Interview Rian Murphy of Drag City and People Under The Stares

Chicago based indie label Drag City Records is one of the most well-respected and enduring record labels going. Drag City has worked with artists including indie rock godfathers Pavement, 60s crooner/latter day experimental god Scott Walker, and doomy psych rockers Om. Over the years, the label’s expanded its catalogue to include media beyond recorded music, including comic books documenting the adventures of its flagship group, Royal Trux, and bird calls emblazoned with a slogan that celebrates the existence of transsexual harpist Baby Dee.

In 2007, Drag City expanded its reach even further and entered the live comedy game with People Under The Stares. It’d worked with comedians like Neil Hamburger and Fred Armisen in the past, but had little comic experience otherwise. Running for a few months at the Near North Side dive Weeds before relocating to The Hideout, People Under The Stares brought in Zach Galifianakis, A.D. Miles, Paul F. Tompkins, and Bonnie “Prince” Billy in just over a year’s worth of monthly shows.

Nearly four years later, Drag City is bringing back People Under The Stares, kicking off its second series tonight with a show featuring Todd Barry, Neil Hamburger, and Brendon Walsh. The A.V. Club spoke with Rian Murphy, head of sales at Drag City and one of the creative forces behind (and MC of) People Under The Stares, to learn more about the Drag City’s unique approach to comedy show production.

The A.V. Club: Could you start off by giving a little background information on the show?

Rian Murphy: Sure, we wanted to be involved in a comedy series, so we put together this idea for People Under The Stares. It was really a whole other world than we’re used to, and that was awesome. We went around Chicago and checked out a lot of stand-up guys who were operating at that time, and we had them on the bill.

Part of the way that we wanted to make it stand out was to have a house band who would play intro and outro music for the comedians. It’d be hosted much in the same manner that many of the comedy shows are, so it would be something that was recognizable and yet different, and we could also tap into the music community a little bit.

AVC: What led to the end of the first series?

RM: I think we did it for about a year. We started over at Weeds and ended up at The Hideout. We had some really great nights that were very funny, four guys a night and, you know, a little music before, after, and in between.

People seemed to really enjoy it, but booking it once a month was work. In addition to all the work that we were doing here at Drag City, after a year, it was like, “Well, maybe we should not do this for a while and see how that feels.” Obviously it felt alright, because we did that for a few years, but the need for comedy and laughter hasn’t abated in the last couple of years, in our lives or, I would imagine, anyone’s.

So we talked about doing it again and realized one of the challenges we’d face would be that most of the guys who were here when we were scouting the town in 2007 had moved on to the twin poles of comedic attraction in the country, Los Angeles and New York. Many of them are well-employed with larger concerns than ours on a regular basis, which leads us to believe that we had a nice instinct for things that people find funny.

So here we are doing it again. It’ll probably be a little different this time, but we’re working on it.

AVC: Why bring it back now? Was there one event, one last straw that made you decide to bring it back in 2011?

RM: Not necessarily, I don’t think so. It was really more a case of having talked about it for a while and finally getting off our asses to do something about it.

AVC: Will the old tropes from the first series, things like the house band and your MC character, return?

RM: Series two is gonna be a little more varied in that way. This first show that we’re presenting is not going be hosted, there’s not going to be a band—it’s going to be Neil Hamburger and Todd Barry, and that’ll be enough.

I think the people who want to laugh at those guys are going to come out, and the other things that we might be capable of doing, we’re going to do at another time, not at this one.

This time we may just try and be involved by helping promote shows that have talents that we like, and we also may try to get together, on occasion, a more complete, subversive style of entertainment, the way that we did the first time around. That’s a wait-and-see kind of a thing.

AVC: Just For Laughs Chicago is coming up soon, have there been any plans to make use of the influx of big names in town during that week?

RM: I’m not quite sure what the plan is, but, as is the case with South By Southwest, Just For Laughs is such a thing all of its own that sometimes it’s best just to let the big monster have its candy. We’ll come back when nobody else gives a shit, and we can own the thing that we’re trying to do all for ourselves at that point.

AVC: Despite being a record label, Drag City has released books, sketchpads, DVDs, and stand-up albums in addition to LPs and CDs. Do you see the label as more of an avenue for releasing any sort of art that piques the interest of the staff?

RM: Yeah, that’s mainly because that’s what we’ve done. I mean, last year we released Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers and promoted it in, like, 50 cities. We eventually squeezed a CD out of the thing, but that was far outside our realm of expertise and what we’ve known ourselves to do over the years. If something is fun and entertaining, we have a staff of people here, and we can put something together, and that is the goal. That’s the goal, for sure.

AVC: There’s definitely a Drag City quality that many people associate with your releases—you know it’s going to be special, or, at least, different.

RM: Yeah, or disgusting. [Laughs.] We want to stand out in that way, and never particularly the same way every time, hopefully. A lot of that is dependent on who we’re working with and who we choose to work with.

We’ve managed to keep things relatively diverse. I mean, in the beginning, we were called “the lo-fi label,” and then for a long time we weren’t, and now we’re doing a Sic Alps record, so we may have come full circle. As long as people aren’t sure what to call us, I think that’s best. In the case of the comedy series, hopefully they do call it funny.

AVC: Are there any favorite comics (local or national) in the Drag City office that you hope to work with?

RM: Well, we’re still working on that. Like I said, the turnover in this town has been relatively complete. So we’re just going out to shows and watching people’s sets and seeing if there’s something there that is interesting to us, which is the way we did it the first time. We’re also trying to get advice from people who are seeing more comedy per week than we are.

As far as someone from out of town—until we get them on the plane and get them their hotel room, I wouldn’t want to say any names. Last time we had Fred Armisen and Zach Galifianakis come in; those are some big names. We had a lot of funny people from around the country that are still working, being funny in one way or another.

If we’re going to continue to do this and have guys like Todd Barry, who’s also amazing, the goal is to try and hit high and low, and that’s what we’re going to do, without naming names. Until we can actually say “this one is for real…” You know, we’ve got to get past their agents first. [Laughs.]

AVC: People Under The Stares seems loose enough of a setup that you can pretty easily experiment with the show’s form. Has there been talk about any new approaches to the show during this series?

RM: One of our shows the first time around featured writers from the old Harvard Lampoon. We had them each do a monologue about their historical reminiscences, and followed it up with a big Q&A. We did some shows that had comics with music, but we also did a show that was more like a college class.

I would imagine the next thing we’d have to do would be more multimedia focused. If we’re going to keep it in the realm of The Hideout, which is a nice, wonderful place to have an experience like this, there’s only so many things we can do. Obviously, there’s not going to be live fireworks or zoo animals or anything, but if we found a venue where we could do something special, the sky’s the limit.

It would be interesting to have some video stuff, or puppets, or something like that. If someone is doing something good with that kind of thing, then we’ll be involved.

AVC: The Hideout’s definitely one of the better venues in the area, but I could understand having to move on to a larger room to accomodate a show with a huge draw.

RM: That’s definitely something we’d have to look at more, but comedy is a funny thing. Keeping it in an intimate place guarantees that you’re not going to ever have a problem filling the place, or, even if you haven’t filled it, making it look okay.

There were a couple of nights where we didn’t draw tons, and then there were nights where we sold the place out. The goal is to get at least somewhere in between.

If someone did come on and say that they wanted to do the show and it was going to be a slam dunk for 500 people, we would see what we could do, but it’s definitely a nice thing to do shows in a small room where everyone can see and be seen.

As I said, we’re keeping our eyes open for different ways that we could be involved this time, so it could take strange and unprecedented forms.