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Rock and Rolling In the Aisle
Singer-Comic Jimmy Fallon, Man of a Thousand Voices
By David Segal
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 6, 2002; Page C01
Jimmy Fallon had tried the banjo, the clarinet and the piano before he finally bonded with an instrument at the age of 13. That's when he acquired a red Fender Phantom, an electric guitar that became his musical soulmate. The two were so inseparable, he eventually had to ditch his guitar teacher.
"I quit because my teacher's armpits stank, actually stank of BO," Fallon says. "He would use my guitar, and then when he'd leave I'd have to wipe it down with Lysol. My pride and joy."
Fallon mastered his six-string well enough to make it the centerpiece of a comedy act, which he's been refining for years in clubs and, more recently, as a cast member on "Saturday Night Live." Now he's about to release "The Bathroom Wall," an album of dead-on musical impressions of acts like U2, R.E.M. and Counting Crows, all recorded at a live show, along with a handful of goofy original rock songs recorded in a studio. Sunday night Fallon came to Washington's 9:30 club to open a brief three-city tour meant to push the CD and spread the word about his upcoming gig as host of the MTV Video Music Awards.
"We're calling it the 8-29 tour, because August 29 is the day of the VMAs and the tickets on this tour are all $8.29," Fallon says, chatting backstage and sipping water before showtime. "That way nobody can say, 'Hey, this ticket cost $30 and you sucked!' The drinks cost more than the show."
Fallon offstage seems much like the gracious slacker he often plays on "SNL," with occasional flashes of focus when he ruminates about his career. He's wearing a red T-shirt; his hair, which is usually as unruly as a fern, is cropped to military shortness. He comes across like a grown-up version of the high school cutup who barely graduated because he was too busy refining gags to hit the books.
That persona, along with Gap-ad good looks and a self-effacing smile -- not to mention an anchor spot on "Weekend Update" -- has turned the 27-year-old Fallon into a campus heartthrob. If the 9:30 crowd is any indication, his fan base skews heavily to 20-year-old women who yell "wooooooooo" a lot.
They laugh a lot, too, especially when Fallon gets to his signature bit: an audition to write a jingle for a new line of troll dolls. The setup allows him to rampage through a dozen impersonations, including U2, 4 Non Blondes, the Dave Matthews Band, R.E.M. ("Oh no it cost too much, I don't have enough," he sings, reworking "Losing My Religion") and Coldplay ("I bought the troll for you / The one you wanted was blue / They only had yellow," he sings, overhauling the band's hit "Yellow.") The fun of all this doesn't translate on the page because it flows from Fallon's uncanny grasp of other voices -- a grasp that often highlights the mannered piety of the originals.
On Sunday, Fallon also did some music-free stand-up, which focused on the quirks of college-life topics, like the mini-fridge, roommates and fake IDs that don't look anything like you. "You can never ask your friends if it's cool because they just want to drink, so they'll just tell you it's cool," he said. "They're like, 'Let me see that -- oh, yeah, you got a good one. Yeah, this'll work, this is going to work. Just trust me, wear the turban.' "
Near the end, a curtain parted to reveal drums and amps, and Fallon and three musicians donned matching striped sweaters to play a set of novelty rock numbers. Each satirized or imitated a genre. "Snowball" spoofed Nirvana by using the grave, aggressive chords of grunge to recount some December antics: "Turn around and didn't see / 15 snowballs coming at me!" he sings just before loosing a Kurt Cobain howl.
You get the sense that Fallon wouldn't mind rocking for real, since his songs are less overtly zany than most Dr. Demento fare. But finding humor in rock is what Fallon has been doing for years. Raised in Upstate New York, he studied tapes of "Saturday Night Live" the way English majors parse Shakespeare. Referring to the show's executive producer, he recalls: "I was hoping that Lorne Michaels would call me up and say, 'Jimmy, can you do Church Lady, because Dana [Carvey] is really sick and I know you're from Saugerties, New York, where we get none of our talent."
At 17, he decided that musical impersonations were his ticket onto the program, and he began honing a dozen pop-star voices. He won some talent contests, emceed at a bunch of clubs and kept a foot in the performing world as he attended the College of St. Rose in Albany. A mere 15 credits from a degree, he got a call from a talent manager who'd seen a compilation tape and a photo. He phoned his parents to tell them he was moving to Los Angeles to become a stand-up comic.
Fallon worked the club circuit for about two years before he landed an audition with "Saturday Night Live." He flopped. "I bombed in three minutes, and I knew it," he laughs. A second chance arrived -- the show often reconsiders talent it has passed over -- and "SNL" flew him to New York for another tryout. This time, he brought different material and he knew it worked because he did the impossible: He made Lorne Michaels laugh.
"They walk you in and they warn you, 'He's not going to laugh. He doesn't laugh at anything.' The guy who mikes you up says, 'Hey man, how you doing? Yeah, just so you know, Lorne doesn't laugh at anything.' And the woman who puts on makeup is like, 'Just to let you know, they never laugh at your stuff.' I'm like, Okay, I get it! I'm bombing and I haven't even started my act."
But when Fallon impersonated "SNL's" own Adam Sandler, Michaels actually chuckled. He was hired.
A four-year veteran of the show, Fallon routinely nails acts like Blink-182 and he's created recurring characters like Nick Burns, the condescending computer guy. He's been a "Weekend Update" anchor for two years, and he's popped up in a couple of films, most notably Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous."
The question now is whether Fallon can come up with mega-stardom after "Saturday Night," a challenge that only a handful of cast members in 27 years -- Sandler, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Mike Myers, Bill Murray -- have met. He's eyeing more movie roles, though he says he isn't in a huge rush. How long will he stay on "SNL"? For his sanity's sake, he says, not a whole lot longer.
"It's a hard show. There's a lot of rejection. You get things cut and you think you're not funny. . . . And Sunday is the only day you have off. The rest of the week you're questioning yourself, trying to think of something funnier. You'll end up insane if you stay on the show more than six years."
Every career has catastrophic bumps and Fallon figures he'll hit one eventually. "You have to fall," he says. "I'm due for that. I don't know what it will be."
He thinks it over for a sec.
"Maybe this CD."
? 2002 The Washington Post Company
Rock and Rolling In the Aisle
Singer-Comic Jimmy Fallon, Man of a Thousand Voices
By David Segal
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 6, 2002; Page C01
Jimmy Fallon had tried the banjo, the clarinet and the piano before he finally bonded with an instrument at the age of 13. That's when he acquired a red Fender Phantom, an electric guitar that became his musical soulmate. The two were so inseparable, he eventually had to ditch his guitar teacher.
"I quit because my teacher's armpits stank, actually stank of BO," Fallon says. "He would use my guitar, and then when he'd leave I'd have to wipe it down with Lysol. My pride and joy."
Fallon mastered his six-string well enough to make it the centerpiece of a comedy act, which he's been refining for years in clubs and, more recently, as a cast member on "Saturday Night Live." Now he's about to release "The Bathroom Wall," an album of dead-on musical impressions of acts like U2, R.E.M. and Counting Crows, all recorded at a live show, along with a handful of goofy original rock songs recorded in a studio. Sunday night Fallon came to Washington's 9:30 club to open a brief three-city tour meant to push the CD and spread the word about his upcoming gig as host of the MTV Video Music Awards.
"We're calling it the 8-29 tour, because August 29 is the day of the VMAs and the tickets on this tour are all $8.29," Fallon says, chatting backstage and sipping water before showtime. "That way nobody can say, 'Hey, this ticket cost $30 and you sucked!' The drinks cost more than the show."
Fallon offstage seems much like the gracious slacker he often plays on "SNL," with occasional flashes of focus when he ruminates about his career. He's wearing a red T-shirt; his hair, which is usually as unruly as a fern, is cropped to military shortness. He comes across like a grown-up version of the high school cutup who barely graduated because he was too busy refining gags to hit the books.
That persona, along with Gap-ad good looks and a self-effacing smile -- not to mention an anchor spot on "Weekend Update" -- has turned the 27-year-old Fallon into a campus heartthrob. If the 9:30 crowd is any indication, his fan base skews heavily to 20-year-old women who yell "wooooooooo" a lot.
They laugh a lot, too, especially when Fallon gets to his signature bit: an audition to write a jingle for a new line of troll dolls. The setup allows him to rampage through a dozen impersonations, including U2, 4 Non Blondes, the Dave Matthews Band, R.E.M. ("Oh no it cost too much, I don't have enough," he sings, reworking "Losing My Religion") and Coldplay ("I bought the troll for you / The one you wanted was blue / They only had yellow," he sings, overhauling the band's hit "Yellow.") The fun of all this doesn't translate on the page because it flows from Fallon's uncanny grasp of other voices -- a grasp that often highlights the mannered piety of the originals.
On Sunday, Fallon also did some music-free stand-up, which focused on the quirks of college-life topics, like the mini-fridge, roommates and fake IDs that don't look anything like you. "You can never ask your friends if it's cool because they just want to drink, so they'll just tell you it's cool," he said. "They're like, 'Let me see that -- oh, yeah, you got a good one. Yeah, this'll work, this is going to work. Just trust me, wear the turban.' "
Near the end, a curtain parted to reveal drums and amps, and Fallon and three musicians donned matching striped sweaters to play a set of novelty rock numbers. Each satirized or imitated a genre. "Snowball" spoofed Nirvana by using the grave, aggressive chords of grunge to recount some December antics: "Turn around and didn't see / 15 snowballs coming at me!" he sings just before loosing a Kurt Cobain howl.
You get the sense that Fallon wouldn't mind rocking for real, since his songs are less overtly zany than most Dr. Demento fare. But finding humor in rock is what Fallon has been doing for years. Raised in Upstate New York, he studied tapes of "Saturday Night Live" the way English majors parse Shakespeare. Referring to the show's executive producer, he recalls: "I was hoping that Lorne Michaels would call me up and say, 'Jimmy, can you do Church Lady, because Dana [Carvey] is really sick and I know you're from Saugerties, New York, where we get none of our talent."
At 17, he decided that musical impersonations were his ticket onto the program, and he began honing a dozen pop-star voices. He won some talent contests, emceed at a bunch of clubs and kept a foot in the performing world as he attended the College of St. Rose in Albany. A mere 15 credits from a degree, he got a call from a talent manager who'd seen a compilation tape and a photo. He phoned his parents to tell them he was moving to Los Angeles to become a stand-up comic.
Fallon worked the club circuit for about two years before he landed an audition with "Saturday Night Live." He flopped. "I bombed in three minutes, and I knew it," he laughs. A second chance arrived -- the show often reconsiders talent it has passed over -- and "SNL" flew him to New York for another tryout. This time, he brought different material and he knew it worked because he did the impossible: He made Lorne Michaels laugh.
"They walk you in and they warn you, 'He's not going to laugh. He doesn't laugh at anything.' The guy who mikes you up says, 'Hey man, how you doing? Yeah, just so you know, Lorne doesn't laugh at anything.' And the woman who puts on makeup is like, 'Just to let you know, they never laugh at your stuff.' I'm like, Okay, I get it! I'm bombing and I haven't even started my act."
But when Fallon impersonated "SNL's" own Adam Sandler, Michaels actually chuckled. He was hired.
A four-year veteran of the show, Fallon routinely nails acts like Blink-182 and he's created recurring characters like Nick Burns, the condescending computer guy. He's been a "Weekend Update" anchor for two years, and he's popped up in a couple of films, most notably Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous."
The question now is whether Fallon can come up with mega-stardom after "Saturday Night," a challenge that only a handful of cast members in 27 years -- Sandler, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Mike Myers, Bill Murray -- have met. He's eyeing more movie roles, though he says he isn't in a huge rush. How long will he stay on "SNL"? For his sanity's sake, he says, not a whole lot longer.
"It's a hard show. There's a lot of rejection. You get things cut and you think you're not funny. . . . And Sunday is the only day you have off. The rest of the week you're questioning yourself, trying to think of something funnier. You'll end up insane if you stay on the show more than six years."
Every career has catastrophic bumps and Fallon figures he'll hit one eventually. "You have to fall," he says. "I'm due for that. I don't know what it will be."
He thinks it over for a sec.
"Maybe this CD."
? 2002 The Washington Post Company
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