The Watch - Rob Huebel Knows Where the Bodies Are Buried (Ep. 192)

Episode Date: October 6, 2017

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan sits down with comedic actor Rob Huebel to discuss his career in comedy; his new show, ‘Do You Want to See a Dead Body?’; and his renown sketch troupe with Aziz Ansari and Paul Scheer, ‘Human Giant’ (1:00). Later Chris chats with Joe Casey of the band Protomartyr about their new album, 'Relatives in Descent’ (49:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by White Famous. White Famous is a new Showtime original comedy about trying to make it in Hollywood, starring SNL Vet J. Farrow as Floyd Mooney, a comedian whose career is about to blow up, but he's not sure if he's ready for all that. Can he make it without losing his soul? White Famous is executive produced by Academy Award winner Jamie Fox and the creator of Californication, Tom Capanos. The show is based on Jamie Fox's real-life experiences and also stars Michael

Rappaport and Jacob Ming Trent. The two-episode series premiere is this Sunday, October 15th, at 10 p.m. only on Showtime, and you can also watch the hilarious season premiere right now for free on YouTube. Download the Showtime app now to start your free trial. I ain't sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at The Ringer.com. And today I'm all by myself, but not really. Greenwald's away. But we have a couple of people on the podcast today. The first

guest you're going to hear is a real fun interview I did with one of my favorite comedic actors, Rob Heubel. Now, I haven't watched Rob Hewbel since the Human Giant Days back in the mid-2000s, but since then, he's pretty much been in everything. And I'm not kidding. Like, name a show, he's probably been on it.

Parks and Recreation, Agents of Shield, Mindy Project, Archer, Bob's Burgers, comedy, bang, bang, drunk history, fresh off the boat. He is literally just like the zealig of television, the league. And, um, everything he's been, and then he's also done movies. He's been in Keanu. He's been in Baywatch. He's been in the house. This guy is just always consistently delivering. You probably know him best

recently as Len on Transparent. We talked about pretty much everything you can talk about from what it's like right now to be a working comedic actor in Hollywood and the shift away from movies to television and the shift from television to these strange digital spaces. Rob's got a new show coming out called Do You Want to See a Dead Body, which is premiering in November, on November 15th on YouTube Red. But you don't have to look very hard to find him. He is all over the place. You can see him, you know, Children's Hospital, obviously, for the last few years. So really fun interview with him. And then after that, I talked to Joe Casey from one of my favorite current bands, Proto Martyr. They have a new album that came out last Friday called Relatives and Descent. And we talked to him. He was outside of a venue in New York, I think. He called us up. And we just talked a little bit about his really, really, really good band. pro marters been around for a few years i believe this is their third or fourth album um it's one of their best it's like much cleaner and bigger sounding if you're not familiar with their work they kind of sound like a mix

of um and this is going to sound really like basic but they sound like a kind of if you like joy division if you like sonic youth if you like the fall if you like post punk like that you would definitely like this band and the thing that joe brings to it is this really really unique enigmatic literate, moody vocal style. And you don't really often get a lot of bands with just like the vocalist. It's usually a guy playing guitar and singing. So I talked to him a little bit about what it was like to be just a vocalist in a band, what it's like to shape songs, what it's like what role he plays in the production and writing. So two cool interviews today. Andy will be back next week, I believe. Might have not, maybe not for Monday, but I think he'll be back obviously. For Thursday,

we're going to be talking about Blade Runner 2049 next Thursday. But we'll have something for you on Monday. But today, Rob Heubel, his new show, Do You Want to See a Dead Bodies on YouTube Red in November? And Joe Casey from the band Protomartor, their new album, Relatives and Descent, is already out. Get that wherever you get your music. Let's go.

We're here with Rob Heubel. I'm really excited about this because I didn't, before I even knew you were coming on, I'd actually been thinking about this one moment from your career that it was very meaningful to me in a very strange way. And I went back and watched it on YouTube. It is the human giant

MTV takeover. Yeah. Ten years ago. So, you know, we're going to be spending a lot of time here in the studio. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, hey. Hello.

Who are you guys? Human giant? Where's our telephone? I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Where's Sway? Loder, those guys? Well, actually, we're taking over MTV for 24 hours. This is MTV, you know that?

Yeah. Sway's done here. We're screwing around. We're not. We have a studio, professional studio. We have a show on the channel called Human Giant. We're showing our show for 24 hours, having a lot of cool guest band. It's going to be really fun.

And that was in between the two seasons you did of Human Giant with Paul Shear and Aziz. Yeah. And looking back on that, because that was at this very nascent point in like watching comedy online. Like I remember I was like working at, I was still working at Kim's. I was working at Kim's in New York City. Oh, in the East Village? Yeah, on St. Marks. Yeah, on St. Marks.

I used to rent porn there. I really did. go in and I would act like, you know, like before, it was kind of before the internet, I guess. And, uh, uh, yeah, I would just like wander around and be like, oh, I guess I'll go in this back room. Yeah, that was a sketchy back room. So sketchy.

Yeah, it was like right next to the phone. What kind of person rents porn? I don't know, man. I think they had a pretty, pretty strict policy about like returns there too. It's like calling me on the phone. Where's our porn DVDs? They, uh, but I remember watching that. I remember watching like a video you did with the Zs where you guys were just like

reading internet comments. Yeah. And there was like, you know, college humor was kind of first starting up around. Yeah, it was all kind of happening around the same time. Do you have fond memories of that time? Was it? For sure, yeah. And for sure, also, I am very much aware that a lot of the things that have happened to me

are because I was in the right place at the right time. Yeah. You know, like that's a great example of, you know, we were making me, Paul Scheer, Aziz, We were making these videos with our director, Jason Wallner. Yeah. And just a show at UCB shows. We were just showing them at live shows and, you know, just for fun. And at that time, YouTube was just kind of, I think the internet was just kind of blowing up.

I think maybe my memory is bad, but I think like the Lonely Island guys had just done like dick in a box. Or maybe not dicking, but they were doing videos. And so things were just starting to kind of blow up online. and people were like really looking for content. And MTV was, of course, sniffing around UCB theater because there were a lot of really funny people there. And so we just happened to be in the right place at the right time. They saw some of the sketches that we did and they said,

do you guys want to do a pilot? I think at the time I was like 36. Yeah. To do a fucking MTV show. Like, I am not their demo, you know? So, but, you know, we just kind of laughed the whole time because we were like, let's just do this. let's make funny videos. Someone else is paying for it. There's no reason not to do this, you know.

And the really cool arrangement that we had was the guy that ran MTV at the time was this really cool guy named Tony DeSanto and he was a big comedy fan. And he didn't have any other comedy on the channel at that time. Not a lot, I don't think. And so he put us on, I think, specifically just because part of the deal was that we had to go every week and meet him in his office and pitch him all of the sketches we were going to shoot. And so that was like an hour of like fun. Like you got a kick out of it. He got a fucking kick out of it. And I think that's the only reason we got to do the show. I really do. Like, you know, he just thought that was really funny. And I think he was like, he kind of saw us as like a throwback to the old MTV where you could

kind of do whatever you want. That's exactly what I was going to say is that I'm nostalgic for you guys doing that. But at the time, I think I was I was like, this is kind of an extension where you'd be like on the ninth play of an Aerosmith video, then all of a sudden, like, Dennis Liery is standing in front of a burned out car talking about Christy Turlington or something. Yeah. It was kind of, it was just a really exciting time for us. And as you said, like, I always thought MTV was cool back when they would do crazy shit,

you know. And so that 24-hour marathon was a really ill-advised programming stunt, you know, but that was, I think, the way they set it up. Shear has a better memory than me, but I think the whole thing was that if we got a certain number of people watching, then we would get renewed for another season. Right. There's like a million, you guys needed a million hits or something like that, right? Yeah. So they allowed us to be live on MTV for 24 hours straight, which is a real daunting thing. So we basically got a bunch of friends of ours together and wrote a bunch of comedy sketches and bits booked a bunch of bands that we liked.

Mastodon. Ted Leo. Like just a ton of cool people. And then we just like took over the channel. And it was so fun. There were so many mistakes. Like so many things went wrong, but we just embraced it and kept rolling. There was a live audience there.

They were going nuts. We would go out on the street and do bits. And I don't think anyone watched it. Like I think the ratings, there were some really bleak statistic they told us that we got pretty good kick out of it. It was like, oh, the ratings on the 24-hour marathon were worse than the day after 9-11, something like that. It was like, it was like no one was watching because a lot of people didn't know us. You know, I was certainly, you know, in our, I'm out of their demo, but, but the people that found the show, you know, like yourself, like that's a cool thing

about comedy is like when you find something that you think is funny, it connects with you on like a personal level. And you're like, oh, this is mine. Like, this is mine. I'm I own this. It's just like with records or, you know, that's old terminology. But like with music, when you find a band that you like, you're like, oh, I fucking own that. Yeah. And I think that that was actually, there was an really interesting parallel happening. I guess that's sort of the end of it, but it was like in New York too at that time with the yeah-eas and the strokes and like these bands that were really cool that I think a group, like a generation of people really felt connected to. And the comedy felt like it was hand in hand with that. Maybe not necessarily, but just the

fact that Ted was there was like I was like what the hell like well it's interesting man because I think there are a lot of musicians that want to be in comedy yeah and then of course there are a lot of comedians that want to be in you know the ultimate job is to be in a band right like that's the ultimate job and then you know a close second might be being in comedy like this it's a it's a fun job you know you laugh and goof around with your friends you don't uh you know it's not anything like being in a band where you're uh you know destroying hotel rooms and you know hanging out with groupies or anything. Unless you Richard Pryor, yeah, right.

But so there's, there's, I think, a lot of sort of cross-pollination there. And we were kind of lucky at the very beginning for a human giant. We would go and do these music festivals. We would go to Bumbershoot up in Seattle. And we would go to, what's one in Tennessee? Oh, Bonneroo. Bonneroo. And so they would set up these live, you know, comedy areas.

And we would do shows down there and sketches and show videos and stuff like that. And so we got to meet a lot of these different people in cool bands and hang out with them. And, yeah, it's, you know, it was a fun time for sure. And what's the one? Did you ever actually watch all of it? I mean, obviously, I lived through it. Yeah. Because there's like clips of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't think you can, you know what? There was, we've had a weird thing. Everyone, at least once a day, someone on Twitter asks about the DVD for Human Giant season two. We were able to put out the first DVD. and then there was some sort of funky thing where they didn't want to spend the money to distribute season two DVD. And I can't remember it was some sort of bullshit accounting thing.

Like they had lost money on the show and so they had written it off. And so then if we went and sold a DVD and it had done well, then they couldn't write it off or something. Okay. Anyway, so there's never been a DVD out there of season two. I think the marathon might be on a DVD of season one, but I'm not positive. It might just be clips. I could be wrong about that. I wonder.

So Human Giant, it's like, I guess that's sort of one of those funny things where you just think of all these shows now that are just available at your fingertips. Yeah. But then there's still like these weird things that are on the margins that are just kind of like just out of. Well, I think what will happen is we've made a couple runs at them before where we've said like, look, it's 10 years later. Can't we just put this out, you know? And then every now and then, you know, we're all friends. And I think Aziz is mostly in New York. But Jason lives out here and Shearer and I hang out a lot.

So we're always like, you know, let's just take another run at it. And every now and then we're like, let's just, we have all the sketches. Like, let's just put it out. Right. Let's just us put it out. You could just upload. Yeah. And then what are they going to do?

They're going to come to my door and, like, take away my wife and child. Right. No, I think if you guys might ask outlast MTV at this point. Yeah. The reason I was asking if you had watched it is that when there's, when any, anything like anything like, that goes down and kind of like, that was this amazing thing. But like, what was the worst part about it? Like, do you remember, like, I have to pee so bad?

Well, I'm embarrassed. I'm sure that if I watched it now, I would be embarrassed. And I remember specifically being very embarrassed at the very end of it because I don't know if you've ever stayed up for 24 hours before. So it gets weird. Yeah, it gets pretty weird. And, you know, obviously, I didn't wake up and start doing the show. So there had already been a day. And then we started.

It's like 32 to 40 hours. It was a long time and something happens to your brain. And I remember, and this is embarrassing, but I remember at the end of it, we were sort of like wrapping it up. Hey, thanks a lot for watching, blah, blah, blah. And I remember getting emotional. Like, I remember getting like kind of choked up and being like, I just want to say. You know, and like someone had already wrapped it up. Like I think Shear and Aziz, they would send like, thank you very much.

Good night. And then for some reason I started crying. And I also want to say that it means a lot to me. You know, so that's embarrassing. Did you guys already know that you would get a season two when you were doing that? I think we did. Okay. So it wasn't like you were like this might be the last time.

No, no, no. It was a bit of a programming stunt. But a super ballsy move. And in the Museum of Television and Radio, I would like to have a little bookmark for us. That's good. Yeah, you should. Not only is it just like a cool time capsule of that time in New York and that time in comedy, but like just the people who are in it, it's kind of wild.

that that's like a, like it's an uncanny thing where you're just like every single person on this has gone on to do like amazing shit since then. Yeah. If you went back and looked at it and I don't remember now who I was on here, but we were just calling all of our friends. It was a lot of friends from UCB. And then we called in some favors from people that, you know, we're more famous. And, you know, we are not, I don't think of myself as a famous person. And at the time, Aziz, I don't think was that well known. You know, but we, so we were calling like, like John Krasinski came on and we were like, oh my God, John Krasinski and like Will Arnett.

We're like, oh my God, Will Arnett. Michael Sarah is on. Michael Sarah. That was a big one. Yeah. And so, you know, we were kind of getting some big names we thought, you know, but all of our friends at that time, we were all kind of at the same level, you know, Kroll and Brett Gelman and John Daly and, you know, a lot of guys.

But now people have just gone on to do really cool stuff and sort of assert their own voices, you know, and have just, you know, and it's fun to so many people from our world at that time because we were all sort of struggling, like fucking really struggling in New York to do comedy and make a living. So it's cool that like, oh, that group of people has all like done well and survived, you know. But yeah, man, it is something that I would be, I think, embarrassed to watch the whole thing. Yeah. But it would probably bring back some pretty cool, very hazy memories. Like I remember Riggle, Rob Riggle got like, crazy drunk. He was playing like a, like a really shitty security guard for us. Yeah. And so,

because we knew, like, it's right in Riggles' wheelhouse. He's super hilarious dude and such a good friend of ours and loves to do like aggressive, dumb guys. So we're like, oh, we'll make him the security guard that has to frisk people. And, um, but you know, like as the night went on, like he just kept drinking, kept drinking. It was like, I think at one point he was like frisking some kid and it got like a little rough or something. You know, he yelled at him. And People were like, whoa, take it easy, man. There was a lot of, like, pretending to have a gun stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

First of all, why is he smiling? Yeah, Cliff Carver is smiling. This is a real gun that is built to look like a hand. And if it's over your hand? It's a handgun. Don't kill me. We got away a lot of times, if you, not on the live show, but in our sketches, if we couldn't think of a way to end a sketch, we would just kill each other.

You know, there's a lot of, like, a lot of, like, you know, me killing those guys with guns. or, you know, shooting, exploding them or, you know, eating somebody or, you know. The, one of my favorite things about human giant, which I think kind of other, other sketch groups have sort of done this since then, but this was a big thing for me was, uh, they did really feel like short films too. Yeah. In a lot of ways. And they weren't just like, oh, yeah, we're just like making this up as we go along on the, on the stage. It was like they actually felt like these really cool little shorts that you were kind of piecing together. And, uh, it's kind of what I really like about this. the new YouTube series that you're doing is, do you want to see a dead body?

Which is like, not only do you just not know what you're going to get every time you watch one of these episodes. And it's the show it's coming on November 15th on YouTube read. But I was kind of curious whether that you like to mix those two parts of your brain, like the filmmaking side of it and the straight comedy side or pure comedy side. Well, for sure. And that's just kind of where I come from, I think. And so like, so the show I'm doing now, do you want to see a dead body is. you know, the, a hilarious show, but it's really dumb. You know, it's a really dumb idea. I shot these bits a long time ago for Funny or Die, where I took the idea is that I'm me and I take a

famous person out on an adventure to go find this dead body that I know about. Right. And so way back, you know, a few years ago, we shot one with like Ben Stiller and we shot one like Deepak Chopra. I don't know how we got him. And, and then some other friends of ours. And then, so then we were like, oh yeah, remember that? That was a funny idea. We should just, make that a TV show. And, you know, it didn't seem like something that we could necessarily make, like you can't make that into an hour show, but we could certainly make it a half hour, certainly make them like 15 minutes. So we decided to make them all around like 15, 20 minutes. But it's just a really dumb, silly idea. And that kind of came out of the, I don't know if you

ever had this when you're like hanging out with your friends. It was just kind of a lull in the conversation. And I used to just throw that out to be weird. You know, if no one was talking, I would just be like, Do you want to see a dead body? You know, just to be fucking weird And people are like, what? And people like, what did you say? And then, oh, nothing, nothing, nothing. You know, and then I kept doing that for like a couple years.

And then my friend Owen Burke, who works at FunnierDye, was like, you know, you should shoot that. Like, that's really funny. Hey, Ben. Hey. Hey, it's me, Rob. Rob. Yeah. How's it going?

How's good? How are you doing? Who are you talking to? Numb skull assistant, Reggie. Oh, Reggie's great. I'll call you back. Why are you in this part of town? I was trying to go to the.

the Laker game and, you know... Oh, you're not close. Do you know where it is? Because I... Hey, let me ask you a question. Yeah. Do you want to see a dead body? That's where it all came from. And so, yeah, so now it's evolved into this thing where, as you said, they're basically short films. They're all totally different. All the guests are different. You play different variations on you.

Kind of, yeah. You do, though. I mean, it's kind of the most of the funnest part is, like, the one you do with Cordery is different than the one you do with Justin Long. Like, you kind of have a different vibe in those. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and some of that is because in some of them, just in the writing of them, you know, you don't want to be the one, it's hard to explain, but like sometimes you just have to be the straight man, you know what I mean? So like, so if I'm, just in the writing of them, sometimes it's easier for me to make cordy funny than to make, like I can, I know how to write jokes for cordy sometimes it's hard to write jokes for

myself is what it boils down to. It's a really weird thing where I can, write jokes for you, but it's hard for me sometimes to write jokes for myself. It's just a weird thing. So in a weird way, it kind of helps the show because like... Do you mean specifically write jokes or do you mean even when it comes to like improving stuff? More like improvving stuff. Like I can come up with a funny situation and come up with funny words for you to say. Sometimes it's hard for me to come up with... It's a weird handicap that I have. So in some of the shorts, you can tell like, oh, I'm more like the straight person and they're the crazy one that takes over the whole episode, you know. And then another one's like, oh, I drive it more and they're kind of the passenger, you know.

Right. But yeah, so the show is basically just these sort of short films where it's sort of like that movie Stand By Me, if Stand By Me was funny. And shout out to Jerry O'Connell. But yeah, so, you know, no one ever asks, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, where the fuck, how do you know about this body? Right. It's always. It's always just assumed that in this world, celebrities have this morbid curiosity.

Yeah. And they will drop what they're doing and they will come along to go see this dead body no matter what happens to them. You know, however long it takes, however much it fucks up their day or whatever. So, you know, we were really lucky and got a bunch of really cool people like Terry Cruz and Adam Scott and Randall Park and John Cho and Cordry and Shear. just like all of our friends. Judy Greer, Michaela Watson,

Lil Rel. You shoot him around L.A.? We shot them all out in L.A. And we shot, there's so many great places to hide a dead body here, I find out. Yeah, we shot them all here in L.A. And, you know, hopefully we can do more of them and maybe we'll come to your town, listener.

Maybe we'll come to Austin, Texas, or wherever. Is this standby to me connection a just naked attempt to cash in on the Stephen King spike in popularity these days? Well, wow, good question. This was done way before we knew about the movie It and his current success. But I do, I will say, I went to see It with my wife recently. And I think that either I love his stuff, Stephen King's stuff, or we just love the same stuff

because there were some stuff in It that I was like, oh, no, that's in Dead Body. We do the same thing. Like, first of all, I love little kids on bikes going anywhere. Because I used to do that a lot. I don't know if you did that. But like, you know, I'd get up with my friends and we'd go back to the creek where there's like a dirt path and we just ride our bikes to the 7-Eleven. Yeah. And then, you know.

So that's like a source of cool, fun adventure and nostalgia for me. So I love all that shit. It's tied up in the E.T thing. Yes, for sure. Maybe if I just ride this fast enough, I'll sail past the fucking moon. Yeah. But so I'm a sucker for like, I'm a sucker for like awkward teenage male. bonding stuff.

Like, I love all that stuff. And there was some stuff in it where they're like, they get in a rock fight with these kids and start throwing rocks. That we do that in dead body. Me and Matt Walsh, getting to a rock fight with this guy. Have you ever been in a rock fight? No, we used to get in these fights where we had a big, like, walnut tree in our yard. So we would, like, throw walnuts of cars at night that would drive by. We're not good kids.

But, yeah, I just love all that sort of mischief and kids, like, like teenage boys fucking around. getting into adventures way over their heads. Like, I love that kind of stuff. You like Stranger Things? I do. I love it. Yeah, there's a lot of, so much stuff. It's funny, when we were shooting Dead Body, we got a call from some agent out here that said that the kid from Stranger Things. I think I haven't met him.

I think his name is Finn Wolfhound. Yeah, he's the one in it. Which is a one of the kids in it. Yeah. Which is the best name ever, Finn Wolfhound. So we got a call, I guess, from his manager or somebody. And they were like, hey, he's a big. comedy fan and he heard about the show and he wants to come do the show and we were like oh yes yeah

like this kid is already the king of kids on bikes and finding dead bodies and finding dead bodies yeah so he would be a great fit so we started writing one for him and then something happened and he got like a bigger movie it would be amazing if that kid was the one person who was like I don't give a shit about dead bodies yeah because I see him all the time in my day job yeah you know maybe in season two we might because we did a thing in the season where you don't ever recognize the the dead body is not really the, we don't dwell on that that much. You know, we don't like, you know, that's, the journey is really the main thing. Yeah.

And the adventure and all the kind of the fucked up stuff that happens to us and stuff. And then most people, when we get to the dead body, we write it in a way where like something, there is some sort of change. Someone has some sort of revelation. But we never did a thing. I always wanted to do a thing where we flip one over and it's someone that we know, you know. Yeah. I wanted to flip it over and have it be, you know, like Finn Wolf found within a great dead body,

Although a little morbid, I guess. To hear you talk about the even just like the idea of having this be an outgrowth from a kind of like funny joke you would play in lulls of conversation. And just even the way you describe it, it sounds like the, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the process from idea to execution is not particularly, it's like pretty quick, right? Or it's at least like pretty immediate. Like you can get what's in your head. You can go out and film something and then find a place to put it. Yeah, I think that's kind of where we are. are right now in the TV world, which is a really fun place to be, I think. And thankfully,

the YouTube Red people, you know, it's a new thing. YouTube's been around. Everybody knows that brand. And I think their hook is like, you know, with YouTube Red, I think it's like 10 bucks a month or them, but you don't get commercials. And now they're going to start doing these half-hour shows. And there's, like, you get a bunch of music. And anyway, I'm not trying to plug it, but I'm plugging it. But they were, you know, at the beginning, like Netflix, and Amazon, the only thing they have to offer to get people, to get creators to come there and do shows is like, look, you can do whatever you want, you know? So that's sort of the, that's sort of the place that YouTube read is right now where they're like, we want cool people to come do shows,

you can do whatever you want. No notes. We did not get notes. Like we were, because this show is crazy. I mean, this is a really crazy show. We're going to find a dead body. And that's a really fucked up idea. Yeah. And I acknowledge that. And it's a really, you know, a really dark premise. Fortunately, it's all, there's no violence or anything where like we're not killing anyone. We're just, it's just a treasure hunt, you know. But yeah, they just let us do whatever we want. And we, we, we, we, we, I wrote this with, you know, the people that wrote on the show are friends of mine. They're guys that I improvise with at UCB theater. And so they all know kind of, we all laugh at the same shit, you know. So we have a short hand with each other. And so yeah, so we were

able to crank these out and then, and then shoot them pretty fast. And then luckily, all of the comedy superstars that are in it, they're all really funny people that made it, you know, 50% funnier, you know, because a lot of times you're shooting stuff and you're like, oh, I think this is going to be funny. And they're like, what if I do this? And they're like, oh, fuck you. That's way better, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Does it take, how long do that each episode take to shoot, usually. Well, we had, we were on a pretty tight shooting schedule. We shot the whole season in about a month, I think. Yeah. So we only had like about two to three days per episode. And we shot it this past summer and we were mostly out in the valley. So it's like it was, I don't know if you remember,

but it was like a hundred degrees. So you'll notice in the show like I, you wear shorts a lot. I wear cargo shorts. If you're a fan of cargo shorts, you're going to love this show. We'll have more from Rob Heuble in just a second, but now a quick word from our sponsors. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Meteor Shower. This fall, Amy Schumer and Keegan Michael Key will make their Broadway debuts in Meteor Shower, a new comedy, written by Steve Martin and directed by four-time Tony winner Jerry Zax. They star alongside Tony winner Laura Benanti and Emmy nominee Alan Tudik in the story of two couples who meet up to watch, you guessed it, a meteor shower. But as the night unfolded,

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Does this like sort of new reality in terms of making stuff, putting it in lots of different places and just kind of like hoping people will find it? Is that exciting as a performer or do you ever kind of like I always wondered with it with like being an actor and being out here or even being a creative mind behind your own stuff? Like do you need the reliable mile markers to be like and now I need to be in a movie like this or now I need to be the lead of a sitcom or whatever? Does that kind of the wild west element of it, is it exciting or is it sometimes a little daunting? As you're like, what am I? Yeah. Well, wow, that is a multi-layered question and a great question. We should be smoking weed.

But I will say that I don't think that that's not how I look at my career anymore. You know, I used to think that if you, if I did this and then I did this and then I could step up to this, then I would get this. then I would get this, you know. I think that... Did you have a... And then I would get this as like... Well, yeah, certainly people that I looked up to that I was like, oh, I want to do, you know, I would love to have like Brian Cranston's career, you know, or someone like that, you know.

But I think that it's all changing because of... This is my theory, and you tell me if I'm wrong, but I think that it's all changing because of movies. I think that they're making fewer movies now. because movies have to now make money overseas. So if a movie has to make money in China, in India, and all these other places, that doesn't leave a lot of room for comedy movies because comedies don't travel really well.

Yeah. So what ends up happening is they make like Fast and Furious 8, and I would love to be in one of those movies, by the way, if you're listening to producers of those movies. But, you know, so there aren't a lot of huge international comedy movies. Right. So that coupled with the fact that the writers of movies have all gone to television. You know, that's why we're in the situation that we're in where TV is amazing right now.

There's so many fucking TV shows that are great that you and I don't have time to watch them. Like, I have good friends who when I just have to tell them like, hey, man. I can't wait to catch up with your show. Yeah, I tell them now I'm at the point where I'm like, you know I'm not going to watch it, right? And they're like, yeah, don't worry. I have never seen, they'll tell me. Like, I have never seen Transparent. And I'm like, that's fine.

You know, but like, there's just so many great TV shows. Do you just send them then like a highlight reel of just you from Transparent? It would give them such a weird idea of what Transparent was about. It's just a clip reel. Just the land highlights. All of my lines in Transparent. That's a great idea for a Christmas gift. Just a sizzle reel.

But anyway, so I think that, um, Because movies have changed a lot, there's kind of less focus on movies now. And I think it's sort of swung back to television where, you know, there's so much good writing in television. And now with all of these digital spaces, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, YouTube, Red, plug, plug, plug, they, there are, there's so much work to be had. So as far as, this is a long answer, I'm sorry, but as far as like how I perceive. receive myself or whatever, I am a believer in like, make good shit. Right.

You know, that's what I, I just, that's my, that's my thing is like, try to make what I can make to be funny. Like, I know what I can do and I know like my wheelhouse generally, you know? I mean, for me, in the past few years, I've been really lucky with Transparent to do something totally different, you know? And I'm also really lucky at this point to be able to do something as crazy as do you want to see a dead body, which is very much like a sketch comedy show or like you said, a bunch of short films. So that's a very crazy comedy, like, you know, bizarro comedy show.

And then I can go and do something like Transparent, which is like really, you know, a deep. Yeah. Like some really good writing. It's like 70s cinemas. Yeah. Yeah. And it really is saying something and changing, you know, the conversation in America. But so I'm lucky to be able to swing back and forth between things like that. but that's just kind of where we are right now. Like I feel like there's enough platforms.

And if you, like I said, I just feel like if you just make good shit, people will find it. I have no control over it. I have no control over whether or not people are going to see, do you want to see a dead body? It doesn't even sound like, like, you talked about Cranston.

It's not even like, they didn't think Breaking Bad was going to be Breaking Bad. It's kind of like, well, I mean, like, I think they had some ideas about it, but that's why like when you watch the first season of Breaking Bad, if you go back, it's kind of like a black comedy, Yeah, but you're right.

And it's sort of weird. And then, like, as I think when Kristen Ritter's character kind of becomes a bigger, it becomes this more of like a noir, like, descent into darkness crime epic. But you're right. You're right. I bet if we looked at the, the life cycle of AMC, because that was one of the first big shows for them, right? Like, you know, remember AMC just used to show old movies. Yeah.

And then they did madmen and people were like, oh, shit, what is this? Oh, my God. And then they did Breaking Bad. and then it was like, oh, we're off to the races. So now AMC is like this awesome thing. But, yeah, so I think that you just try to make good shit and people find it. I mean, same thing with, like, Amazon. Like, I don't think they were kind of floundering, you know, for a while with some of their shows.

And then I'm not saying that Jill Soloway, like, single-handedly put that company on the map. But, like, I think Transparent was one of the first things. I could be wrong, but I think one of the first things to really, like, connect with people. And I don't know how many people actually watch it. but the people that watch it fucking love it. Yeah. So I think that's what's important of those places is, you know, Netflix, they don't release their numbers. I don't know if that Amazon does.

I think what's important is that the people that watch it are like way into it. And so I don't know. That's just kind of my thing is like just try to make stuff that it's not for everybody. Like this show, do you want to see a dead body? It's not for everybody. Right. There are a lot of people that will be offended by that show. Five, seven years ago when you have an idea, like the one you're like, like this idea?

do you just try to be like so should this be like should we try to sell this to comedy channel as a satire of a cop like do you have to like think of it in a different way than you think of it now um you know you do kind of go through that because we did um we took it around a little bit to uh pitch it around you know to two different places and everyone kind of um you know all these different channels and uh places they all want to kind of put their spin on it you know and um and um and I think what appealed to me about YouTube Red was they just got it right away. Like we, um,

they, they, they had seen the old videos that we shot for Funny or Die. And they just kind of knew exactly what they were going to get. And they were excited about, um, getting comedy people to come to YouTube that wouldn't normally, you know,

we're not, I'm not a YouTube fucking, I've never done anything on YouTube. So they were excited about getting like outside people that, uh, to come and do something on YouTube, you know, and so,

Yeah, so they didn't alter the tone of it at all, you know, whereas I think other places might have been like, well, I don't know, that seems a little crazy. What if it was something like this? Yeah. What if, okay, every now and then he finds a dead body bill. What if he's like a reporter? Yeah. What if they're set in the 80s and their neighbors with the Goldbergs?

What, with that movie's theory that you have, which I really, really like, do you, I mean, you've been in Baywatch, you've been in the house. Like, you, you, you, you, pretty consistently stayed in features. But have you ever been a part of the, I don't know, like, necessarily the creative process, the pitching process of a feature idea and felt that pressure and felt that, like, look, you're not really, like, unless you can bring us, like, neighbors on a platter, like, we're not really in the business of buying comedies that are kind of, like, quirky and. Yeah, well, you mean, have I, like, pitched movies?

Yeah, or just, like, in the, and being part of, like, a group of people who are trying to get a movie made. And it's like, yeah, man, like, we'd love to do this as a feature, but, like, we have to, you know, the rock has to be in it. Yeah. Well, that definitely happens. You know, like I think I, I, me personally, I haven't pitched a movie now in a few years. I used to do that more. And but then, as I said, it just kind of became a different business, I think, where, where these studios, you know, a comedy has to be for everybody. Like, it has to be like, you know, moms, dads, young people, old people, black people, white people.

Asian people, Mexican people, Indian people, Chinese people, like literally everyone. And that's really hard to do. And I don't know that that's my strength. So, but I have friends that have, you know, tried to get smaller movies off the ground. And that was a trick a while ago. It's like, well, if you can get, you know, so-and-so, blank, you know, whoever, fill in the blank movie star, to come on and they'll be the lead of it. And then you guys kind of hang out with that person. Then maybe we'll do it. Right. Yeah. But. But now I think that the movies that, like, Friends of Ours are making, you know, like, Kumael made a great movie this year. And, like, Michael Showalter.

Michael, he directed that. He directed it, yeah. Yeah. And then Michael's making a lot of cool movies. And David Wayne makes cool movies and stuff for Wet Hot American Summer for Netflix. And so, but now, like, the friends of ours that are directing, Ken Marina, these are all people from the state, by the way, isn't that weird? Yeah. All the guys in the state are directed.

But, um. Latin lover, though. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. So I think that now, um, you can get, um, you can make cheap movies now. Yeah. Which is cool.

With just our crew, you know, we could get our group of friends and we don't necessarily need to have the rock, although we would love to get the rock. Yeah. Uh, he's great. Actually, he is super cool, like the coolest dude. Uh, please don't beat me up. No, he seems like a pretty sincerely. He's like, when we've written about him at the past on the site, like he'll retweet

be like, yes, brother. I mean, yeah, he really is like, I don't know how he does it. Like, but, because I, would be exhausted, but he's like, he's just one of those guys where, like, he is making a conscious effort to, like, be super positive and, like, connect with people and, like, really, you know, he knows that he means a lot to his fans. And he, and he is, just from my little stuff on Baywatch with him, he's the fucking hardest working guy in the room. And so if he's working that hard, everybody else has to work that hard. Yeah. I don't, why am I plugging the

Rock. The Rock's doing fine. We really hope it started GoFundby for the Rock's next next movie. But yeah, so your question can, so I think now you can make smaller movies. You can make a $2 million movie, let's say, or a $1 million movie. And then people will hopefully find it. If it's good, people will find it. It will go.

Someone will buy it in distributed. Amazon will buy it at Sundance and put it out there, you know, like that happens. Netflix will buy it and put it up. So, you know, I don't know. I don't know. If you make little movies nowadays, though, I don't know that it's ever going to, I don't know the last little movie that's other than get out. Yeah. Like I think you can still do that in the horror space. Yes. Yeah. Like the Blumhouse style, like five million budget. Yeah. And everything is profit pretty much. And that's like there's something about horror that you can do that. I think it's been a little while since a comedy. Like the hangover, I guess maybe. Well, that was a studio movie. Yeah. I'm just thinking about, yeah. I'm thinking about like a little movie. You know, like, like, Get Out, where that was like, whatever, like $5 million, something like, I don't know what it cost.

Did neighbors cost a lot of money to make? I don't know. I mean, that's, I think that was new line. I'm sure that was like, you know, I bet that was like we could Google it. I bet that was like, Gepron was in it. You know what I mean? Yeah. But I bet that's like a $20 million movie.

So that's a significant thing. That's more than like we could just, you and I couldn't walk into a thing and meet with some guy and get that kind of money. You know, like. So, I don't know. It's been a little while since a small comedy movie, I think, is, like, blown up. So maybe we're poised for that. That's interesting. Yeah, I was kind of wondering if, like, there will ever be a return to, like, I mean,

you and I probably grew up with, like, trading places. You know what I mean? And it's, like, big movie stars in a big movie star comedy like that. Yeah. I hope so. I definitely hope so. They got fun, yeah. Yeah, for sure.

But, yeah, it's weird, man. I mean, the other thing that's, like, disappeared. Sorry that this has turned into, like, what's going on in the movie business. You should listen to it. That's what this podcast winds up being every time. But it is fascinating that all of those middle budget movies, like, even like those drama movies or like thriller movies, you know, like just someone got murdered and ooh, what happened. Yeah, like a John Gershom movie. Yeah, yeah.

Like all that's gone away. Like everything now has to be a giant thing that can make money around the world, you know. Like, you know, all of those like 80s comedies that we could name. And like, you know, they don't make. those movies anymore. Yeah. You know? Because there's just not, why do that?

If you're, if you're a company, if you're a big corporation, why spend like, whatever, $30 million and get in make $50 million when you can make, when you can spend $100 million and make $700 million. Right. Exactly. The hunger games. Profit Morgan. So that's the.

You were talking about not being able to keep up with like even your friends work. But I was curious, just like it's, I just always like to ask, like, what do you've been watching recently? Like what have you, what's been kind of like your favorite thing you've seen this year? Wow, that's a great question. Um, well, we had a baby this year. My wife had a baby. I take credit for it. And so, so that was a big, uh, event, obviously. So I, I was in like kind of a a hole as far as entertainment for a long time. Some people like when that baby happens, it's like that's when they, they get their most viewing done. Yeah. Well, we're just kind of getting back into it. We, we, our baby, um, this is a different podcast, but our baby was very premature. Our baby came

like three months early. So it was like as big as this water bottle, let's say. And she's fine now. She's a year old now and she's super chubby and totally healthy. So if you have a premature baby, call me on the phone and I will talk you through it. I really will. My heart goes out to all those people. But anyway, so we were, long story short, we were over at Cedars like every day for, you know, for four months, basically. And then when we brought her home, you know, she was on oxygen for a long time. So we were stressed out for watching her. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we were watching the baby. Yeah. Um, so we were in kind of a kind of a hole, an entertainment hole. And so now she's all good and healthy and like starting to sleep through the night. And so now we're like,

you know, catching up on stuff. Um, and so I'm just like now, like, now trying to go through our DVR and like catch up on things. I watch weird stuff though. Like I don't know that I watch. I'm trying to think we've, we've just started going to movies. We just, we saw it. I love that. I've seen a bunch of movies. I saw that movie, is it called Good Time? Yeah, I thought that was really cool.

I've seen, blah, blah, blah, fuck. What are other movies right now? I've seen like a handful of movies that are in it. We just saw the trip, you know, Steve Kuggan. Yeah, yeah. Third installment of that. Yeah. We love those movies.

But TV, like serialized TV, I got to catch up on. Yeah, it's like, there's something, it's not even about like hours in the day the amount of shows you're watching. Sometimes it can just kind of like psychologically become daunting to be like, I know even, I want to watch this, but I know I have like seven hours of it just to get back to zero. Yeah. And you kind of almost feel like you're paying off a credit card when you're watching a show. I know.

I think, I think that's why, again, these are, this podcast should be called Rob Hewbell's dumb theories about television. But I think that's why Netflix has taken over the stand-up special. Like, to my understanding, like, they're kicking ass with that right now. I can tell you I watch 200% more stand-up. up now than I did six years ago. And I think part of that might be because when you turn on Netflix and you're like, oh, do I want to watch a 12 part, you know, one hour thing? That's a big commitment. Or I can watch 10 minutes of this standup that I really like, you know. So I think they figured that

out and got ahead of that. And so congratulations Netflix. Yeah. I mean, it's almost, I would love to read the, like, what the Netflix main menu page does to our brains. We're just like, man, this is so easy. It's almost like going back to having just CBS NBC and ABC. Yeah. It's like, I don't really want to choose. Yeah. And I can just hit Narcos and then like watch Narcos. How is Narcos? I actually really like Narcos. Amy Landecker is always trying to talk me into it and I want to watch it. I think I'm the same sort of thing where I feel like, oh, now it's... You can start at three if you want because three they go on to the, it's the not Pablo story. So the first two years, it's Pablo Escobar and then the third one is a different cartel. Okay. So you can either do one

in two or you can just start at three. Okay. Sort of like the wire. I can skip the season with the docks. Yeah, except unlike the wire, there's like a voice ever every 20 seconds to be like, this guy is this guy. And in case you didn't know, this is how you laundering money. Oh, nice.

Yeah, that sounds like a good show. All right, man. Well, I'll let you go. I'm really excited to talk to you today. I've been watching you for like the last 10 years. It's really cool to finally meet you. Dude, I'm so glad to talk to you. I apologize if I theorize too much on entertainment.

No, this is this place for it. Do you want to see Dead Body is on YouTube Red and? November 15th. Yeah. And you can see Rob Heuble everywhere, Transparent Season 4, The House, all sorts of stuff. Baywatch, go dial that up. Help Duane Johnson. Please help him.

Please help him. Thanks, guys. Thanks again to Rob Heubel for stopping by. You can see, do you want to see a dead body on 1115, November 15th on YouTube Red? In the meantime, you can watch them on Transparent Season 4 on Amazon. And if you have the time, I strongly recommend doing a YouTube rabbit hole deep dive on a human giant going back trying to check out that 24-hour marathon they did on MTV 10 years ago. Now we're going to get into our interview with Proto Martyrs Joe Casey.

And their new album, Relatives and Descent, is available now. Joe, so one of the issues that I wanted to discuss with you is that you've got this new album. Proto Martyr has a new album called Relatives and Descent coming out. We're recording this a little bit earlier in September. It's going to be out at the end of the month. And my major problem with the record is that I keep listening to the first song over and over again. It's actually become a block to getting the trajectory of the album. This is my favorite kind of opening song where it's just like watching a team open a game with like an 85-yard drive.

Sure. What was the thinking behind like, screw it, let's just do a statement of intense six minute opening, five-minute opening track? I guess because we're so smart. I don't know. I think it was because each album we kind of opened in a different way. And this one we just wanted to make sure that people were on board right at the beginning, like, okay, this is what the rest of the album is going to sound like in smaller forms. But here's the big one right off the bat.

Sometimes we do like a short one at the beginning or like a more moody one. This one we just wanted to come in. And yeah, yeah, go for the big bang right off the bat. Is a private understanding when you guys write a song that's like that that has these distinct almost vignettes within it, Is that a collection of, you know, pieces of other things that you guys are working on that get stitched together, or is it something that gets put, is it kind of born as it is? That one, Greg, the guitar player, had kind of a demo form, like a drum machine. So he had that all mapped out in his head. And that was, like, the first thing that he kind of brought to practice.

Like, I got this thing, that one. Yeah. And so I had, like, the different, like, stories and vignettes kind of in there. and then it was just a matter of like, okay, I got to cut some of this out and maybe put him in another song. Like I had like the talking horse from a... Does that stuff dictated for you when you're doing your lyrics and you're taking things in and out?

Is that dictated by things like rhythm or how many bars you may have to play with? Or is it... Does it have more to do with emotional content and finding stuff that fits together within the song? Yeah, I mean, a lot of times... I think I start way too wordy. I always kind of jammed too many words in

because I don't really, I don't do much to sing in. So sometimes it takes me a while to figure out, like, okay, it's way too many words. You have to do this song every night. You don't want to get up there on stage and tie yourself out. So why you cut some words out? Yeah, and then it becomes just trying to fit into the framework of the song and not to, you know, not ruin it too much with the words. Yeah, I was kind of curious because I, so I have this, this, this is, let me bounce this theory off of you.

I find that, especially around our office, you know, with younger, the younger people I work with, I'm turning 40 soon. So it's like, you know, I'll ask people and like, it does seem like younger music listeners have a little bit less of an, like, it's more rare for them to be like, I really like the lyrics by this artist or this band or whoever. Like, it tends to be way more feel and sonics. And I kind of have a feeling that that might have something to do with, they are listening to their music largely through streaming services. So they kind of are skipping around a lot. They're not listening to the same songs over and over and over again to repeat

so that they basically memorize the lyrics. Whereas a band like you, you guys, and especially with your lyrics, like that's the thing that I'm most immediately drawn to. Does that make sense to you? Do you think that the idea of being obsessed with the band's lyrics is actually something that's fading a little bit? Do you find that when you talk to people, they're like, oh man, like, you know, I don't always listen to lyrics, but I listen to yours.

Yeah, I mean, young people are stupid. We both know that. But I liked lyrics when I was young and stupid. Yeah, I think people would like lyrics. I think one of the things I'm finding out is that maybe people put too much, are a lot more vibees, they're into vibes and moods and things like that. But yeah, these lyrics a lot of times I think, I realize that I don't really listen to many lyrics. I know I miss hear things all the time.

It was my job is to come out with the lyrics. So I'm like, I should probably put some work into it and try to make it something interesting because, you know, if not, then I'm failing at my job. Right. I mean, I remember when I was, like, in high school and college, and I remember reading, like, some Stephen Malcolmus interview from pavement, and he was like, yeah, you know,

I basically just, like, scribble this out, like, five seconds before I have to do the vocals. And I was, like, devastated because I had essentially built my identity around these lyrics. Decoding the lyrics, yeah. Yeah. When you were growing up, were you a lyrics guy? Were you drawn to anybody in particular that you thought was like, oh, God,

this is what you can do with a song? Back in the day, you had to buy an album. You were stuck with that album. Yeah. And so you wouldn't listen to it. You know, like, you spend your money and be like, okay, I got, shit, I got to listen to this. So you would be forced to, but for me, like, young guy, when I was a young kid,

I really liked the Shane McGowan from the Pogues. Oh, yeah. his lyrics were really, like, made me think of, you know, boy, I can't like to be a drunk when I get out of, you know. But, yeah, later on, maybe different things like, you know, but I think it's the thing is that some of them can be made up right on the spot, and they're just as good as the ones that you sweat over and you look for the perfect metaphor for something, you know,

you know, sometimes just making noises is what the song calls for. Yeah. Screaming or, you know, repeating a word over and over again is just as good. Yeah, I mean, I was never, I, don't know why I would take that any of the wrong way when, when, you know, if somebody told you like, oh, they made up this guitar part before they walked in, you'd think, well, what an active genius. You're like a great improviser then, you know?

Yeah. Like, oh, it's so talented. For you guys, I'm curious with the way that you write music as a group, do, is there, is there a conversation at all about, hey, like, this is going to be the kind of tone that we're going for, or is there a pretty, is there a church and state division of, like, there's music and then you are just coming and you're putting like the coat of paint on it at the end. Or are you asking for certain changes or, you know, hey, I want a dynamic shift here. Or let's like, let's do this here or do that there.

Like how much orchestration is going on your end? I know nothing about music or things like that. So I try to keep my opinions to a minimum with the music because they can handle that business. The line I use a lot, I can sing over that. Or I think I can sing over that. That just means that, okay, I think I can do it. And sometimes, like, they'll come up with something like, that's great. That sounds awesome, but there's no way I can, you know,

or I'll say, hey, repeat that part again. That part sounds great. So, but that's about it. How opinionated are you in the studio, like, in terms of whether it's a mixed question or, hey, play that again, but do it this way? What kind of role do you have when it comes to being in the studio? Well, I would love to have total control. but in actuality I really you know

they know like physically you know down to like you know symbol sound you want but if let them do that you know they they got that you know I therefore they leave me alone with the lyrics they don't ask me like why do you have it this or they'll tell me don't make fun of this person

you know change the lyric but that's about it the last question they give me freedom I give them that's interesting it's a good division of labor it's like a nice nice split responsibilities the one thing I wanted to ask you before let you go is I think I mean this record is amazing people I mean I think it's I've always been a really big fan of the band but relatives is just it's such a huge huge album like it sounds like so it's like the perfect distillation of what I love about you guys I was wondering whether or not like you know because

like you see these like there's a lot of adjectives people use for you guys as music like glowering or gloomy or whatever is there a song on the album that actually unbeknownst to other people is actually about like Matthew Stafford or something like that. Right. Yeah. I mean, not like a whole song, but I definitely will throw in like in jokes that always make fun of our friend Matt Wilkowski, who's a drummer in a band in Detroit. And it's just like a thing that I do just needle them is like sneak in an insult on

him. And sometimes it's very obscure. And, you know, so I'm into one song I make fun of him because for the longest time he'd say he'd help me fix my roof, and then he just kept on putting it off and putting it off. So we recorded the record, and then, unfortunately, since then he was nice enough to fix my roof. Oh, no. I changed it live, but in the song, I just say, hey, you know, Matt Z. He still doesn't fix my roof.

That's good. It's great that it can be a living document of this guy living up to his word for you. Yes, yes. I'll honor him in song now instead of making fun of it. Okay, man. Well, I know that you're, you guys are just about to go play a show, so thank you so much for calling in. Joe Casey, the band's Proto Martyr. The album is Relatives and Descent. You guys should definitely check it out. Thanks very much for calling in, Joe.

Thank you. Thanks, guys. We'll be back on Monday. Until then, stay strong, Branskies.