Today, I wanted to talk to Reggie Watts
about his many mind blowing Conan appearances.
(audience cheering)
(singing)
Know what I'm saying? (laughs)
(singing)
(cat noises)
Thank you.
And then wrap it up with one that
I think was extra special for me.
(music)
A lot of work goes into a short late nights
stand-up set.
Join me, JP Buck.
As I spotlight the comedians who came
up with some of my favorite concepts.
This is The Set Up.
Please welcome our really good friend, Reggie Watts.
(music)
There was a point in 2005, where I moved back to New York
left the industry for a little bit, and I was on the train
and I ran to a kid named Greg, who I used to babysit for.
And he said to me, he said
"you have got to go see this guy, Reggie Watts."
I saw him at pianos.
It's insane.
And one night I was at Invite Them Up.,
Here is Reggie Watts and Moby Dick.
I felt like I was searching for, I had like, I felt
like I'd left the business, but like you were sort
of the person that I felt kind of pushed me back to move
to LA again, to get back into comedy.
And that was like, when I came back
I was armed with the knowledge that Reggie Watts exists.
Oh, wow.
That's crazy. That's cool.
(music)
In 2011, you were backstage in the green room
and Kumail Nanjiani was back there.
And there was a joke that you two,
I don't know who said it or who responded,
who added to it, but there was a ups.
What can Brown do for you joke that you guys made.
You went out on stage,
you do this song that was about brownness.
And you - it was just something, I guess,
that was buried in your head
from an hour before then you had a song about it on stage.
Yeah. That makes sense.
This is a song that I wrote about brownness.
I do remember Kumail being there and
and it was just so cool to have him out there.
And when I was doing that, you know
that particular song, you know, knew - knowing
that he was out there, it was, it was kind of awesome.
Really. I remember that.
Yeah. Every show was so different.
Every show, like they're just like, they're
they're fleeting moments I feel.
Yeah. I mean, there, you know, it's just the nature
of improvisation and I, I love that about it.
And you know, I, I loved, you know, going on stage
and doing these, whatever they were in that moment
and knowing that, you know, unless they were recorded
there they, there they go, you know
these days I'm trying to, you know, do something
with those recordings.
But I mean, I'm trying to record things and try to see
if I can use them in other ways.
But, but back then, you know, performing live so much.
I just, I didn't have the, you know, the forethought
of bringing recorders and stuff, you know, I was just like
yeah, that's fine.
It doesn't matter. I'll just do it.
And people will hopefully like it.
(singing)
That needs to be a song.
I call in my iPod.
I haven't filed as warming the sugar.
I don't even know if that's what you were saying.
(laughers)
We used to say.
It's like warming the sugar.
Yes, indeed.
It's crazy. That's, that's amazing.
Yeah. What a trip to see that.
That song makes you so happy when I hear it.
It's such a cool, like throwback, you know
the vibe just feels like classic entertainment.
You know what I mean?
It feels like something that could have happened
in the last four decades.
Flash forward to 2014.
I really wanted you to work with one guitars
that you didn't know before and just have you come together
and see what you could come up with.
You remember this?
Do you remember me like trying to beg you
a few times?
And you're like, "no, no, no."
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was like such a, I was like, Oh no man.
But then like a last minute, I'm just like, yeah, sure.
And so Travis Stever of Coheed and Cambria
like his guitar soul is in the rock band video game.
That's how good get the guitarist is.
Yeah. Right.
And so he was in New York,
and he agreed, and I couldn't get ahold of you.
So I said, just get on a plane.
We'll make it work.
So he jumps on a plane.
And I wake up Sunday morning, and I get
I get a voicemail.
And it's Billy Gibbons from ZZ top.
All right. Billy FF Gibbons BFG your favorite buddy.
He had just gone down a rabbit hole
with his wife and watched maybe six or seven of your videos.
And he said, he was getting in his car and they were
driving to LA and he'll see me tomorrow morning.
So now,
Wow!
now there's a second guitarist
and you kind of have to work with him
cause he's like one of the greatest guitarists of all time.
Yeah. This is all coming back.
It's crazy
(music)
In rehearsals, various different rehearsals.
The song was about different things.
I think in the last rehearsal you used, you said something
about a horse just offhand mentioned a horse,
then suddenly the song became a four and a half minutes
(laughers)
and the story happened the perspective of a horse.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's true.
Yeah. I mean, it was just stupid, you know
like it's just like stuff happens
and it's so dumb, but you know, and it's, there's just
I always got off on the idea of having, you know
serious musicians, you know, dedicated to, you know
performing a certain way and, and
and in a certain vibe in a certain zone.
And then, and then
and then playing off of that in absurd way
but like doing it really since per relatively sincerely
but it's obviously about something very simple and absurd.
And so it made sense that, you know
the song is kind of a country sounding.
So I was like, Oh yeah, I'll just make it about horses.
(clapping)
(somber guitar music)
♪ There's a horse on you a long time ago. ♪
♪ I used to round around like horses do. ♪
♪ But when I heard the windy of the wind above. ♪
♪ I used to wonder what that horse was thinking of. ♪
♪ You keep trotting of. ♪
♪ You keep galloping. ♪
♪ You keep doings horses known to do. ♪
♪ But I see the way you, ♪
♪ And I feel the way of everything come true. ♪
♪ Everything I say is so I say so. ♪
♪ And I need to know your there for me, ♪
♪ Once, there for me, once again. ♪
Has there ever been a more beautiful country song
about a horse?
I don't know.
I mean, there's a horse with no name, but that's America
and I don't really think that's country, but.
No, no.
It is not country it's America on it.
(laughing)
It's funny.
It's like it came together so quick and you know
and here we are doing it
you know, it's, it's, it's, it's cool.
I mean, it's like, it's a, it definitely fulfills one
of the dreams, you know, that I, that I had, you know
at the time, which is to be able to come up
with an idea very quickly with people and then
just like put it together and just suddenly it's happening.
But it's, you know, plus the idea
of it being a little bit kind of more serious
in a way, you know, like it's, it's still funny, but it's
but I'm trying to be as sincere in that moment as possible.
It's funny that these two great musicians
we're kind of a little nervous
which I thought was, you know, cause
cause these guys were obviously like, here's the song
let's rehearse it, you know, over and over again.
And like, we barely like ran through it
like maybe three times, like the structure of it.
And so it was kind of, everybody was like, okay
well, we hope this works.
And that was the whole spirit of it.
It was, it was great.
What Billy Gibbons is doing next.
Like Billy Gibbons is, like I said
one of the greatest guitars of all time, iconic songs.
And he is just sitting
in the back and letting you guys do your thing.
And he just wants to add a little
like little flourish and he's got his steel guitar
and he just sort of does a little bit
of like texture to it, like right here, listen to this.
I love it.
(somber jazz music)
It feels like jazz.
Yeah. Yeah, it does.
Yeah, it is.
Yeah. It's interesting.
That's that's funny.
I remembering him doing that that's I was like, Oh, okay
he's going to do that.
Okay, cool.
(laughing)
♪ Did you tie the horse up to a post. ♪
♪ Cause if you don't know Slack Lynch's walk away. ♪
♪ Did you remember to give hay and water too? ♪
♪ If you don't, the chances are your horse ♪
♪ just might not survive the night. ♪
♪ And every time I try to put myself in a horses' shoes, ♪
♪ it hurts my feet, baby. ♪
♪ And I just wanna know oh. ♪
♪ Does it hurt when you run ♪
♪ over different forms of terrain? ♪
♪ And when you see that cloud cover breaking ♪
♪ some beam coming down, do you need to know how much ♪
♪ it can really break? ♪
♪ And this spearing of the love of the land. ♪
♪ I figure is the wind might be something, ♪
♪ Feel the power in your, feel the power in your tail ♪
♪ In your main, main. ♪
I'm just like watching it going like, Oh yeah, this is me.
Like trying to figure out where it's going to go next.
(laughing)
You know, like it was definitely a little bit more nerve
wracking than usual for sure.
Cause you know, you have these other musicians on the stage
you know that you've never played.
That I've never, I'd never played with.
And so I had a response, I felt like it was slightly
responsible to making sure they were, you know
everything was like together.
Yeah.
So that was, that was very, that was interesting.
It's definitely a different kind of performance.
(lighthearted guitar music)
(singing)
(audience laughing)
♪ I feel like it might change someday ♪
♪ And you know that it would carry us away ♪
♪ Wanna reach out but my hand might be dangerous cause ♪
♪ I've got a fresh and blowing mind ♪
♪ I don't wanna know ♪
The song is also very kind of like led zeppelin.
There's like Zeppelin vibe to it, which is kind
of interesting, but I'm just kind of noticing.
♪ And when you know this, ♪
♪ It's going to be a great day. ♪
♪ When you're galloping to the edge of a cliff with a ♪
♪ Buffalo yours to chomp. ♪
♪ And if you think about the tree. ♪
♪ You gotta know, you gotta know, ♪
♪ You gotta know, know, know. ♪
♪ Gotta know. ♪
(neighing)
♪ Know. ♪
(audience clapping)
(music)
Marty Yu says, he is an American treasure.
I wished my mind had 2% of Reggie's interesting ness,
except I couldn't wear all the sweaters as I am a sweater.
(laughing)
Well, that's saying a lot coming from a sweater.
(laughing)
I mean sweaters, possessed consciousness,
but it's, it's great to hear that, you know, all forms
of material reality are responding favorably to what I do.
Tharajan Gunendran, apologies for mispronouncing this.
I feel like all the audience members were scared to laugh
because they thought he was singing real jazz.
Come on, white people.
Fall it on anybody, any one type of person to not get
or get it.
It's really
I think it's about individual experience with them.
Wildest Wahoo says, I'm not even sure what just happened
but I could watch slash listen to Reggie Watts for hours.
That's sweet.
That's it?
That's the feeling.
You know, that's what I hope.
It's like I can do dumb, random things and you know
people will still want to hear that for some strange reason.
(piano sound)
Thank you so much.
This is awesome to go down memory lane.
So just stirs up a lot of great feelings.
It's great to see you.
And I mean, I miss,
I really do miss being able to do everything
everything that we used to do
but at the same time, I'm so happy
for how busy you become, how successful you become.
(laughing) it's just fun to watch.
And it also is also fun to kind of reminisce
about these old experiences.
You know, the whole experience
with Conan and the whole crew.
I mean, that definitely
that helped me get me to where I am.
So, you know, I'm always eternally grateful, always.
So you know, it's cool.
It took a chance on a weird dude from Montana.
Well, you're a part of our weird family, always.
Yes. (laughing)