Joe Rogan Experience #2116 - Kevin James

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The Joe Rogan Experience.

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Let's go, Shimmy. Let's go, Shimmy. Shimmy, Shimmy, Shimmy. Most people don't know about Shimmy. Mm-mm. They don't know about your alter ego. No. Well, yeah, you were the one who brought it out of me. (laughs) You were, right? Well, we would do shows, we would do shows in New York and you would go full Shimmy. (laughs) I'd be on the side of the (laughs) side of the stage yelling out, "Shimmy!" Well, when we first started... By the way, we, we did the Joe Rogan Experience 30 years ago, right? Yeah. It just wasn't millions of people. Just hanging out. Not... Let's... Exactly. Just playing pool. (laughs) Um, you, you... I remember Sussman brought you into town. You started at Nick's? Was it Nick's or... I started at Stitches in Boston. Stitches. And then, uh, I was like two years in when I met you, and then, uh, I think we met at East Side. Mm-hmm. Which was awesome. Great club. What a great club. What a great club that was. I was just there. Shout out to Richie Mantervini. Yes. My man. He, he was... It was, uh, the greatest, the greatest place to go. I remember, uh, it would be a line around the block, two shows like on a Wednesday night. It was insane- Yeah. ... comedy then. That place was just jammed. The golden age of comedy at the time. 1990? Yes. Oh my God, it was incredible back then. '91-ish. I started at '89. I think I met you in... What is it? '90- '91 maybe? '90, '91. Somewhere around there. Yeah, somewhere in there. Uh, and I was, you know, I was following everybody. That was my thing. Like I, I was being the standup comedian with the, you know, the jacket sleeves pushed up and the- (laughs) ... the bolo tie. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. (laughs) Just... Yeah. I was just that straight... And you came into town and we were like, "Who is this dude?" Like, you just didn't care about anything. And it was like, you've always remained the same and it was just incredible to watch. We were like, "Whoa! He just doesn't care." And that's what you were... You, you would work with me on that. You would be like, "Brother, you can't be like you're handing out a platter of food for these pe..." Like, "Do what you wanna do." And I was like, "I just gotta get good. Yeah, I gotta wrap my head around that. You're right." You know? (laughs) I just tried to... (laughs) I would, I would, I would just try to make the audience so happy. Like, "Stop it, stop it." And, "You gotta let go," and you'd get me going crazy. (laughs) I'd get all fired up there. I'd be like yelling at people. They'd be like, "Whoa!" (laughs) It's like, "All right, maybe we bring it back a little bit," but it was different, man. It really was. It was... It, it really taught me to, mo- most of all to be comfortable in front of audience and not care about them. You know, it's... I still... I literally battle with it to this day- Yeah. ... that anxiety of, "Oh gosh, I get nervous and I, I start overthinking things." So, um, but it really helped me to say like, "Just do what you do." And, and it's almost like the... 'Cause the audience is like a dog, right? They'll, they, they sense fear. You know, they sense- 100%. Yeah. They're animals. Yes. Just like we are. Yes. We're all animals. That's right. And it's like they know when you know, and if you're comfortable, even if you're faking it, they'll go with you. You do a joke and you're confident, they'll laugh just because they think it's funny, you know. They look around and everybody's like, "Oh, it must be funny 'cause he's just got confidence about it." And you had that confidence always, man. You were always insanely intense and just never looked back, and way to go, man. Way to go for you too. You just always needed a hype man. Mm-hmm. You, you, you'd just need someone to like let you go. Like, "Give him the green light. Give him the green light!" Yes. It's so funny. You're right, you're right. Yeah, you just needed a hype man. You were the one who did it for me in Montreal too. Yeah. (laughs) Do you remember that? Yeah. Going to this place... (laughs) By the way, do you remember the beer we would drink? There were two kinds of this bee... I can't remember this Canadian beer. I, I've been racking my brain to think about it. It was like, there was like a gold version of it and like an, like an amber. Uh, and it was just the greatest stuff. And we get fired up up there and I loved it, man. I loved going to that Montreal Comedy Festival. Oh, it was the best. Yeah. Back when it was... I think it's gone under. I think they did... Just announced they're going bankrupt. Oh, really? Yeah, unfortunately. See, well, we should tell people what it was. Oh, yeah. So what it was during our time, then... When we were young, was the... Montreal Comedy Festival was where young comedians would go up and you could kinda, kinda get a deal. Yes. And that's where you got the deal to do the King of Queens. Well, I got the deal to do it at NBC. Right. Oh, yeah- And then, and then it turned in- ... and then it turned in- Yeah. Then once that failed- Yeah. ... that went in to, to CBS big time. But once you get in... The thing about... People should know, like in the '90s there was this thing that was happening where everybody looked at a comedian like this could be the next Roseanne, this could be the next Tim Allen- Right. ... this could be the next Seinfeld. So every time they looked at you, they're like, "What do you got?" Right. "What do you got for me?" And the agents would try to put it together as a sitcom. Yes. And they had this showcase called the Montreal Comedy Festival, the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival, and it was the most insane thing. You would go there and it would change your life. You could have one set, one 15-minute set, and all of a sudden you got a half a million dollars. 100%. You have one thing, one set that pops and people talking about, there's a buzz. Yeah. And it's like you're in, you're set. And they have bidding wars. Yes. So like CBS would be, Fox would be- (laughs) ... they would all be throwing in. And, you know, there's guys who walked... Do you remember Chicken? Chicken was the crazy guy? Yes. (laughs) Yes. Yes. Chicken got the deal that killed the deals. Yes, yes. He got like, uh, 800,000 or something. It was some crazy mon- or mil... I don't know what it was but- Some nutty amount of money. But he had no act, right? It was after that they thought he was- He just tricked everybody. He did. And I don't know how he did it, and I wonder if he had a hype man, if you could have kept tricking people. Yeah. 'Cause he- Like, maybe he just went off the rails with anxiety when success starts i-... 'Cause that's one of the things that does happen. And I've talked about it. I think everybody admits it. You... When it first starts happening, you think it's gonna go away, you get super anxiety ridden, you, you k-... You, you feel like an imposter and you, like... You can't beli-... Like you'd show up on the set and you're like, "Are they kicking me out? Like, I'm still here?" My bud, I'm telling you, I've...