KEENE, NH – Reggie Watts isn’t entirely a comedian, and he isn’t totally a musician either, but he combines both of these mediums to create an entertaining experience. This artistic approach has garnered him a worldwide fan base while also having him make appearances at various festivals and television shows, even at one point being the bandleader for the CBS late night talk show “The Late Late Show with James Corden.” Live performance has always been the foundation for his creative output, and people in Keene and the surrounding areas will get to witness this live in person. That’s because Watts is performing at the Colonial Theatre in Keene on January 31. The show starts at 7:30 p.m., and it’s being co-presented by the local non-profit collaborative arts initiative Nova Arts.
Get your tickets to see Reggie Watts with the link below:
Watts and I had a talk ahead of his performance about a recent special he put out, being part of late night television, and how he doesn’t know what he’ll do on stage until the day of a gig.
Rob Duguay: You just released a new special back in November that was done at the Berghain in Berlin, Germany, so what was the experience like? From watching it, you told all sorts of stories, including one about Berlin being a home for wizards during the 1600s, and you had a random audience member who you connected with via email jump on stage and perform with you during the latter half, so was this a very spur of the moment thing or was it more planned out?
Reggie Watts: I’ve been wanting to do a special in Berlin for a long time. I originally pitched it as “Reggie Watts Live From Berlin” around six or seven years ago with J.J. Abrams and we were trying to do this as a concept special. No one went for it, so I sort of left it, but then my ex-girlfriend kind of resurrected the idea of doing it again, and we figured that we could do it at the Berghain. I thought that would be great, so we asked the club, and I had performed there once before. They were like,”No, we don’t do filming, we’ve never allowed film,” and then the day of the show, I was going to do a show there anyways, we had a film crew ready to go and they gave us permission to film, which had us totally shocked, so we scrambled to get all of the equipment and then we shot it that night.
RD: Very cool. Do you have any preference between performing in a nightclub versus performing in a theater, like you’re going to be doing at the Colonial?
RW: I do love theaters, theaters are really fun, but sometimes they can be kind of big and impersonal in a way. I guess I would say that a small theater is my favorite, or a contemporary performance space, because I like it when it’s a little bit more intimate, but bigger theaters are cool as well.
RD: Your approach to being an entertainer is very unique where you’re a one-man variety show. You’ll sometimes play a keyboard, you’ll utilize a looping machine, you have effect pedals for your microphone, and you’ll do voices of certain characters while telling stories. You do all of these different things while on stage, so what would you say is the main inspiration for your approach?
RW: I was doing music during the ‘90s in Seattle, and the band I was in, we had a couple rounds of interest from major labels, but it didn’t quite materialize. No record deals or anything like that came from that, so after going through those few rounds, I started wondering about my future and how I was going to make a living. I had done comedy in high school and I kind of got back into it through being part of sketch comedy groups and just being a lover of comedy. Then I was introduced to some comedians from New York, people like Eugene Mirman and the guys from Stella, and I had befriended them when I was in the city, where I started doing music and doing their stand-up nights as well. That’s what made me realize that I could make a living doing this.
RD: You’re very talented, so it’s awesome that it worked out for you in that way.
RW: Thanks.
RD: No problem. From 2015 to 2023, you were the bandleader for “The Late Late Show with James Corden,” and the band was originally named “Karen,” but then it was switched to “Melissa.” What was it like being part of this late night TV show? What would you say is your favorite memory from this experience?
RW: I loved being able to put together a band that I thought was cool and I really got a lot of leeway in my role. I got to do whatever I wanted and that was pretty amazing, so I’d say probably my favorite part was being able to be myself and do things the way I wanted to do them without much interference from the showrunners and things like that.
RD: Awesome, that’s great. For the upcoming show at the Colonial, what can people expect from your upcoming performance? Also, what other projects do you have going on that you’d like to mention?
RW: What can people expect? I have no idea. It’s all improvised, so it all depends on what I’m feeling that day, what I’m exposed to, and so forth. I just kind of listen to the room, and that’s going to tell me what to do. As for what I have coming up, I’m working on possibly doing a podcast that’s in the works, and I’m going to be doing some music and a new record with an electronic music legend out of the United Kingdom named Craig Richards. I also have tons of touring going on.