Ryan Coffey - "Live & Stupider" :
Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2011
By Lisa Dib
Clearly Melbourne comic Ryan
Coffey
is a man of ingenuity. As well as a rockin’ beard. The young musco
(musical comedian… I’m trying to start a lingo… is ‘musicomedian’
better?) is currently performing as part of the 2011 Melbourne
International Comedy Festival in his debut solo show, Live and
Stupider.
But don’t let the name fool you - Coffey is no
dunski. Time to find out a little more about the man with the beard,
and the guitar, and the loop pedal, and the comedy show that brings it
all wonderfully together.
People
are gonna feel really bad if they don’t come to your show...
I’ve
been doing clinical trials at
the Alfred to pay for my Comedy Festival show… seriously. I’m testing a
high blood pressure medication. So they should feel bad!
No, I’m helping science and my fellow man. All while making sweet coin.
And
growing a sweet beard too!
I went to Perth and I was in a bar; it
was full of twenty-year olds and I was the only dude in there with a
beard and this guy came up to me and said, “You’re that guy from Kings
of Leon, aren’t you?” and I’m like, “…. yep. You got me” (laughs)
…
Though, I went to the Grace Darling [Melbourne] the other day and mine
was one of the smallest beards in the room. It seems like these days,
it’s the bigger and bushier and stupider it is, the better.
Well,
that’s beards out of the way. What about your comedic life history?
This is my first solo show, my sixth festival. I started out with the
Melbourne Uni Comedy Revue in 2002 and 2003 and then did another show
in 2008 with another sketch group. I did impro shows the last two years
with the Baby Seals, an impro crew.
I did Raw in 2008. Sammy J is a good example of the kind of career I
would like to have; I don’t wanna go into radio or television or
something like that, I just wanna write good shows and take them to
festivals.
What is
life like for an entertainment hybrid like yourself; not quite a
stand-up, not quite a straight-up musician?
When I first started, other comedians were trying to suss me out:
“You’re doing it ‘cause you’re a musician who’s just fucking around”
but I see them as different things. I’d love to play music but I’m not
that good a musician. And I’d love to do straight stand-up, but I’m not
that good a stand-up, so you combine the two and you’ve got yourself a
show.
I want my songs to be good enough to be proper songs; I can’t write a
serious song… every time I try, it ends up having dick jokes in it.
Speaking
of dick jokes, is there a boundary of which you will not cross in
comedy?
There are so many different schools of comedy that they differ heavily
on where to draw a line : South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt
Stone maintain that everything is okay to poke fun at or nothing is;
similarly but in contrast, UK legend Ricky Gervais, known for some
outlandish jokes himself, is of the mind that there are limits and
context is important.
Do you
draw a line anywhere?
There is limits… everything is free game but it has still gotta be
funny. You can make jokes about anything but they’ve gotta be jokes,
they can’t just be mentioning things like incest or paedophilia, things
that are classically not funny subjects, just to get a response.
Your
comedic ethos at the root of your career is simple yet true
You’ve gotta be confident enough, but
not arrogant, and you’ve gotta be fragile enough, but not breakable.
So with
the Big Issues tackled, let's move onto the funnies. Tell us about your
new show, maestro.
I used to just play guitar and sing songs, then I got a loop pedal
which allowed me to build up; I can put in different layers of sound
and big, elaborate kind of noise… and so, it’s me but bigger and
stupider. I didn’t wanna have a pun; I mean, my name is Ryan Coffey,
for f**k’s sake.
I wasn’t gonna go down the “Heyyyy… a little bit o…. black Coffey... in the
morning” or something stupid like that. And I’m no good at making
coffee puns, clearly.
The show is really a showcase of what I’ve been doing the last three
years… and how it’s evolved. But there is a fairly strong theme of
brutal honesty that I tend to find amusing.
It’s mainly music but the idea is that… I’m like the member of the
Black Keys that never really made it in the band so he kept writing
songs with dick jokes in them. I think.
Ryan Coffey - Live
& Stupider : BUY
TICKETS
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