Currently on a European tour, the extraordinary one man looping machine that is Reggie Watts speaks to Emma McAlpine.
Describing Reggie Watts' comedy to someone who's never seen him before is fairly tricky. Put plainly, he uses loop machines, a piano, and a multi-octave vocal range to create a funny and trippy sonic journey. His sets can be silly and clever, absurd and insightful. Labelling himself a 'disinformationist', he likes to disorientate his audiences through a set of constantly shifting personas which can see him jump from a spot-on cockney accent one minute to a looping beatbox a capella the next. As his friend, the alternative comedian Eugene Mirman describes his talent: "It's amazing and unlike anything you have ever seen. Unless you have seen a comedic stream of conscious operatic beat-boxing marvel. Then it's like that."
Growing up in Montana, music was clearly always going to play a big part in his life. Having learnt to play the piano and violin at the age of five, he went on to join numerous bands with genres ranging from fusion to heavy metal, punk rock, grunge and jazz. It was while on tour with the avant-garde jazz band the Wayne Horvitz 4+1 Ensemble in the late nineties, that he started experimenting with looping his voice. Trading in his 'old school' Roland Space Echo box – a big, temperamental effects machine – for a lighter Line 6 DL4 delay modeler, he found he could create all sorts of new sounds. "I realised it had this loop function so I started putting that into the music," he says. "The basic principle of looping is very simple but it took me a while to figure out how to do different things with my voice and the machine."
So how did he end up doing solo comedy performance? It seems like a surprising route for him to have taken, considering how much time he devoted to his bands. He tells me it's not as unexpected as I might think. "It's actually what I used to do in high school. My drama teacher used to let me improvise in class instead of learning lines and it's very similar to what I do now, accents, music that kind of thing. I've always been good at getting laughs." Having mastered the Line 6 to the point where he could improvise whole songs from scratch, he began to add comedy to his routines, blending improvised material with beatbox loops.
In 2004, when it looked like he was going to struggle to make a living out of music, Watts moved from Seattle to New York to focus fully on a comedy career. It turned out to be a shrewd move. Its rich alternative comedy scene, populated by the likes of Eugene Mirman and Kirsten Schaal, was the ideal place for his unique ideas to flourish. Ten years later, he has toured the world, performed on The Conan O’Brien Show, won a coveted Andy Kaufman award for original comic talent and released a DVD (Why $#!+ So Crazy?) for Comedy Central. He’s also, randomly, performed at Brian Eno’s daughter’s birthday party, after Eno met him at a festival. "Reggie is a man of towering genius,” Eno has said about him. "With a very weird haircut."
Even when he's speaking normally on the phone, Watts has the kind of voice you could listen to for hours, a kind of slow Midwestern drawl, every so often punctuated with a soft chuckle (“hehehe”). I ask him how he does such a good British accent, which can vary from the Queen’s English to nasal cockney. “It’s a product of watching a lot of PBS (Public Broadcast Service) as a kid and observing people when I’m in London. I try to watch some British shows when I can; recently I’ve been enjoying Little Britain which I know is old news to you guys. I love the British sense of humour though.”
His extraordinary vocal talents and an eclectic circle of friends have led him to some interesting musical collaborations: he's worked with Russian anti-folk singer Regina Spektor and LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy to name but a few. I am particularly intrigued by the latter as the track he made with Murphy, the nu-disco stomper ‘Spaghetti Circus’ (DFA) was one I listened to again and again in 2009, and at the time had no idea he was the vocalist on. “I've gotten some comments about that but it's all quite under the radar. It was really fun making it and I didn't know what was going to happen with it. I know that it sold and people listened to it but it’s kind of a weird hidden thing.” It shouldn’t surprise me to find out Watts collaborated on a dance record: with his soulful voice and machine skills, he’s an obvious choice. “Are you interested in making more dance music?,” I ask him. “I would love to,” he replies. “One of my favourite forms of music is techno. I have some experience with it and if I found the right producer I would happily do a dance project.”
The interview draws to a close, namely because Watts has just flown in to Antwerp from New York and is beginning to sound a little tired. I ask him one last question: if he enjoys improvising to challenge himself as much as his audience. “I improvise because it's a lot easier than writing material and memorising it,” he laughs. “I like to remain open. Sometimes it goes down a weird path but usually a lot of interesting things happen. You’ll see on Monday. Hehehe”
Reggie Watts is at the Roundhouse on Monday 23rd January, at 7pm
Photo: Wndy Lynch Redfern
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