Chris Hardwick and Mike Phirman are a comedy duo known as Hard 'n Phirm. They just self released a comedy album called Horses and Grasses. That album contains the classic bluegrass Radiohead parody Rodeohead as well as the patriotic song American Dinosaurs, the self explanatory The Carbon Cycle and many more.
Hard 'n Phirm have been hitting many comedy and music clubs around the US and one of their biggest upcoming shows will be on May 13th at the Hemlock Tavern in San Francisco California.
Check out the official site of Hard 'n Phirm
Daniel Robert Epstein: How long have you been performing the songs that are on the CD?
Mike Phirman: Some of them weve been doing for a while. We started doing music together at UCLA back in 1993 but back then we were just doing horrible parodies.
Chris Hardwick: We found old playlists from our act in college and we did not do one comedic thing. I think people mistake recognizing something with comedy. We would cover things like Muppet songs in weird ways and college kids would laugh
DRE: Thats because they were high.
CH: Yeah [laughs] but there is also this weird thing of just mentioning certain things can get a laugh. Sometimes you can confuse that recognition factor with being funny.
MP: Its like when you sit around with your family going over memories and have a good time rather than trying to impress one another with new ideas.
DRE: The songs on the album are not traditional comedy songs. Its not exactly Adam Sandler.
CH: We always have talks about whether we did the smart thing. There is sort of a weird stigma against musical comedy so whenever we started to write jokey we would pull back. So at the end of the album we figured that the album was more weird than funny.
DRE: You guys made your comedy album too clever.
CH: Thats nice of you to say but to put it another way would be to say its too inaccessible.
DRE: Is the album being released independently?
CH: Yeah were doing it ourselves. This all came about when a couple of years ago we decided we wanted to start doing things together again. So I started bringing Mike up at the end of my standup and we would try stuff at the alternative places like the MBar or The Largo. Then we made this bluegrass medley of Radiohead songs which got downloaded like 300,000 times. We got all this internet attention but we didnt have anything to give them.
MP: Thats the time to give them your stuff.
CH: We decided to make more songs so we started doing that and performing them. As we were doing that we pitched the album to Comedy Central and a few other places but everyones attitude was that comedy albums dont sell and they dont know what to do with them.
DRE: I found out recently that comedy albums really dont sell at all.
CH: Well the Blue Collar guys albums sell.
DRE: Well fuck them.
Robert Smigel told me that the Triumph the Insult Comic Dog CD sold 150,000 which is like nothing.
MP: Oh my god!
CH: Thats actually good for a comedy album. Its weird because were starting to realize you need an outlet for exposure. If youre not getting radio airplay then all you can is tour. But by the time we were told comedy albums dont sell we had already done half the album.
DRE: How did your act go over at Aspen Comedy Festival?
CH: They were fantastic. Aspen is fun but sometimes you get this weird mix of apathy from industry people and very elderly Aspenites. For slightly different reasons they are both removed from reality. The industry people arent notoriously laughers and the older Aspenites are just listeners. A lot of times we felt like we would do a good song but it would get a tepid reaction. I think the older folks were trying to figure out why we were singing songs about dinosaurs. But overall people would come up and tell us they thought we did great.
DRE: Did you guys want to do this album to get it to the next level or just wanted to do something together?
CH: It was a combination. Its all part of the process because if you want to do more shows you need to prove that you can sell tickets and in order to do that you need a product so that people will know who you are and want to come see you. I think for us we just wondered if we could make an album.
MP: Rodeohead was just intended to be recorded because we had no idea how we would do it live. There are a few tracks on the album like that such as Funkhauser.
CH: We have put together a live band to do Rodeohead in the studio and then we made a video of them playing and we play along with it onstage.
DRE: What was the process of writing this album?
CH: The first few songs we were like We should do a song about patriotic dinosaurs or Mike would go We should do a Spanish love song. Then we would do it and perform it live in front of audiences that know us. Then we probably wrote the majority of the album in a six week period last year. We just crammed but Rodeohead took almost a year to make.
DRE: Why did that one take so long?
CH: Originally it wasnt a full time thing and Mike engineered and produced more of it. So it really was him finding time to do it.
MP: Also I had computer problems. The whole album was recorded in my apartment so you can imagine the problems I had. I would record one instrument or one voice in my hallway at a time.
DRE: Chris you credited with melodica on the album, whats that?
MP: Melodica is like an accordion that you blow into. Its an instrument with a keypad that you blow into. When Mike I first started playing at UCLA he had a guitar and I wanted an instrument that is portable and is a little silly. I found the melodica and Ive been playing it ever since.
DRE: What did you two study at UCLA?
MP: Philosophy.
DRE: Really? Hows that going?
MP: I think Im still in school, Im not sure.
DRE: Were you two the only funny ones in your classes?
MP: Actually we never saw one another in class. But there was a club on campus called The UCLA Comedy Club. It was basically a workshop group of comedians to go over what we were writing.
CH: We would flesh out bits and four or five times a year we would do shows in the dorms.
MP: I did bad music and Chris sang a lot.
CH: We sang an acapella version of Blind Melons No Rain. Again there were no jokes but I may have taken my shirt off a la Shannon Hoon.
DRE: How was jamming with Bruce McCulloch at Sketchfest?
CH: He was awesome. I didnt know what to expect but he was the coolest guy to work with. We did our set then he did his set then we came on and backed him up for a couple of his songs.
DRE: When it comes to comedy music hes a legend.
CH: Yeah and also hes very down to earth and self effacing. He was like I could really help you. Im a kid in the hall you know.
DRE: Chris, I saw your show Singled Out once.
CH: You were so moved by it you didnt want to spoil the memory of the show by watching it again [laughs].
DRE: When the contestants had to move up that line it seemed like the show was fixed, was it?
CH: It was real. You can get more in trouble cheating on a game show in this country than if you have heroin on you. The movie Quiz Show was not embellished.
DRE: Youre shattering my world!
DRE: Are you two committed enough to the concept to become something like Tenacious D?
CH: I think ultimately we would want to pitch a Hard 'n Phirm show. I guess Tenacious D is an institution now and seeing them live makes us realize that should be the way to do it. Although they are more hardcore and intense while we are softernative.
DRE: Whats the next thing youre doing?
CH: Weve been playing comedy clubs and rock clubs too. In a lot of cases the rock clubs go better because we tend to follow really serious bands and we come on with a slideshow with dinosaurs in it. But we have more shows coming up like The Punchline in San Francisco.
MP: The key is to get to Showtime at the Apollo.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Hard 'n Phirm have been hitting many comedy and music clubs around the US and one of their biggest upcoming shows will be on May 13th at the Hemlock Tavern in San Francisco California.
Check out the official site of Hard 'n Phirm
Daniel Robert Epstein: How long have you been performing the songs that are on the CD?
Mike Phirman: Some of them weve been doing for a while. We started doing music together at UCLA back in 1993 but back then we were just doing horrible parodies.
Chris Hardwick: We found old playlists from our act in college and we did not do one comedic thing. I think people mistake recognizing something with comedy. We would cover things like Muppet songs in weird ways and college kids would laugh
DRE: Thats because they were high.
CH: Yeah [laughs] but there is also this weird thing of just mentioning certain things can get a laugh. Sometimes you can confuse that recognition factor with being funny.
MP: Its like when you sit around with your family going over memories and have a good time rather than trying to impress one another with new ideas.
DRE: The songs on the album are not traditional comedy songs. Its not exactly Adam Sandler.
CH: We always have talks about whether we did the smart thing. There is sort of a weird stigma against musical comedy so whenever we started to write jokey we would pull back. So at the end of the album we figured that the album was more weird than funny.
DRE: You guys made your comedy album too clever.
CH: Thats nice of you to say but to put it another way would be to say its too inaccessible.
DRE: Is the album being released independently?
CH: Yeah were doing it ourselves. This all came about when a couple of years ago we decided we wanted to start doing things together again. So I started bringing Mike up at the end of my standup and we would try stuff at the alternative places like the MBar or The Largo. Then we made this bluegrass medley of Radiohead songs which got downloaded like 300,000 times. We got all this internet attention but we didnt have anything to give them.
MP: Thats the time to give them your stuff.
CH: We decided to make more songs so we started doing that and performing them. As we were doing that we pitched the album to Comedy Central and a few other places but everyones attitude was that comedy albums dont sell and they dont know what to do with them.
DRE: I found out recently that comedy albums really dont sell at all.
CH: Well the Blue Collar guys albums sell.
DRE: Well fuck them.
Robert Smigel told me that the Triumph the Insult Comic Dog CD sold 150,000 which is like nothing.
MP: Oh my god!
CH: Thats actually good for a comedy album. Its weird because were starting to realize you need an outlet for exposure. If youre not getting radio airplay then all you can is tour. But by the time we were told comedy albums dont sell we had already done half the album.
DRE: How did your act go over at Aspen Comedy Festival?
CH: They were fantastic. Aspen is fun but sometimes you get this weird mix of apathy from industry people and very elderly Aspenites. For slightly different reasons they are both removed from reality. The industry people arent notoriously laughers and the older Aspenites are just listeners. A lot of times we felt like we would do a good song but it would get a tepid reaction. I think the older folks were trying to figure out why we were singing songs about dinosaurs. But overall people would come up and tell us they thought we did great.
DRE: Did you guys want to do this album to get it to the next level or just wanted to do something together?
CH: It was a combination. Its all part of the process because if you want to do more shows you need to prove that you can sell tickets and in order to do that you need a product so that people will know who you are and want to come see you. I think for us we just wondered if we could make an album.
MP: Rodeohead was just intended to be recorded because we had no idea how we would do it live. There are a few tracks on the album like that such as Funkhauser.
CH: We have put together a live band to do Rodeohead in the studio and then we made a video of them playing and we play along with it onstage.
DRE: What was the process of writing this album?
CH: The first few songs we were like We should do a song about patriotic dinosaurs or Mike would go We should do a Spanish love song. Then we would do it and perform it live in front of audiences that know us. Then we probably wrote the majority of the album in a six week period last year. We just crammed but Rodeohead took almost a year to make.
DRE: Why did that one take so long?
CH: Originally it wasnt a full time thing and Mike engineered and produced more of it. So it really was him finding time to do it.
MP: Also I had computer problems. The whole album was recorded in my apartment so you can imagine the problems I had. I would record one instrument or one voice in my hallway at a time.
DRE: Chris you credited with melodica on the album, whats that?
MP: Melodica is like an accordion that you blow into. Its an instrument with a keypad that you blow into. When Mike I first started playing at UCLA he had a guitar and I wanted an instrument that is portable and is a little silly. I found the melodica and Ive been playing it ever since.
DRE: What did you two study at UCLA?
MP: Philosophy.
DRE: Really? Hows that going?
MP: I think Im still in school, Im not sure.
DRE: Were you two the only funny ones in your classes?
MP: Actually we never saw one another in class. But there was a club on campus called The UCLA Comedy Club. It was basically a workshop group of comedians to go over what we were writing.
CH: We would flesh out bits and four or five times a year we would do shows in the dorms.
MP: I did bad music and Chris sang a lot.
CH: We sang an acapella version of Blind Melons No Rain. Again there were no jokes but I may have taken my shirt off a la Shannon Hoon.
DRE: How was jamming with Bruce McCulloch at Sketchfest?
CH: He was awesome. I didnt know what to expect but he was the coolest guy to work with. We did our set then he did his set then we came on and backed him up for a couple of his songs.
DRE: When it comes to comedy music hes a legend.
CH: Yeah and also hes very down to earth and self effacing. He was like I could really help you. Im a kid in the hall you know.
DRE: Chris, I saw your show Singled Out once.
CH: You were so moved by it you didnt want to spoil the memory of the show by watching it again [laughs].
DRE: When the contestants had to move up that line it seemed like the show was fixed, was it?
CH: It was real. You can get more in trouble cheating on a game show in this country than if you have heroin on you. The movie Quiz Show was not embellished.
DRE: Youre shattering my world!
DRE: Are you two committed enough to the concept to become something like Tenacious D?
CH: I think ultimately we would want to pitch a Hard 'n Phirm show. I guess Tenacious D is an institution now and seeing them live makes us realize that should be the way to do it. Although they are more hardcore and intense while we are softernative.
DRE: Whats the next thing youre doing?
CH: Weve been playing comedy clubs and rock clubs too. In a lot of cases the rock clubs go better because we tend to follow really serious bands and we come on with a slideshow with dinosaurs in it. But we have more shows coming up like The Punchline in San Francisco.
MP: The key is to get to Showtime at the Apollo.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
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when i was 12