Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Whip It Well

Episode Date: September 9, 2021

Conan talks with opera singer Kyle to learn techniques for improving his singing (and speaking) voice. Wanna get a chance to talk to Conan? Submit here: TeamCoco.com/CallConan

Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started. Hi Kyle, meet Conan and David. Well hey Conan and David and Matt. Hi. Hi.

Wow, you know everybody here, don't you? Kyle, are you a, you're a long time listener, first time caller, is that the idea? Exactly right Conan. Now Kyle, very nice to meet you and thanks for listening to what we call it a podcast. I don't even know technically what this is. But very nice to meet you.

Tell me a little bit about yourself so I get some background. Where are you right now? I'm in my home in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, which is the largest suburb of Madison, Wisconsin. It's about 30,000 people here. First of all, that was way much more information. Okay, sorry. What's your elevation?

Can I know your elevation? We're currently at 350 feet. Okay, and I also need your Google Earth coordinates. Right, and brief snapboxers. And how you voted in the last 35 elections, but just locally. Okay, so you're in Wisconsin. That's all I needed to know, Wisconsin. Sorry, northern hemisphere.

Okay, Wisconsin, and tell me a little bit about yourself, Kyle. Well, I'm married, I have two kids. My first kid is going off to college in a few days here, which is kind of like a dagger in the heart, but I don't think you know what that's like yet, but I think you soon will, yeah? Well, I've been stabbed in the heart, so I know what that's like. That's what I was referring to.

And I was stabbed by my daughter as she was about to go to college. So I had both feelings at once, and I know what you're talking about. Excellent. No, my daughter goes to college, I think, if she gets in anywhere. She goes to college in a year. So I will know exactly what you're going through. Are you going to be an empty nest or do you have another kid? No, we have a younger son who will be a sophomore in high school,

and then... That's crazy, you and I are just about the same. I have a younger son who is a sophomore in high school, so you and I line up in many ways. I've felt that for many years. Are you going to turn 50 tomorrow like I am? No. Oh, God. Well, close. Very close.

I turn 40 in six years. Nice. Hello? Is anyone buying this? Hello. I think you went too young. I went too young, didn't I? Yeah. Let me try again. I turned 41 in seven years.

No, still a little too young. Oh, that's too young. Yeah, keep it to yourself. No, I am a 58-year-old gentleman. Nice. Well, you don't look at a year over, a day over 60, so it looks nice. Thank you very much. Yeah.

Kyle, you're what we in the business call, and this is a technical term, a prick. And I'm coming after you, Kyle. This will probably get edited out, but I'm looking at you on like a Zoom screen, and you were the size of a postage stamp, and David, who sits next to me... Got the whole screen?

...look like he was interrupting a CNN broadcast to say, we have taken over Earth. The lasers will begin firing soon. Petty Earthlings. So now I get to see you. I don't mean to embarrass you, Kyle, but you're a very good-looking man. Let me describe you to the people listening right now.

You have a very good-looking face, a masculine jaw. You've got... Oh, you can make your eyebrow go up. Yeah. Very valuable on stage. Yeah. Now, do you have stage experience? Yeah, so I guess I kind of went off the rails

when you asked me what I... or to tell you about me. I'm a professional opera singer. I've been doing this for about 22 years. You're kidding. Wait a minute. We just spent 15 minutes describing the elevation and coordinates and the water usage habits

of your area of Wisconsin. But now we get to what we call the headline, which is you're an opera singer, and I can hear it in your voice. You have a fantastic voice. Well, thank you. As a child, my sisters always... I've told the sisters and they would always complain

about my loud voice. Kyle, why do you have to speak so loud? And so now I... you know, the joke's on them because I'm actually being paid to do so. You should have said to them, why do you speak so loudly? Exactly.

Know the difference between an adverb and an adjective. Yeah. Whenever you correct sisters at that age, it just really gets their go. I would have gotten the beat down, so... Okay, so you have an incredible voice. You're an opera singer. You're trained as an opera singer.

Is that your profession? Are you a full-time opera singer? It is. It's the only thing I do for money. Are you a divo? No. No, not at all. Good term, though.

You didn't call me a diva, which is the feminine, so... Did you just correct me like your sisters? Yeah. You are a divo. Maybe. You're behaving like a divo. When you said that,

I immediately went to, oh, he was kicked out of the group divo. That's what I thought. That's what I thought. They took away the plastic pot on your head. You can't wear it anymore illegally. Well, the reason they kicked me out is because I told them to whip it well. Very nice.

Yes! Man, I like this guy. You are as sharp as a tack, made of cheese in Wisconsin. So, Kyle, you are an opera singer. You could help me because I've never liked my voice. It has a reedy... I'm going to say an Alan Alda quality

that some people enjoy, but I've never really liked it. What can I do? And first of all, I also want you to know, and I'm not bragging, but I think I have an operatic range myself. And I think among talk show hosts,

I may be one of the greatest singers of all time. Well, yeah, that's why it surprised me. When you said you think you have a bad voice because I've heard evidence to the contrary over the past few decades and how you love to boast about your voice. And I kind of agree with you. You have a unique voice.

Thank you. It's distinctive. People often recognize me. I could have a bag over my head, which I did through most of COVID, and people would just hear my voice and say, that's you, Conan, isn't it? And then they would start hitting me with brooms.

But I'm curious. What I'm saying is that when I was younger, I thought my voice was pitched too high. And I think I like it more than I used to, but sometimes I hear my voice and I just don't like it. And I think that speaks somewhat to my self-loathing. Well, I think you're a musical person. I mean, you play guitar.

Yeah. And of course you did the live thing, you know, between shows when you were banned from being on the air. So, I mean, I imagine you can match pitch. So let's start there. Oh, can you sing that pitch? Wait a minute.

Wait a minute. Can I just say something? You just went into a basement and I don't have a basement. You just said, follow me into your basement. And I'm like, I don't have one. Yeah, you sounded like one of the ghosts of the haunted mansion. Yeah. Maybe we could go up a little bit.

Why don't we start your lowest note you find comfortable? That's really close. That's really close. Oh, the ship just pulled into a foggy harbor. That's me. I can get that low. That's like the Mr. River Van Morrison song with it. Exactly.

It's like a didgeridoo. Get down here. If I really try and pitch it low, I can get down here. Is that okay? A little ring of fire, yeah. Yeah. I went down, down, down. So, burn or fire.

Can you slide for me? Vocal slide. So start low. Right? You were so powerful there you cut out. Did it cut out for you two? Yeah. It did?

I mean, that's scary. I'm right next to him. Oh. I don't know if it popped. But let me just, you know, I think, you know, give me something to sing and I can do it. I shabba, hey, hey. You know, I can go up high. I shabba, shabba.

All right. So let's do one of my favorite notes. Are you a divo? Let's do one of my favorite lines from, and my kids like to do this because it's kind of a tongue twister, not really, but it's from Warren's Evon. Can you guess what I'm going to do? Werewolves of London? Exactly.

And then that, which is fun to do. A little old lady got mutilated last night. Yeah. Oh, werewolves of London. There you go. Right? Yeah. We got to lead me into it.

Oh, yeah. By the way, I know this. It's in G. I shabba, wherewolves of London, little old lady got mutilated last night. Werewolves of London again. Right? I think her lesson's done. I mean.

Yeah. So the lesson that is, I saw the werewolf of London at Trader Vicks, his hair was perfect. So yeah, I think I have some ability, you know, and maybe you will know what this is all about. I'm able to sing kind of if it's a joke or if I'm doing it as a character. If I'm sincerely trying to sing, it's not good, but if I'm pretending to be an over-the-top rockabilly guy and it's kind of a joke, I can do it. I don't know what that is.

Maybe that's more of a commentary on the type of music that you're imitating. Like you say rockabilly. I mean, is that exactly? I mean, I'm a rock and roll fan and, you know, if you listen to Robert Plant or to, you know, Jack White, you know, you wouldn't exactly say, well, that's a luxurious, beautiful voice, but they can do things with their voice that is unlike any other. Right. I have that problem too.

Because when you sing in character, you have a mask and when you're not in character, you're vulnerable. Yes, that is it. There's a safety of if my hair is piled up on my head in a crazy wave and when I was a writer on The Simpsons, I had super long sideburns for a while and I used to like to get my Gretch 6120 and I used to like to just do over-the-top rockabilly and my friend started calling it cone-a-billy because I just like the yodeling and yipping, that sort of buddy-holy inflection and I used to like to try and get it over-the-top and then when someone would

say no, seriously sing Silent Night at the Catholic Mass, I'd be like, I can't do this. It doesn't seem funny to me. Well this is somewhat instructive and I feel a little more confident now about my singing because and what can I do to help my speaking voice? Do you think my speaking voice could be pitched differently? Is there any exercise I could do? No, I wouldn't change the thing. In fact, whenever I consider people who talk for a living, now the extreme would be someone

like an NBA coach who's screaming at the players on court in a tremendously loud environment and you hear like Tom Tibbeto who's like at a press conference, he's like, ah, yeah, he's lost his voice completely. He's blown it out, yeah. And so anyone who uses their voice professionally, if they and as you've shown in three decades of doing this, your voice has never, I mean, has it ever gone out? Have you ever had to cancel a show? I've had problems with my voice in the past just from screaming at assistants and interns.

Ever at anyone who's at my level, I always punch down, you know, so I just like, I like to lose it at people who have no control over me. There's no way they can write, right, David? Is this? Yeah. No, that's very accurate. Dave, does this sound familiar to you? Mm-hmm.

Where's my green tea? Where's my green tea? It happened 10 minutes before we got on here. Can I have my green tea? I'll kill you. Yep, that's it. Well, you don't have to worry about causing him to have early labor like Sona, perhaps. That's true.

Yeah. Yeah, no, I've had, when I've played larger venues, I've had issues with my throat if I get overtired. But then I have, I've learned you got to do exercises and you've got to drink, you know, special bras. What you've done works, so I wouldn't change a thing, honestly. Kyle, is it bad form to ask an opera singer like yourself to sing opera for us? Yeah, can you give us a demonstration?

I anticipated this. How about you do something and then I'll do something? Okay. Let me take off my headphones so I can hear myself better and I'm going to guess on the pitch of a very popular song you might know. It's from Carmen and I've done, I've performed the role of Escamillo, the bullfighter and maybe 175 performances of that. So, let's see, um, oh my God, that was fantastic.

Hey, that was, Kyle, that was, uh, fantastic. Thank you. And now, um, I'm going to show the contrast between a real opera star who knows what he's doing and a jackass. And it goes something like this. Mi so pa to si, ra pa to pa to, ri bai fa cor, bai dori bai, ramba, co somba ramba, loro si, tamborara, pa pa, ha. Wow, that's not bad.

The pitch is pretty good. Nice. It doesn't make it sound like you're having a stroke, but the pitch is pretty good. Now, that was me and I don't know what I just said, uh, I think there's a couple of real words in there accidentally. I think I sang about a futon. Um. When I've heard about your fascination with, um, putting amber liquid into your body, so

I just, I poured a little bit to have with you. Oh, I have a story to tell you and this is proof that people are out there. Thanks for bringing that up, Kyle. I'm constantly delighted and surprised at how many people are listening to our foolishness. I was, uh, back East, we were actually showing my daughter colleges and driving around and checking things out and visiting my, my parents and my folks. And we were, I think somewhere in like rural part of Connecticut and we, uh, were having drinks with a friend, a dinner with a friend.

And then that friend was joined by other friends who were these very, very lovely people who I didn't know. And we sat down with them and I ordered a glass of red wine and the woman said, wait a minute, Conan, aren't you going to have makers mark? Oh, from the Kona fan episode. And I suddenly was like, yes, I am. And so I, I got, uh, I had some makers mark and sipped it very slowly, but enjoyed it. And so I actually had a Kona fan, I'm someone who had listened to a Kona fan episode where

I was advised by an expert on what drink I should be having, what sort of masculine cool drink I should be having. I think I ruined it because I drank it out of a purple straw and then it was one of those crazy straws that goes everywhere. Um, Kyle, you are an impressive guy. Uh, I have to say, uh, obviously, uh, and again, I just want to stress, uh, to everyone listening right now. I don't see Kyle, but, uh, he's a very good looking guys, uh, obviously a very quick witted

gentleman. He's living in Wisconsin and he's a killer opera singer. So I am very honored to have you as a fan and I hope there's something I can do for you, Kyle. Do you have any question for me? Anything I can do for you? Well, you know, ever since I saw you receive a voice lesson on the stage of the matchpile and opera for my good buddy, David Bijic.

I wonder. Oh, that's right. I remember where I was on the stage of the match and I got a voice. You remember my friend, my friend David, he asked me to do a different notes and one of them was cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, yeah. And so I started thinking, I wonder what Conan's favorite opera is and you can't say Phantom of the Opera because that's just a show that has the word opera in it. I'm going to say Barber of Seville.

Oh, and from the Bugs Bunny. What is your, oh, you gave, give it up, Matt. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's your kind of reference for that. Well, it was, I first saw it. That's a lot, Matt, but yeah, you can guess that as a kid, you know, most things that I've retained in life, I was introduced to through Warner Brothers cartoons.

Absolutely. So watching Bugs Bunny do the Barber of Seville was my introduction to that opera. And it's also, Warner Brothers cartoons, specifically Coyote Roadrunner cartoons is where I learned what an anvil is. Exactly. There's all these things that, you know, if you grew up in the 1940s and 50s when they were making those cartoons, you knew what an anvil was because when you were a kid, there were still blacksmiths.

And so you knew what an anvil was. We're a whole generation of kids that grew up that saw this thing that was really heavy land on a coyote over and over and over again. And we learned that it was an anvil, but none of us knew what it did or why it was there. And so we only know about the past through Bugs Bunny cartoons. Same with Alam. Yes, Alam. Yes.

Yeah. That dries out your mouth. They would, they would pour Alam. It shrinks your head. Yes. It was all this stuff that we learned about. And my introduction to, to opera was through that fantastic Bugs Bunny short where he takes over the opera.

And I think brings the whole opera house crashing down. That's a different one. That's a different one. I'm thinking. That's what's opera doc. There's a whole, and there's an opera singer down the hill practicing and Bugs can't sleep. So he ruins, basically ruins this poor guy. And that guy, I don't know who he is, but he's got a great baritone voice and I've tried

to find out who that is. And it really stellar quality baritone voice. That's so cool. Yeah. So Barbara Seville, I'm going to have to say is, is my favorite, favorite opera of all time. And then I have to admit that I really don't know much about opera. You might know some Wagner also because of the, the different part, you know, that was

the rabbit. Oh, wow. That's, you know, do you remember that? Yes. Yes. Yes. Kill the rabbit. Kill the rabbit.

You are so lovely. Yes, I know it. I can't help it. You know, it's great, Kyle. It's clear to me that what you really want is to, because you're obviously very accomplished an in-demand opera singer, what you really want is to sing the Bugs bunny version of these operas. You should stage that.

And you know what? People would love it. They would be so crazy for it. I want to say it's been done. I want to say it's been done. I don't care. I don't care. It's worth reviving.

It's worth reviving. You know what? Everything's been done, and you would do it really well, and you'll put your own spin on it. Well, maybe I'll tap Konzi for some funds for it. If we can find a guy named Konzi, I'll put in a word. I would never disrespect someone so much as to call him Konzi, especially if his name was Conan.

Hey, Kyle. Hey, Kyle, you are a very impressive fellow, and it's... Well, thank you likewise. No, really. It's delightful to meet you, and I hope we cross paths in person. And I'd love to sing with you someday. That would be really fun, like in person. If you're ever doing an opera gig and you want to just be great, I would come out of

the wings, ruin the show momentarily with something, and then you could chase me off. It would be a fun, fun, quick gag. That sounds good. I'll email one of your producers and... Yeah, I am available to ruin your career at any time. That's great. I will tuck that away. It's been a sincere pleasure.

I've done it for many other people. Hey, Kyle, seriously, really nice talking to you. It's really pleasure to talk to you and you guys as well, and long fan of Simpsons and back to SNL, and I see your fingerprints all over it, and I love your stuff. Thank you very much. Yeah. I don't do no residual checks anymore for that stuff, so... Yeah.

To hell with all of them. Hey, Kyle. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Kyle. Thank you, guys. Bye. Conan O'Brien needs a fan. With Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Gorely.

Produced by me, Matt Gorely. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Joanna Soloteroff, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Earwolf. Music by Jimmy Vivino. Supervising producer, Aaron Blair, associate talent producer, Jennifer Samples, associate producers, Sean Doherty, and Lisa Berm, engineered by Will Beckton. Please rate, review, and subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

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