York.
And he went to Wesleyan or something?
Bowdoin.
And then he started rapping? He’s not Osama Bin Laden. But he’s being treated that way, and it’s terrible to see that.
You’ve gotten in trouble before.
Well, I got in trouble about the anti-Semitism thing. I got in trouble with Chelsea Clinton once.
Another gentile who has accused you of anti-Semitism.
It was because Ilhan Omar criticized AIPAC, which is a lobbying organization. She said, ‘It’s all about the Benjamins,’ and they said that was an age-old trope. Everyone was piling on her. So I made a mean joke because Chelsea Clinton was lecturing — AOC was even joining in on it. ‘It’s all about the Benjamins.’ It’s not like the Nuremberg Protocol. It’s talking about how a lobbying organization uses money. It’s like the oil industry. It’s like any other — sorry, I’m getting pissed off. This was like nine years ago, too.
Does getting in trouble matter anymore?
I think it does still, but like…
You could actually get canceled for a hot second there. I don’t think you can anymore.
Yeah, I think that the internet is just people trying to destroy one another, right? I’ve had that kind of thing happen, and then I realized that it’s just fake. It’s just Twitter. I just have too much work to do.
Are you offline?
I look at stuff, but Twitter is scary.
It’s gotten a little bit better, but there was a time when it was, just for me, videos of murder.
‘The Holocaust didn’t happen,’ and then murder. You can see people getting killed.
A lot of Nazis.
And then just penis going in — hardcore, unedited pornography.
I’ve never gotten that. That might be your algorithm.
It’s on there. And I’m like, ‘It’s Tuesday.’ It’s Sodom and Gomorrah. Anne Frank wrote the diary in ballpoint pen. I saw that.
Is that a conspiracy theory?
I guess they didn’t have ballpoint pens. Maybe she invented the ballpoint pen.
You bought Steiny a gift when you had him on — a Richard Mille watch.
That was $400,000.
Where did you buy a fake Richard Mille watch, and did he ever call you out for it?
No, it was on Amazon.
You bought a real Richard Mille watch on Amazon?
No, I got it for $40.
Did he know? Because in the interview, I don’t think you ever revealed that.
I think he probably played along.
He seemed flattered.
I didn’t think about it afterward, but yeah. Adin Ross gave Trump a Tesla. I was like, these kinds of guys, they get a nice gift. You know what, it’s good manners.
I think it’s very good manners to buy a guest a gift.
I didn’t get shit for this.
I got you a Pellegrino. How do you build an audience for a show like this? Because I understand how you built an audience for Cum Town, which I imagine was hard because of the name, but it was basically short-form videos, and people putting compilations together on Reddit, right?
I think it was the fans doing it for us. We didn’t know.
So, when it comes to the new show, you have no idea how you built an audience?
I mean, I just want to make sure it’s good. I don’t know. Hopefully, if it’s good, more people will watch it.
That’s true, but you have to distribute it to them.
Well, it’s on YouTube.
Okay, so it’s YouTube, and there are short clips — stuff like that?
Yeah, I have someone who does that. I can’t…
This is your livelihood. You must know how you get…
It seems like people like it? I only think about it in the sense of, like, if we get bigger and bigger guests.
Who’s your white whale?
Meghan McCain.
Why’s that?
Just love her.
You’re a big Meghan McCain fan?
No. I don’t know. I would love Barack Obama or something.
Obama would be good.
He wouldn’t do it.
Obama would be a good guest.
Yeah, I want to know if he’s miserable. Can you imagine? He was so young when he was the president, and now he’s just in Martha’s Vineyard.
It’s a nice house.
Yeah, but he must be like, ‘What am I doing with my life?’
He’s got a Netflix deal.
Does that feel good for Obama to be doing Netflix? Probably not. Also, the world’s gone crazy after him.
What’s the business model for your show? How does it make money? Because you said you sank like $150,000 into it?
Probably more. But that’s fine. We used to fund it through our podcast and Patreon. The goal was to stop podcasting. I needed to find a way to separate those two things because Nick and I were both sick of podcasting. So, over four-and-a-half months went into pre-production, and then we kind of reorganized what the business model is — it’s ad integrations and a subscriber thing we have on YouTube now.
Were you surprised by the reception that the new season has had? The show already had pretty viral interviews. But this season feels like you’ve achieved a level above what you were doing.
I think people just want content that’s consistent. I knew that I had to find a way to do it weekly. That’s why we went dark for four months, so I could have a backlog of interviews and a buffer zone. Because previously, we would finish an episode, and then we’re like, ‘What’s the next one?’.
Weekly is hard to do.
Yeah. I have 10 interviews in the can — that’s like two-and-a-half months of content. This way we’re not going to be screwed over. But maybe we will. I don’t know. Who knows? I’m just kind of faking it.
I mean, it’s a Dick Cavett-style talk show.
I don’t understand how it’s happening. I’m glad you like it.
Lastly, so that we have an usable social media clip, my producer has put together a quickfire round of questions. This is how you do podcasts these days. Where is your favorite place to get dinner in New York City?
Bar Oliver. My friend…
You’re plugging a friend on the first quickfire question?
My girlfriend’s brother has an amazing restaurant.
Where is it?
Downtown. It’s by Dim Sum Go Go. Great steak. The Wagyu — phenom.
Who do you hate-follow?
I’ve stalked multiple people in my life.
On social media.
Who do I hate? I don’t get pissed, really.
You don’t get angry?
People are crazy, but you know…
You’re not following them.
I’m not like, ‘Grrrrr.’
That’s healthy.
I’ve said this before, but people spend eight hours a day yelling at the Secretary of Agriculture for zero dollars. The internet has made people so insane. I try not to engage with it because I just have to make the stupid show that I do.
What’s your favorite scandal?
That’s a good question. Well done. I don’t know if it was a scandal, but there’s this guy who was falsely accused of murdering two people.
O.J. Simpson?
Orenthal James Simpson. What did you say, ‘OJ’? I know Orenthal James.
I didn’t know his name was Orenthal James.
We’ll go with the, what did you say, ‘OJ’? Like juice.
That would be a great nickname for him. Cause he really had the juice.
Yeah, I know him from…
Naked Gun?
Naked Gun.
Classic.
He was very clumsy, and I think that’s why he was falsely accused of murder, because he might have just been like, ‘Wahhh…’
I’m shocked they didn’t go with that defense.
That’s what Johnnie Cochran should have done. ‘Have you seen Exhibit A?’ And the legs are like, ‘Blahhh!’ Guys, there’s nothing funny about that. I’m sorry.
Deepest fear?
Dying. Easy.
Where do you get your suits?
The first was my dad’s, and then I copied it.
Oh, you had it made.
I had it facsimiled.
That’s kind of expensive, getting a suit custom-made like that, right?
I got a discount. Someone I know worked at a suit place, and I got 50% off for being a celebrity.
What’s your favorite album of all time?
Hmm, I don’t know. Time Out of Mind, Bob Dylan. That’s my favorite Bob. Is it my favorite, or what’s the best album?
Your favorite.
This is the kind of stuff I think about all the time. I like side B of Tattoo You — phenom. Some of the best music ever. Also, the second side of Abbey Road. The Golden Slumbers medley — kind of the best song ever.
It’s really good. Best song ever?
A Whiter Shade of Pale. Heroes?
Heroes is good. RIP.
He died? This is how I’m finding out David Bowie died.
Favorite interview you’ve ever done?
I liked Chet Hanks. That was my favorite one.
Are you guys still in touch?
Yeah. He only FaceTimes though.
Of course he does.
You know, I’ll give you an exclusive.
Let’s hear it.
You know what his voicemail is? It’s ‘Hello? Hello? Hello? Psych! I’m not here right now.’ He has that voicemail from middle school.
I had that. My dad hated it.
When I got my own phone line in my house — land line — I had that.
I had it on my Nokia brick, and my dad flipped out.
It got him every fucking time.
