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Comedian, Dave Hill, adds podcaster to his ever-growing resume

December 24, 2018 10:45 am

Dave Hill, a jack of all showbiz trades, gets recognized on the street fairly regularly but not exactly for his star power.

He is describing these encounters to a guitarist named Mrs. Smith, and guest his podcast,“Dave Hill’s Podcasting Incident.” People come up to him not knowing his name, but having seen him before… somewhere. They’ll say something like “’You were on one of the channels as I was trying to get to something I really wanted to watch,’” Hill says leaning into the microphone. Mrs. Smith nods.

“My own dad has done that to me,” Hill adds. “He called me and was like, ‘Oh I was flipping through TV and you were on some TV show. So, I stopped and watched it for a little bit. I thought that was kind of neat that I could just happen upon you on TV while I was trying to find something to watch.’ Then there was a pause and he just says, ‘wasn’t your best work.’”

The self-proclaimed “z-list celebrity” produces his show much like any other amateur podcaster: he unplugs his refrigerator. He endures frequent interruptions from his dog, Luci. His one-bedroom apartment in New York’s West Village doubles as a studio.

The podcast is the comedian, musician, actor, radio host, and author’s latest undertaking. But podcasting isn’t the first place he’s made a name for himself—in fact, right now, it may be where he’s least established in the entertainment realm.

While Hill, 47, is a celebrity of the lowest rung, by his own estimate, you’ve more than likely seen, heard, or laughed at him at some point, somewhere in the last decade.

With a head of cropped, shaggy dark hair and a closet full of notables including velvet jackets, scarves, floral ties and broaches for performance nights—and jeans and a plaid shirt paired with striped socks for “undercover Dave” days around the neighborhood, Dave Hill is everywhere.

He’s made appearances on Comedy Central’s “@midnight” and “Inside Amy Schumer”, TBS’ “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee”, Amazon’s “The Tick”, TV Land’s “The Jim Gaffigan Show”, Netflix’s “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”, and TruTV’s “Comedy Knockout” and starred in his own reality comedy television show for one season (2007-2008): “The King of Miami”, on the Mojo Network. He’s performed comedy live around the world in clubs and at festivals like SXSW, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, and Bonnaroo. And he’s formed three bands: Valley Lodge, Painted Doll, and a comedy Norwegian black metal band: Witch Taint. One of Valley Lodge’s songs has become the theme for “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”. There’s more: he’s also written two books: “Tasteful Nudes” and “Dave Hill Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and has written for publications such as GQ, Vice, The Paris Review, and Salon.

This mix of commitments ebbs and surges. He never fully concludes a project, even if he has to let it go. “It’s like the classic Dave Hill move,” says Hill. “The band never breaks up—the band just never plays again.”

The problem, Hill says, is that he continues to take on any project that he thinks is a good idea.

“Sometimes I think, ‘I bet if I would quit fucking around and focused on one of those things I would make a ton of money,’” he says. “I just really like doing a variety of things. They all work out to where I make a nice living.”

His apartment’s decorum, which could be called maximalist, reflects his work life. Multicolored walls are filled with posters and memorabilia, a Napoleon figurehead candle sits on the mantle crammed several brass animals, reading glasses and more. A trio of metallic rabbits below forms a silent zoo. The bathroom doubles as storage for Luci’s dog food.

Hill’s interest in entertainment and the arts started when he was growing up in Cleveland. He liked drawing, then investigated other mediums.

“I wanted to rock out, and so I started playing the guitar, and then I came to New York and went to Fordham University,” says Hill.

He began to realize his rock star ambitions after college. His band released a record, an MTV video and actually had songs on the radio. Ultimately though, the band lifestyle fell apart and he returned to Cleveland to paint houses and live with his sister, a journalist. She noticed his talent for writing and encouraged him to take a job at The Plain Dealer, where he quickly realized that what he cared about was whether if the editors left his jokes in, and decided he wanted to do that full time.

After consistently submitting jokes to a “Crash Test”, a show on Spike TV, Hill landed back in New York City writing full time. He eventually auditioned for the show himself, but the network deemed him too strange and volatile, which he took as a compliment.

Now, the inspiration for the podcast comes from Hill’s love of talking to and learning about people. Growing up, while reading Rolling Stone and other magazines, he noticed he was more interested in the ordinary daily activities of musicians than in show business itself. On his show, he and his guests—musicians, artists, actors, writers and others—let the conversation flow.

Hill started the podcast in 2010; it became part of the Maximum Fun Network. After starting a radio show, “The Goddamn Dave Hill Show”, on WFMU, it went on hiatus.

“I enjoy cornering people in my apartment and asking them questions for an hour straight before insisting they leave,” said Hill in a press release from Chris Gersbeck, his friend and producer. Gersbeck encouraged him to resume the podcast and offered to help. “I knew it was time for Dave Hill’s Podcasting Incident to rise from the ashes like a damn phoenix or something,” said Hill.

With Gersbeck as producer, Hill is managing to keep up with his other commitments: he has another book in the works, Witch Taint is releasing its first full album, he’s playing gigs with Valley Lodge while performing at comedy shows around the country.

Isaac Mizrahi, the designer, Project Runway judge and cabaret performer, did a show with Hill at The Django, a speakeasy feeling bar in the Roxy Hotel in TriBeCa last month. Though the two share an agent, they had met only a few times.

“It was a real pleasure working with someone so incredibly smart and hilariously funny,” Mizrahi said afterwards in an email.

They performed separately, then sang a duet in the Roxy Hotel’s speakeasy-feeling club before the fairly intimate audience. Hill, drawing from his personal life, scored with the jokes he told—including jokes about attending church with his father.

“I learned a lot watching him do his set,” said Mizrahi. “I noticed how intensely concentrated he was and how beautifully detailed and deeply autobiographical all his material is.”

Balancing his commitments and putting work towards each is something that comes with his personality. A trait that Gersbeck, who Hill met on the comedy scene, admires.

“Dave is definitely one of the funniest and silliest guys I know, but his work ethic is truly inspirational,” said Gersbeck over email. “I truly don’t know how he manages to do all that he does. He’s also very sweet and kind to younger comedians.”

Hill and Gersbeck have launched a Patreon, as many podcasters have done, so that listeners can support the show but really don’t expect to net much.

“The primary goal is always to have fun and be entertained personally but that can only get you so far,” Hill says. “Then you want people to listen to it and want it to grow.”

For him though, the highest form of success has been recognition from his personal heroes like Dick Cavett.

“Like, oh man, maybe I’m not absolute garbage if my heroes think I’m doing an okay job,” says Hill. Nothing, he adds will ever compare to Cavett, Hill’s idol and host of the Dick Cavett Show, acknowledging him and treating him like a friend and colleague. They’ve done a show together, interviewed each other and even made a six-part web series.

Nothing beats that.

“Even with millions,” says Hill. “Though the millions would be cool.”