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Music

One Time Eric Andre Tried to Give Tyler the Creator Acid and Viagra (and Other Stories from the Comedian's Musical World)

He also made us a playlist of what he listens to, and told us some great stories about music festivals and drugs.

If being a comedian doesn’t work out for Eric Andre, he’s got a fallback career as a wedding singer. Towards the end of our phone interview, I ask what music his character Mike on the FXX series Man Seeking Woman (also starring Canadian actor Jay Baruchel) would have on his iPod. Immediately, André begins to belt out the words to Cher’s chart-topping 1998 smash single: “Do you beeellliiieeevvveeee in life after love…”

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After singing a few bars, he throws in a spirited cover of Michael McDonald’s “What A Fool Believes” just to prove his repertoire of karaoke staples is deep. Although he’s best known as the host of Adult Swim’s The Eric Andre Show, his first love was music, graduating from Boston’s Berklee College of Music before selling his standup bass so he could move to Los Angeles and pursue comedy.

While you might find him listening to aggressive music before a taping, like Massachusetts grindcore band Agoraphobic Nosebleed or everybody’s favorite pranksters Death Grips, his hilariously unhinged talkshow has featured appearances from artists including Devendra Banhart, HEALTH, Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire, and more. He’s equally likely to shout out late jazz musician Ornette Coleman on Twitter as he is to star as a hapless romantic in a Heems music video. Before his standup set at this year’s NXNE music & arts festival in Toronto, we grilled the comedian about some of his favorite acts, and came up with an Eric Andre-approved Spotify playlist.

Noisey: When you get an artist or a band on The Eric Andre Show, do you write the skits for them to perform or do they come up with their own ideas? I know Tyler, The Creator has his own Adult Swim show, was he involved in the process?
Eric Andre: For the most part, we come up with the ideas, but the performances are what they make they own. [Tyler] came into it completely blind, I tried to give him a Viagra and a hit of LSD in the green room before we went out. He was like, “You know that I’ve never even smoked pot before? I smoked pot one time, and I took all my clothes off and I jumped out a window.” So then I said, “Well then you’ve GOTTA take this acid.” And he turned both the acid and the Viagra down.

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Of the musical guests, who surprised you the most with their willingness to do something crazy?
The guy who got us the quickest was Killer Mike in the first season. We did this skit where an opera singer had her own hype man and he’s like, “What do you want me to do?” And we’re like, “Just be this opera singer’s hype man and just shout out shit” and he got in one take. He’s like “Oh you just want me to spout out a bunch of offensive shit?” And he just nailed it.

If you could get anybody for Season 4 of The Eric Andre Show, who would you get?
Band-wise, I’d like to get Charles Manson, he put out an album and spent some time with The Beach Boys. He’s not an easy guy to get in the studio though.

You’ve been fortunate to do standup comedy at many large music festivals, what’s the best performance that you’ve ever seen?
I’ve been going to concerts since I was like 12, 13-years-old, so it’s such a dream to go backstage to see all the bands and hang out with all the bands. I saw Big Freedia at Sasquatch. I saw Swans at Coachella and it was super intimate, because AC/DC were playing at the same time, and they were fucking amazing.

What would your dream music festival look like?
Bands that I’m listening to now? I’ve fantasized about this for so long and now that it’s time to answer that question, where to begin? All my favorite bands are dead. GG Allin and Miles Davis are fucking six feet under. I love Death Grips, I love Venetian Snares, I love The Hospitals, I love a lot of the guys on Stones Throw, Peanut Butter Wolf, J. Rocc, and Knxledge. I love Pusha T, M.I.A., Big Freedia, what about Spank Rock? Remember Spank Rock? There’s a new band that I just found out about called Giant Claw, they’re fucking insane, I know absolutely nothing about them. I’d get The Stooges on there, maybe some Brazilian music, Os Mutantes…

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This festival’s going to be like a week long.
We’re going to need months. Cannibal Corpse…

Now that we have the technology, you could always get hologram performances for those artists who have passed away.
Oh yeah, perfect. We’ll get the GG Allin hologram to fight the Miles Davis hologram.

Did you attend Coachella the year of the Tupac hologram?
I was there. I took a Xanax, I went to the bathroom, and I got some fish and chips. I was so wasted that I talked to the fish and chips guy for too long and missed the fucking hologram. My friend said it was overrated.

When you die, would you ever want a hologram Eric Andre telling your jokes?
I want to be taxidermied, have robotic parts put in my taxidermied corpse, have my teeth sharpened into fangs, and my eyeballs replaced by wolf eyes. Then I can fucking snake man dance around the Smithsonian Museum in D.C.

What’s your opinion on today’s streaming music services? Are you a Spotify guy or do you use Rdio or a combination of a few different ones?
I just have Spotify, I have no loyalties.

What about TIDAL?
I don’t even know what that is.

It’s Jay Z’s new music streaming service, but it’s supposed to be pretty expensive…
If Jigga Man wants me to be on TIDAL, I’ll be on TIDAL.

Finally, what’s the most embarrassing song that you’ve ever caught Jay Baruchel listening to?
He doesn’t listen to music, he just listens to the sound of children crying on his Walkman.

Max Mertens would like more interviewees to serenade him over the phone. - @Max_Mertens