Inside Conan: An Important Hollywood Podcast - Max Weinberg

Episode Date: January 1, 2021

Happy New Year from Inside Conan! The one and only Max Weinberg (Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, bandleader for Late Night with Conan O’Brien) joins writers Mike Sweeney and Jessie Gaskell to talk about how he came to be the drummer and bandleader for Late Night, scrambling to put together a band for his Late Night audition, some of his favorite memories of comedy appearances on the show, the evolution of his character getting creepier over time, and the origin of his iconic stare. Plus, Mike and Jessie answer a listener question about their funniest memories of the show. Got a question for Inside Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone] and e-mail us at [e-mail] For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com

And now, it's time for Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast. Hello, and welcome back to a very important episode of Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast. It's the last episode of our second season. It is. It's gone by so fast. It has whipped by. Well, this whole year has kind of whipped by.

Weirdly so. And also, time has just expanded and contracted in strange ways. Yes. I'm going to miss seeing you every week. Me too. And chit-chatting over Zoom. And I'm going to miss our team, Jen, our producer, and Will. Yeah. Our incredible engineer who has to edit out.

So much. Oh my God. No, they're wonderful. This is really a highlight of my week. So I don't know what I'll do. But yeah, it's been really fun talking about the Conan show and reminiscing. It's been a lot of fun. A lot of interesting guests this year. I like talking to people who started out with the show. Yeah, we were able to get more people from far-flung areas because of being able to do it all over Zoom.

It's a lot of East Coasters. We talked to someone who was all the way in Tarzana, which is a 20-minute drive. That is incredible. Yeah, we talked to Ellie Kemper and Michael Komen. Yes. Who were in St. Louis. Brian Stack was in New York.

Yep. Louis Anderson was in Las Vegas. Fred Armisen. Oh, yeah. He was in Frogtown. But, you know, it still is probably easier for him to call in than have to drive to our studio. Yeah, we had so many guests. That's a stupid thing to say.

Speaking of far-flung guests on distant shores. Today's guest is, and this could be a record for us, is coming all the way from Florida. Yes. Holy cow. Where he chooses to live. Half the year. Yes. He lives in Florida. He said he had. Where he chooses to live. Half the year. Yes. He lives in Florida. He said he had a residence still

in New Jersey. That's right. We're getting warmer. He's the king of the big beat. Back with the E Street Band. They just put out a new record. They just played on Saturday Night Live a few weeks ago. Way back in 1993, he was the leader of the band on Late Night

with Conan O'Brien. That's right. He was in the trenches helping get this brand new talk show on the air. And we're going to talk about that and a lot more. Please welcome Mr. Max Weinberg. Mighty Max. Where are you coming to us from? I live in Florida half a year.

I'm a full-time resident of Florida. Right. We still have our house in New Jersey, and we still have that place in Italy that it's been difficult to get to, obviously, in the last nine months. That's right. You have a place in Cortona, right? In Cortona, yeah, where I am an honorary citizen. We saw that because we went to Cortona. I have a sash like Wizard of Oz.

They give you a medal. We knew you had a place there and we want to talk about that, but we had no idea that you were an honorary citizen. That is. Yeah. I mean, let's talk about Italy. The way we found out you had a place there was Jesse and I happened to be in Italy with Conan and Jordan Schlansky. I saw that. Oh yeah. Well, I think you were in Cortona. We were in Cortona because that turns out to be Jordan's favorite town in Italy. And we went to his favorite restaurant in town. Jordan was kind of like, you know, wanted to brag that his photo was on the wall. So we look at his picture on the wall and then conan's like wait a minute and we pan up two feet and you're there we felt like we'd totally been scooped by you

we're just like oh no one you know from a late night tv show in america's ever stepped foot in the hilltop town of cortona and there you were well speaking of late, why don't we talk about how, face it, yes, you're in the E Street Band with Bruce Springsteen. Okay. The thing everyone's going to remember is that you were the drummer and leader of a band at 1230 in the morning on a late night show. So how did you come to be a band leader on late night television? Well, you go through these passages in your life and the E Street Band, as it turned out, temporarily went on hiatus for 11 years, which at the time didn't specifically feel like a hiatus, but I was kind of like a spy who got left out in the cold for about three years. And I did a number of things. Briefly went, I think, as you remember, Mike, went to law school briefly. Right. What?

I realized that the world needed more drummers and less lawyers. So I dropped out. I'm a law school dropout. I hope a proud law school dropout. I'm a proud law school dropout. Good. You know, in six weeks of law school, I learned enough to be a little dangerous. You could be a slip and fall lawyer, probably.

Exactly. There's always time. I did a number of things. I went into, I was in the record business for a minute and missed drumming. And by a very strange confluence of events, I got invited to be in an all-star band for Bill Clinton's first inauguration. Oh, wow. I hadn't played in a while. And I really thought my drumming days were behind me. And prior to that, I had filled in for a short while, for about six weeks with a group called 10,000 Maniacs.

Their drummer was out of commission. They asked me to play. And I really enjoyed, I hadn't played in three years, and I really enjoyed the sort of being on the bus and being in these old Vaudeville theaters and the camaraderie of being in a band. So I said, well, maybe I'm missing the boat here by being a businessman.

And the new year of 93 came around, and a friend of mine who was an attorney in Los Angeles was tasked with putting together the entertainment component for the Clinton inauguration before he won. And he said, if he won, I'll figure something out that you can do. I did the inauguration and there was a sort of, you know, quote unquote, all-star band with a number of musicians and we backed Chuck Berry and Little Richard. And that was a lot of fun. And I said, you know, it's something I know how to do. I have skills in this area. So I said, I'm going to go back to drumming and see what happens. So La Bamba,

at the time, had a really pretty good wedding and bar mitzvah band business. And I called him and I said, look, I'm available. So I did a few dates with him and I really enjoyed playing drums, right? Then a friend of mine said that Pete Townsend was mounting this Broadway show of the Who's Tommy and looking for musicians. I said, well, that's interesting. So I had done Broadway before in the early 70s, house drummer for Godspell. So I knew that scene. So I called up and they had a drummer they already had a full-time drummer but they were looking for subs so i went down you know they give you the score i learned the score because i read music and you know i played a

little bit so i got the second alternate sub job which means that they go through the sub and then they hit you. It's a lot of people to knock off so that you get to perform. Yeah. A lot of people had to be unavailable and it paid, I think, well, I think it paid $60. So anyway, I, but I was very excited. I got the gig and it was the first gig I'd gotten sort of cold on my own ex East street band. So a couple of weeks later, Becky, my wife and I were in New York celebrating. We went to a cousin's party.

We left early. And we said, well, we'll go uptown. We'll get some meat, and then we'll go home. So we went to the Carnegie Deli. And I had my pastrami sandwich piled high. And we were going to get catch a cab. So we're walking towards the corner, and I say to Becky, look, standing on the corner, that really tall guy with the red hair, that's Conan O'Brien. She said, okay, great, who's Conan O'Brien? This was in May of 93. And I said, well,

he's the guy who's taking over for Letterman at 1230 on NBC now. How do you know that? Well, I'd seen him on Tom Snyder's old CNBC, I think it was, show where Conan did an interview. I didn't know Conan. Right. Becky didn't know Conan, but I recognized him from the Tom Snyder show, which I had seen a couple of days before. So I had produced this record called Killer Joe, which was a Jump Blues record for the label I was working with. And wherever I went, I carried

this record around with me as sort of a calling card. Here, here's what I've recently done, right? You were carrying an LP around with you? 16 years with Bruce Springsteen, E Street Bamboo. What have you done lately? Well, here's the record. Right. So Becky, I was a little like, you know, the light, he was waiting. He had a brown paper bag in his hand. He was waiting for the light to change. She said, well, you should go over and introduce yourself.

And I was a little hesitant because, you know, he was just about to step off the curb. So I did at Becky's urging. I said, Conan. And he looked around and he looked at me like, how do you know who I am? And he wasn't expecting that. And I said, hey, Max Weinberg from the E Street band, congratulations. So the light changed and he stayed there. And I said, it's a fantastic opportunity. If I hadn't seen him on Tom Snyder, I wouldn't have been able to pick him out of a lineup. Becky would have clearly been the tallest person in the lineup. So finally, I said, what are you doing for music? He said,

well, you know, we were looking at some things, we've got some ideas. And then he said to me, do you have any ideas? Which of course, I found out later was Conan's way was, you know, in all the years I worked there, he didn't care where the ideas came from, as long as they were the best ideas in the room. So as soon as he said, you have any ideas, I pulled out the CD. And do I have ideas? And I said, if I have the opportunity, this is what I do. And I start to pitch him on the corner. It was about 15 minutes. And we're standing there. It's a beautiful night. I was throwing out my best lines, my best pitch lines. Right.

I hope you didn't mention law school. I did not mention any of that. Good. You know, this is what I do. And I, you know, I wouldn't do anything that anybody else is doing on TV. And I would feature horns, which is what the band actually did. Right. You got a rock band with Paul Schaefer and I'm not doing that.

I'm done with that. You know, this is what I would do. He said, well, you know, it all sounds great. band with Paul Schaefer, and I'm not doing that. I'm done with that. This is what I would do. He said, well, it all sounds great. You ought to call Jeff Ross. The next day, I called Jeff Ross. And at this point, there was no show. There were no offices. There was nothing, right? Yeah, the show came on the air that September or so. It's actually pretty a wild kind of incredible array of coincidences. So I called Jeff and Jeff put me in touch with Jim Pitt. He, of course, became the music booker. At the time, he came from Saturday Night Live and he was helping with the music.

So I was pitching like crazy, fastballs, curveballs, whatever I pitched. And I had about three or four meetings. I went up to the offices. One other thing that happened was about a week after I met Conan on the street, I talked to Jeff and I talked to Jim. I was actually in New York going to, I forget what the company was, but it was 75 Rockefeller Plaza. It was an agency or something. And I said, well, I'm going to walk through 30 Rock. So I'm walking through the 49th, the And I said, well, I'm going to walk through 30 Rock. So I'm walking through the 49th, the 50th Street entrance, and I'm walking down towards 6th Avenue. There used to be a bank of pay phones, right? We walk up the stairs. Walking towards me was Conan O'Brien. You put a tracker on him, didn't you?

So what I did was I ducked into the phone. Then as he passed, I'm not talking to anybody, but I'm on the phone and I go, Conan. And the first thing he said was, you're stalking me. Sure. Of course. Wait, you pretended to be on the phone? I love that move. Yes. I pretended to be on the phone to sort of like- Oh, that's great. Maybe in the back of my mind, I'd run into him. And I did. It was bizarre. Right.

Were you pretending to be fielding a call from another job? Well, yes, I'll have to see if I'm available. I said something like that to the effect of, gee, I just ran into a friend of mine. I'll have to call you back. Right. We started to talk. And I said, yeah, I talked to Jeff Ross.

Great guy. I talked to Jim Pitt. They didn't fill me much on details, but I told them what I would do. In any case, about a week later, I'm at my office at the record company where I'm sort of, you know, taking phone calls between twiddling my thumbs and figuring out how I'm going to make records for this company. When I got a phone call, it was on a Wednesday from Jim Pitt. And Jim said to me, who, you know, of course, was with the show for many years. And he said to me, well, we've really enjoyed the meetings and your ideas. We'd like to hear the band. And that sort of stopped me cold because I never said to anybody I had a band. Oh, I only said that I have a great idea for a band. Well, when did you want to hear the band? He goes, well, how about Friday? Yikes. Oh, man.

He wins it. I said, gee, Friday, kind of short notice. All my guys have other gigs. Can I call you back in an hour? He said, yeah, no problem. So the first person I called was Jimmy Vivino. I didn't know Jimmy. Someone referred him to me. And he played on the Killer Joe record. I hired him for that record. Somehow met him through Joe D'Elia, who was a keyboard player. When I did the record, he said, well, you know, it's a package deal. I come with Jerry. His brother, right. Who's a saxophonist. That's exactly what you were interested in. Now you've got a band.

I'd been sequestered in the East Street band for a decade and a half. So I didn't really know a lot of musicians. Right. And I knew the local guys. I knew La Bamba and Mark Pender. And everybody had a thing of their own going. Jimmy at the time was playing with Clarence Clements. He was away on a gig in San Francisco with Clarence,

but he was coming back early Sunday morning. He was taking the red-eye back. All right, so he's getting home at six in the morning. Well, meet me at Carol Music. But he was out of town till Sunday. That got you out of the Friday audition. Then I called La Bamba, and I caught him in England. This was on Wednesday. Their last date was Friday. He was flying back with Pender Saturday. Wow. So I called Jimmy back. Okay, I got two horns.

He goes, well, of course, Jerry can play sax. Okay, great. You get Jerry. You don't need bass players. And he gave me a list of names. Okay, call them. One of the names was Mike Merritt. I wanted an eight-piece band,

and the interesting thing was I got a hold of everybody within about two hours, and I called Jim Pitt back, and it turned out that everybody could, the entire band could be there by one o'clock Sunday afternoon. I called Jim back, Jim Pitt. And I said, Jim, you know, it is kind of short notice.

Do you think you could switch some things around and maybe I could do it for you on Monday? He said, let me call you back. He called me back. He said, yeah, we could do it on Monday. And you know, how about 11 o'clock Monday morning? I said, perfect. Between 10 o'clock and one o'clock, Jimmy and I sat down three hours, and we sketched out basically 16 bars to 24 bars of a melody. And I put the rhythm to it, and we had a little ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, and a little second line New Orleans thing.

So anyway, I said, OK, I don't know what's going to happen here. And I was, this is the most nervous I've ever been. Because at this point, nobody knew what we were auditioning for because I didn't want it to get out that I had auditioned for this gig and didn't get it because that would be the lead story in Rolling Stone. I didn't get it. So I kept, I didn't tell anybody what I was doing. Including the band. So I said, okay, I'm going to present it the way I want.

And I had somebody at the record company I was at put in big letters on the bass drum, just, you know, graphic max. And I told everybody in the band to wear the most outrageous Hawaiian type shirt they could. And I set it up like a little performance area in this old looking, remember, I knew nothing about Conan. I didn't know what he liked. I just knew that we busted our asses to learn these things. And people would say, what is this for? And I said, I can't tell you, but I guarantee you, if it happens, you're going to thank me. So Conan, at the appointed hour, we're up there. We're all set up. Conan, Jeff Ross, Jim Pitt.

So the guys in the band, they don't know who Conan is. What happened was, in the audition, we played the first two tunes, the cartoony song, the jazz tune. And, you know, they were, like, listening politely. And then some reason, Becky's voice popped into my head and her enthusiasm for that sort of rocky second line New Orleans tune. I just started to play it, which kind of so the guys knew it. And when I started playing that, Conan leapt out of his chair and just started doing his kind of funny dance thing. Right?

He was dancing. Were you terrified? Well, I was shocked because, you know, I'd seen him on the street and I realized he was all legs. Right. And suddenly the legs were going left and right. And, you know, it was a great thing. Yeah. But I realized in that moment that we moved him physically.

So that was a good sign. And then we played this little fluty, cool jazz thing and one other tune. And we got done with the audition. I went into the men's room there, and I promptly vomited. Everybody packed up. I was just so relieved that it was over, right?

I said, you know, I'd been around. Look, when I met Bruce, he was a burgeoning act, and I could tell the certain physical thing I did was, you know, moved him. And I didn't know what they thought of the music. That Wednesday, a guy started calling me. Hey, what's going on? What is this thing? I said, I can't tell you, but if it happens.

They still didn't know what they were on. Seriously, what are we doing? Yeah. Who is that guy with the radio? Come on. So I didn't hear anything by Friday. Right. And now I was crawling out of my skin.

Sure. You just wandered around Rockefeller Center. Yeah. I got to run into that guy again. I did my bit. I stayed away. I wasn't going to let him call up. I was going to wait for him. Right. You're going let her call up. I was going to wait for her.

Right. You're going to play cool. You're going to vomit at home. I was really climbing the wall. So we went away for the weekend. We went to a resort in the mountains. And they didn't call all weekend. So Monday morning comes.

I'm like flipped down. I say to Becky, look, I'm going to go work out. It was really early. I said, you know, they have a PA system there. If Jim Pitt calls me, take a message. If Jeff Ross calls me, call the gym and tell them to page me and I'll come up and take the call. Wow. You had thought this through. I'm not interrupting my workout for Jim Pitt. I'm working out.

I'm doing push-ups. And I hear, you know, Max Weinberg, phone call from you. I pick up the phone. I got it. Max, it's Jeff Ross. Can you go to L.A.? I didn't say when. I said yes. Right.

And he said, like, now. That sounds like Jeff Ross. Well, you know, again, this is like ground floor he had just come from kids in the hall right there were no cell phones then no cell phones pagers and i didn't have a pager but he said you know lauren michaels would like to meet you he's on the set of wayne's world 2 so grab a flight and uh car you land so i left that day i flew a flight and car pick me up on the land. So I left that day. I flew out to LA. Car picked me up at Everett. You went straight from the gym. Take me to the set.

Just you, not the rest of the band. Oh yeah, just me. Okay. like a guy who just came through Ellis Island with my suitcase on my knees. And I remember Mike and Dana were shooting a scene and they took a break and Lauren came over and, you know, we were just on this set. And he said, Robert, Robert Smigel, who was a huge Bruce fan really wanted me to have this job. It was the first thing he said. And Conan was extremely enthusiastic. I only have a few questions for you.

You're married. I said, I am. I've been married quite a long time. You have children. I do. I have two, a three-year-old and a five-and-a-half-year-old. And he goes, do you do drugs? No.

He goes, well, do drugs? No. He goes, well, because I've had problems with band leaders and substance abuse. I said, well, not here you are. And he's like, you know, very good. I had to ask you that in person. I was dismissed. I was taken back to the airport. It was like rendition. Wow. It was taken back to the airport. It was like rendition. Wow.

It was a little like rendition. They took me back to the airport. So I get back on the plane. I go home. I don't know how he knew I was going to be home when I was home, but I was at home for about an hour. The phone rang. He goes, well,

Lauren wanted to meet you and you passed the audition and we'd like to hire you. I didn't say anything about the band. Robert was very enthusiastic, as Robert can be. Yes. And Conan told me much later on that it was the first. He was so delighted to get this show that he wasn't making any kind of requests or demands or anything else. The first thing he said to Lauren that he really wants me and this band.

He really felt that he was a good fit just from that audition. I had only ever been on TV once before this on the short-lived Dennis Miller show, where I sat in for their drummer for one show. That was the only experience I had with being on TV. One of the first things Jeff Ross asked me, well, actually, Lauren asked me this question, and Jeff followed up. What was my relationship with Bruce Springsteen's management? And I said, very, very good. They managed Bruce Springsteen, which was the right answer and the true answer. But Lauren apparently was impressed with that answer because it showed that I was mature. And Jeff mentioned that to me. He goes, Lauren said that his sense of you, not knowing you, was that obviously the music situation

was there, but they were looking for something more. They were looking for someone who would take this seriously and knew how to, as he said, deal with big personalities. And I said, gotcha. Wait, so who's the Bruce in our situation? Is it Smigel or Conan? It was Lorne. It's Lorne. Oh, right. It was Lorne and it was the NBC people. The suits, yeah. People who could tend to have their point of view, particularly in the early days. Because when I tell you on Friday, we didn't know if we'd be there Monday.

That went on for a long, long time. Once the show started, initially. Once the show started. Right, right, right. So it was all about doing the best, most outrageous work, proving it. And I was fine with that because I'd learned hard work. And I must say that I was, in retrospect, I was difficult. I was a big personality.

You were the Bruce. You know, big personality, certainly more as executive producer. Also, as I said, the NBC people, maybe some of the guests we'd have on. We all sort of started in the basement on the show. Now, I had no TV experience, but I had a lot, a lot of show business experience. Sure. Obviously. And I was well known.

And, you know, that fact wasn't lost on NBC. They had me doing a lot of stuff that typically someone in my position would not do because so many people had been to Springsteen concerts in the past. And Born in USA and Born in Wonder, all that stuff. So it was a good hook. Right. They had you press flesh to help promote the show? Yes. It wasn't enough to keep a show on the air, but it was enough to give us a little altitude.

Right. And Conan would tell me that all the time. And you were difficult with them? I would say I was a victim of the squeaky wheel syndrome. Right. You know, this was a long time ago, and it was transitional for me. Right. I was going to do everything I could to make sure that the position remained in as much as I could do. And I also recognized

that I was putting together a band of live performers, but this was TV. So the rules about being in a band and playing music were radically different. You had been in this steady gig, this E Street band, and then you had this three years where you described being in the wilderness. I could see, you know, going through an experience like that where you described being in the wilderness i could see you know going through an experience like that where it's where you feel a bit unmoored and then this new opportunity comes up wanting to be like okay i'm gonna lock this down because i i don't want to be back out in the wilderness so i'm assuming that was a big motivator yeah so grab onto this and do whatever it took

to do whatever I could do to have it be successful. Right. And I told Conan in our first meeting, if you choose me, I will give you the best band on TV. I guarantee that. You are full of promises, man. Just give me 48 hours. Entertainment Weekly did a rating of the late night bands and there were

five bands at the time sure and we all were given abc if you got a d forget it when was this how how long had the show been on there the show had been on about two weeks oh my god okay go ahead anyway the entertainment weekly rated the bands. And we got an A-. All right. That sounds good. So we were looking in those days. Listen, we only had 15 people in the audience. We were pulling people off the street when we first went on the air.

They took no shots in the audience because nobody was in the audience. What? There was no one in the audience? 15, 20 people. We could fit 199. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And we were doing these big, you know, they called this Every Night Live because, you

know, they were doing these huge prop-intensive sketches. Right. Oldie and me and, you know. Right. And Louis was doing his movies and, you know, Dino had major, big bits. bits right and it was very different in in the beginning and every detail i mean it was so detail oriented it was so exciting i can't tell you how exciting it was to get up in the morning and get to the office in the studio you know where it was just like what's going to happen today right now that you're in this band you're on this late night show

and then all of a sudden, I want to talk about your appearances in comedy because that really evolved over the years. Do you have your favorite memories of some of your favorite comedy experiences on the show? Oh, man. I loved it. Like what's one of your favorites?

Stuff that you don't see on YouTube, I guess. But there's so many. But I'm a sponge. And I suddenly, a couple of things with the comedy. I started doing out, you know, pretty outrageous stuff. I mean, I think IMAX Theater, which I think Michael Gordon wrote. Right. Where I did all the roles of a streetcar named Desire. Right.

They pre-taped it. so you were acting with yourself. I came out of being a drummer in a rock band. I'd never done anything like this. And one of the things that motivated me was I saw how hard, how incredibly hard the writers were working to come up with material. Right. And because my office was up there, and I'd see, I'd get there in the morning and there'd be writers.

Late, there'd be writers there. People have no idea how hard that job is to write comics. If they listen to this podcast, they do because we bitch and moan about it. All we do is complain. And I committed to every single

thing. You learn quickly. If you're on TV, and so I did it, what? Somebody once told me, you were on TV for 16 years, but because you toured, you were actually only there about 11. You do a couple of thousand shows. You learn very quickly that being on TV is totally being about airtime, camera time, and the visual. Because you're on TV.

And at first, it's a novelty. I mean, the first few months, it was like walking past an appliance store for me. You know, like you walk past a TV camera and you're on TV. And after a while, you know, because I'd stay up and watch, you know, 1.30 in the morning. And then I'd have to be up at 7 to get to New York on time. So it was all about quality, but it was also, from my point of view, I'm going to do the best I can, but I'm also going to make sure that I ingrain myself to not just be a drummer. I didn't push to do comedy, but people started writing funny things for the three of us. We started writing stuff for you. You were kind of a lusty, dirty, pervy kind of guy,

which is weird because you've never come across that way in the office. I would flirt with you. I'd get nothing back. You were very professional. Michael Gordon and I, I must say, but that's a whole other thing. It's hilarious that this persona evolved for you on the show,

where you'd kind of be... A creep. Especially when Sandy left. Yeah, we'd do stuff where you were kind of a creepy guy, and you had this great deadpan that really played well against you saying stuff that was, you know, less than family-oriented. Those are some of my favorite bits bits because it did play against type. And that's what makes it funny because you're not that guy.

But did you ever have to, like, was your wife, was Becky or friends ever like, why are they always portraying you as a creep on the show? Well, you know, when the kids got into high school and college. Right. Like, did you see what your father did last night? I know. But we're going to France for two weeks. That's a good comeback.

You got those creep residuals. Yeah. I still get in airports or when I'm out in public, people will come up to me. And now they're in their 40s, 50s. People will come up to me and ask me to do the stare. Wait, seriously? That's my selfie look. Oh boy. And I can, you know, and I, I've been asked, I do, I still do public speaking and I'm always,

right. How did that come about? The way it came about was in, you know, Andy left the show. And so one night, and it wasn't planned that I would take, you know, nobody can take Andy's place. Andy's hysterical. He's a great actor. He's quick. He's funny. And I didn't, you know, it wasn't my thing to do.

But one night Conan in the monologue, without telling me, turned to me and said something to me that needed a response. And I could not think of a thing to say, so I just said it. You're right. And it got a big laugh. Do that again. That was funny.

You know, don't play into my foolishness because, you know, just be above it. And he'd say, good show tonight, Max? I'd go, oh, terrific show going. Great. So I underplay everything, and it became a character. And, you know, I'm learning comedy chops from people who I consider to be the top in the field. And I'm not just saying that because you're looking at me.

Yeah, sure. Comedy is serious business. Yeah. We were tops in our field. We were just like, okay, just do the stare. Yeah. But you knew what was funny. Stare at the camera.

But it was also coming up with, you know, late night small talk. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've talked to, as recently as being back at 30 Rock this past Saturday to play on SNL. Right. I've talked to people who are still there in the executive suite. More suits. Well, yes, and creatives who, in retrospect, we caught the end of the golden age of late night talk TV. Right.

In those years, the landscape has changed. And when I think about the volume of material, I mean, of course, you have your standard, you know, hits. You have, you know, the Conan writers and Conan have, you have your Rosalita and Born to Run. Right. But you also then have the, you know, the deep cuts of comedy that you come up with.

Right. When I think back to, you know, Mad Max and all the pre-tapes and the critics were brutal. I must tell you a funny story about a critic. So about a third month, there was a party at SNL. So there was a sort of devastating review that came out in the Washington Post by a guy named Tom Shales. And part of the review mentioned me. And I looked, I read it. And I said, wow, he's right about me. It was strictly about me. And this one little line. And it was a party at SNL a couple months later, and he was there. And I didn't know him from Adam. But I, you know,

somebody told me that was him. And I went up to him. And I said, Tom, I read your review a few months ago. And I just wanted to, you made an observation about me that was really right. And it changed my entire perception. You got to bear in mind, I've never been on TV in a principal role before. And he mentioned that what I needed to change was let the camera find me. Don't do my big drum volley and look into the camera. Ah, right. You know, let the camera ah right you know let that let the camera find you right and i said yeah that's right the host looks into the camera right let

the camera find you whatever action it is so no one had mentioned that to me because i was like you know man max weinberg it's me it's me it's me that's good advice that's good advice very very good advice and nobody had told me that and you know again i'm making it up day to day i think as long as i'm an hour in front of anybody else who might say this so and i and immediately as soon as i read that i changed it and i never you know unless i was directed to look into the camera i never looked into the camera again. I love getting notes in your performance from a column in the Washington Post. And I thank Tom Shales. And Tom Shales says, in my entire career, no one has ever thanked me.

Oh, that's hilarious. Speaking of advice, this time has flown by and it's been great chatting, but we always love to ask our guests for one piece of advice they'd tell young people starting out in the business. And, you know, like you said, you've got a lot of show business experience. What's one bit of advice you'd give? Well, I would say look out for six foot five redheaded comic and need a band. That's the first thing I would say. No, you know, it's interesting. I was up at SNL the other night and you've got, you know, you've got interns up there who, you know, could be the, you know, much younger siblings of my children. Right. And everybody's looking for a shot. And my advice to anybody in any facet of really any business,

but particularly show business, is if you get your foot in the door, do everything you can. Be the first there in the morning. Be the last to leave. You know, if I had things to do, I'd be probably a little less perfectionistic, roll with it a little bit more. And that's an awesome aspects of my career, you know, because you you do want to maintain. And the most important thing is to be enthusiastic and never look at any.

I'm looking into the camera now. Any opportunity as beneath you, or it all goes on the learning side of the ledger. And when you're at a position, that position is the most important thing you're doing at that time. Don't look at it as, well, when I get done with this, I'm going to do this. Right. Don't look ahead. It may, in fact, be a stepping stone, but don't let it be a stepping stone while you're doing it. Let it have all your focus and attention and dedication. Because, I mean,

I'll be 70 in a few months. I've been fortunate enough to basically my entire, since the age of 23, have two jobs playing music. One with Bruce and the E Street Band and one with Conan O'Brien and his crew. And I can honestly say there wasn't a time when, whether I was doing comedy or sitting behind the drums or in rehearsal, where I didn't want to, as JFK used to say, move my thing along lines of excellence. That was something that I embraced early on. I was very fortunate to have the experience working with Bruce all those years as a child to learn from one of the best. One of the things, as I said, that I fell into, I did my bit musically, but I fell into a situation where I discovered I had abilities that I never knew existed. You learn on TV quickly to use everything, the props, the people, whatever. Jordan, he's one of the funniest people I've ever seen on TV. And, you know, the thing that Jordan,

and I never knew this, I always knew Jordan as a, you know, a very capable young guy who loved drums. A young guy. Who, you know, idolized Neil Peart, who would want to talk to me about drums and how I did this. He was an associate producer and I, occasionally he would, you know, do a bit. And what a comic genius, because he's, and he was also very, of course, erudite. Let's not throw the word genius around. I'm telling you, it's so, well, knowing him then, when he was in college, I guess. Right, right. And seeing the bits that you guys developed

yeah uh you know and i you know someone said you've got to see conan he's in cortona the chemistry between you know jordan and conan yeah it's amazing it's amazing and it you know it's like a whole other level uh it was the stuff we used to do when Conan and I would, you know, go to have a beer and we had nothing to say to each other. I'll tell you what I miss from time to time. I really miss the outrageous comedy stuff because it so took me out of my normal sort of world. Right. It's a good distraction. Yeah. And like, you know, when we do the PSAs and, you know,

a writer would come up with a PSA and have a particular reading. And I was very, very concerned that I would do it just as the writer wanted it to go down and do it until it was correct. And because this was a new, this was, this was like, it was like learning how to play the drums all over again. And it was something I really, really enjoyed, I must say. Oh, good. And you know what? Your advice is great. And you've said it throughout this interview.

Good advice, yeah. You were always saying yes, even when you didn't know, even if you didn't. I can learn how to play the drums by Friday. Yeah, you were a great improver. You were like, yes, I will see you in 48 hours with a band. I'm going to take a challenge uh you know you know but i what i said was you know it was very impressive to be amongst all of you who were coming up with the goods yeah you know it's fun it was new it was just new well it had to be new

because it was five days a week so it was there was no time to really take anything in, you know, in a way. Robot on the toilet, you know, the bear. The list goes on and on. It's endless. I kept, I have to tell you, I kept every pink rundown. Oh. What? Every single one.

Oh, my God. Of every show I did, which has all the crossouts and the notes and I saved them every day. Yeah. It's an amazing document because it's like the history of nineties and the arts television. Yeah. At TV shows and, you know, who's promoting this and the bits we did. So for me, it's a great database and it brings back terrific memories of having a second act in my life. Yeah. And I appreciate the hard work that went into what we did as a band with Jimmy, Scott, Mark Pender, Baba. Yep, you guys were amazing.

I thank you for the trip. I remember Elaine, guys. Yeah, thank you, Max. Our listeners are going to love these stories. They're going to love this. We only got to the first three weeks. I know. Yes.

And I just want to say, you know, you talk about the band. So many people who would come to the show would just rave about the band and how fantastic you guys were. And you would just blow the roof off the place every night. Yeah, really set a new standard. Yeah, you're an amazing part of the show. So thanks so much for talking to us today. Thank you. And that was Max Weinberg.

Thank you, Max. Yeah, we clearly didn't get that far into his career at Conan, but really funny stories from those early days. I like that he had to meet with Lorne Michaels. That was a crazy story. Yeah, I know. To have to fly to Los Angeles just so that Lorne Michaels can check your eyes. Ask him why he dropped out of law school. We have a fan question.

We do. This one comes from Ryan. And he says, hi, Mike and Jesse. Big fan of the podcast. Well, thank you, Ryan. Right back at ya. Thanks, Ryan. I love the interview with Brian Stack.

My question is, what's one of your funniest memories from your time on the show so far, either on air or behind the scenes? Yeah, that's a great question. That is a good question. It's nice to think about those things because that's one of my favorite parts of doing this show, is we get to think about fun memories we've experienced. You know, I have to say, and that's a hard one, because a thing I love about working on The Conan Show is how much we get to laugh all day.

Yeah. Like, I never take that for granted. I mean, sure, there's a lot of stress and a lot of deadlines, but then that's always leavened with tons of laughter. Yeah. Like, I never take that for granted. I mean, sure, there's a lot of stress and a lot of deadlines, but then that's always leavened with tons of laughter. Yeah. I don't know if I can pick one memory, but I do, something that stands out in my mind is, and you were there, Sweeney, so we can both talk about it.

Okay. Being in Berlin, when we went to visit the dominatrix in her sex dungeon. Oh, wow. It was remote where Conan was supposed to meet with the dominatrix. And we had really impressed upon her to play it real. So we were like, do your thing. This is a regular client. Please don't go easy on him.

Pretend the two cameras and the other writers aren't standing right there. Yeah. Inches away. But we did. We got to go in the sex dungeon, but we had to crouch down behind what seemed sort of like an operating table or something. It was a small bricked room. It wasn't that big. So we were barely out of the shot.

Yes. She was going at it with him. She went for it. She was like, take with him. She went for it. She was like, take off your pants and bend over, basically. She assumed we wanted her to bring him to climax. Yes. Because that's what she does. I think she wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

Oh, my God. And we were crouched there and looking at each other. I mean, it was so funny. And he was being really funny, but we also couldn't tell if he was, like, asking for help or not. Right. And we didn't want to jump in and cut the scene short, you know, because you don't want to. But we were like, is he being penetrated right now? I don't, there was no safe word.

So, we just didn't know. No. It was hard to tell if he was, like, actually screaming in pain. There was one break earlier on that when she put nipple clamps on him and he was like, okay, help, help. Remember, I think we stopped for a minute or two? Yeah. I think then we were like, okay, let us know.

Just scream for help. We didn't even have time for that conversation. She got right into it. Just right for help. We didn't even have time for that conversation. She got right into it. Just right in there. It was kind of like, shut up and let it happen. Yeah. Well, I also didn't want to, you know, infringe on his enjoyment of the experience either.

I thought he was going to love the nipple rings. Oh my God. I just remember being huddled there and looking at each other and trying so hard not to laugh, but also not knowing if we should actually save him from something he was going to have to talk about in therapy later. Right. And we should make clear that it all ended early in the process. We didn't. Yes. Believe me, I wouldn't want to be in the room for that either.

No, I don't think we'd be laughing about it now no yeah but she was so funny she was she was very intimidating and a real professional yes no wasted time with her no she she gets you your money's worth. Yes, you could tell she works by the minute because she was, no nonsense, let's get this done. He was incredibly brave. He was, yes. During all that. And he was still improvising and being really funny

despite, I think, being a little bit afraid of what was going to happen. Yeah. Like, genuinely worried about what might happen next. I mean, I think he knew it was a hilarious situation. Yeah. So he didn't want to mess with that. He was in leather hot pants.

All right. Thanks, Ryan. Yeah. Thanks, Ryan. And thank you, listeners. It's been so much fun doing this podcast. It's been a lot of fun. Yeah.

So I hope you enjoyed listening to it. Just a fraction of the amount that we enjoyed making it. Everybody stay safe out there. And I hope that 2021 is, you know, a little bit better. I hope it's better too. I was going to say it's got to be better, but I've learned never to ever say that. So let's hope it's a little teeny tiny bit better. And that would be great.

Thanks again. You know what? We love you. Oh, my God. Yes, this is a true season finale. Bye. Bye. Bye. Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast is hosted by Mike Sweeney and me,

Jesse Gaskell. Produced by Jen Samples. Engineered and mixed by Will Becton. Supervising producers are Kevin Bartelt and Aaron Blair. Executive produced by Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco. And Colin Anderson and Chris Bannon at Earwolf. Thanks to Jimmy Vivino for our theme music Aaron Blair, executive produced by Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at team Coco and Colin Anderson and Chris Bannon at earwolf.

Thanks to Jimmy Vivino for our theme music and interstitials. You can rate and review the show on Apple podcasts. And of course, please subscribe and tell a friend to listen to inside Conan on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google podcasts,

or whatever platform you like best. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.