The Indomitable Drew Hastings

The Slow Burn Of Comedy

The ever erudite and natty Drew Hastings has a comedic styling all his own. From the theatrical delivery of well constructed, personalized anecdotes to the stage-crafted silences and world-weary sighs, Drew merges the comedy of manners with the dramatic arts. This is one of the many reasons Drew recived a standing ovation on The Tonight Show.

Some people who are familiar with Drew from his many appearances on the Bob and Tom Show, as well as the ensuing Bob and Tom Comedy All-Star Tours, may be somewhat put off by the somewhat vitriolic rants that he is prone to go into on the stage. They are used to him spinning yarns about his Green Acres existence as a transplanted urbanite moving to a farm in rural Ohio. This is only one of the many faces of Drew Hastings. He is a comedic chameleon whose ever-changing stage persona just lends the audience a fresh perspective of his boundless creative talent.

One of Drew’s most creative creations is Jack Freeman, an alter ego of sorts who is a blending of a used car salesman, an infomercial impresario and a predatory scam artist. Jack Freeman, is almost diametrically opposed to everything that Drew embodies. Jack Freeman, the self-appointed financial guru, is a fast talking shyster who lets no opportunity pass without wringing it dry of any potential for a quick buck. Jack Freeman’s self-help seminar, titled The Business of Living, promises to show how money is all around, waiting for the right opportunist to step forward and wrench it out of the hands of the unsuspecting. Jack will demonstrate how a “Free Kittens” sign is just a road map to riches. He will share his winning philosophy on how to make yourself look like a winner by surrounding yourself with losers. As Jack says, “You don’t need the key to success when you know how to pick the lock!”

J.T.: Was the Jack Freeman character developed as a vehicle for you to bring more to the stage? To be able to say things that ‘Drew Hasting’ couldn’t or wouldn’t say?
Drew: Yeah, in a way. That character was originally a one-man show in Los Angeles called ‘The Business of Living’. It was put up in Los Angeles and it had kind of a cult following. It was popular in Los Angeles, but then I didn’t do a whole lot more with it. I put it on the Bob and Tom show and, well, it is how I was introduced to the show, actually. It got really popular on there and I didn’t do a whole lot with it for a couple of years, but it just won’t die. People always ask about him and am I going to do the character. Finally, technology caught up a little bit for the character because he’s the perfect character to download to your iPod, you know: A Minute Of Success With Jack Freeman.’ There are now outlets for me to put that character out there, excerpts, that really didn’t exist before. It used to be that the only way I could do that character is to mount a one-man show. So I’ve decided to do it at Wiley’s (Comedy Niteclub) to force me to work the character and … get into more subtle stuff, instead of the character being really one-dimensional, which is how it originally was anyway. It was more thematic, you know: the show was really about success and failure.

J.T.: Jack Freeman also works with the Bob and Tom Show format well. Do you ever have to alter your regular material to match the fast pace of the show?
Drew: Well, yeah. Sometimes it makes it hard to do the material, because my stuff isn’t set up/punch-line, set up/punch-line. But that’s also part of the reason why, overall, I’ve stood out on the show because so many guys do set up/punch-line set up/punch-line, joke, joke, joke and I just don’t tend to do that. Some of my stuff tends to be more personal and you tend to know me more as a person, my personality.

J.T.: When you were on tour with the Bob and Tom Comedy All-Star Tour, did you find it easier to be supported by four or five other comedians or do you prefer touring by yourself?
Drew: Well, that’s where I’m headed right now. I am doing a few Bob and Tom dates this fall, but I’ve been slowly, over the last year, cutting back on them. Because, as much as I love doing that tour, yeah, you’re one of five guys and I have been wanting to break out and do my own thing in the a theater for a while. I think part of what that Bob and Tom tour did for me was to introduce me to much bigger audiences that maybe weren’t familiar with me and saw twenty minutes of my stuff and now hopefully I can go back into theaters on my own and they’ll say, ‘Yeah, we’d like to see this guy do an hour’.

J.T. I just did an interview about two weeks ago with one of your tour-mates, Greg Hahn, and he made a real good point about the Bob and Tom Comedy All-Star Tours. He said that at least there’s a commonality between the audience and the comics on the tour. If it was just a slammed together tour, it wouldn’t have worked at all. I mean, you and Greg Hahn are like polar opposites in your comedic styles…
Drew: Right.

J.T.: …and had you just gotten randomly paired together to fill a bill, it would have been like when Hendrix opened for the Monkees.
Drew: Yeah, you’re right. You’re right…it wouldn’t have worked like that, and that’s why it has been so successful. You know, going off on my own, I’m not going to have that problem because there’s not going to be three or four guys there.

J.T.: Not since Jack Benny have I ever seen anyone utilize the pregnant pause as perfectly as you do. Is that a natural trait or something that you developed over the years?
Drew: That’s something I’ve developed over the years of performing. I like the theatrical aspect of performing. Not just getting up there. It’s not completely just knowing the words and let’s just say them. You know, I like the theatrical element, which is why I have done three or four one-man shows. I realized a while back…ten years or so ago…that when you’re on stage, there’s not just the words, but the silence that’s in between the words. The silence in between words or sentences should be utilized like the words are. So I started using silence as a tool, and it just worked for me. I mean, it wasn’t anything I specifically did. I’ve been compared to Jack Benny like that a number of times and that never occurred to me, that there was any particular style of using silences like Jack Benny. I never gave him any thought, really. That’s just how my use of silence developed. Maybe there’s only a few ways to use it and Jack Benny mastered it and that’s why there are those comparisons.

J.T. : One of the things I’ve heard comedians say is that comedy is a beautiful thing, but it comes from a very bad place. I’ve read your quote saying, ‘Comedy comes from pain and the best bits come from truth’. Does that approach ever leave you coming off stage feeling vulnerable or does it make you a stronger person by facing your fears?
Drew: No it doesn’t make me walk off stage feeling any kind of vulnerability…well, a certain amount…

J.T.: Do you think it’s like if you had a fear of heights and you went parachuting to conquer your fear. I’m very open with my writing, and a lot of people have pointed out that they could never reveal so much of themselves like that. I have always felt that you can’t use a weapon against me that I gave you. Would that mirror your outlook on that?
Drew: Well, yeah, though I would say that I have a fair amount of writing that I don’t bring to the stage because I think it will either be misunderstood or taken out of context. I have writings that, though I would like to do some of it on stage, I have writing that would make me look completely psychotic. I have writing that would make me look racist. I have writing that would make me look like a horrible misogynist/womanizer, maybe? I have writing that would make me look weak. Yeah, so there’s some of that stuff I don’t put out there because either the audience I’m playing to isn’t ready for it or…maybe it’s never ready for the stage. I mean maybe … some of the stuff I’ve done would be better off being done in print form. I’m kind of trying to do a book. At the same time, I said ‘taken out of context’, and in some ways you can tell a story better when you’re doing it on stage. Through silence, intonation and inflection, you can better tell people what it is you are really trying to say that you can’t in the written form. At least I can.