Patton Oswalt

Werewolves And Lollipops

[4/5]


Patton Oswalt might be the world’s busiest guy. In addition to his tenure on The King Of Queens, in the past few years Oswalt has spearheaded the Comedians Of Comedy Tour; made appearances on Reno 911! and Late Night With Conan O’Brien; and provided the voices for animated characters on SpongeBob SquarePants and Pixar’s upcoming film Ratatouille. However, that doesn’t mean that Oswalt has cleaned up his act, and the follow-up to 2004’s Feelin’ Kinda Patton certainly won’t disappoint his longtime stand-up fans. Like his peer (and now-labelmate) David Cross, Oswalt does his fair share of political material on Werewolves And Lollipops-but unlike Cross, he’s versatile enough to shift the topic to Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Famous Bowls (which he refers to as “a failure pile in a sadness bowl”) or Paris Hilton (which he refers to as, well, we can’t print that here) without missing a beat. Things may seem pretty bleak for America, but Werewolves And Lollipops reminds us we still have laughter-and right now we need comedians like Oswalt more than ever. (SUB POP) Jonah Bayer

ROCKS LIKE:

David Cross’ It’s Not Funny

Eugene Mirman’s The Absurd Nightclub Comedy Of Eugene Mirman

Brian Posehn’s Live In: Nerd Rage

IN-STORE SESSION

With Patton Oswalt

How does it feel to be part of the Sub Pop family?

It feels really good. It’s also a little intimidating because a lot of the most seminal stuff for me in the early ’90s was provided by them, so now I’m putting an album out on their label [and] I just don’t want people to go, “Oh, yeah, Sub Pop was great, except for that fucking comedy album they put out.”

Growing up, was your hometown as depressing as you make it sound on the album?

Well, it was depressing to grow up in Sterling, Virginia, because it wasn’t easy access to downtown D.C. until I could get a car. There were trickles of cool things that I could kind of grab at out of context, but I couldn’t really get a solid feel for them.

How did you get turned onto independent music?

The Repo Man soundtrack at age 14 saved my life.

That had Black Flag’s “TV Party” on it, right?

Yup. Up until then it was all Phil Collins and Tom Jones-and I heard that album and I got to be that uncool, letting-you-in-on-it guy. I was five years behind everyone, going, “I don’t know if you’ve heard of this guy, Charles Bukowksi…” And everyone was like, “Dude, we know.”

Do you feel a lot of parallels exist between independent music and independent comedy?

I guess in the conception of it, but the execution I think is totally different. Music is this big explosive thing, whereas I think comedy is much more intimate. You get your release when you say something and connect with one person.

Is it difficult to make that connection with the listener via CD?

I think it depends on how you recorded it. I don’t think my stuff depends as much on physicality as it does the words; and I think you can really sense the way the audience reacts to what I’m doing on the album. I mean, you can listen to a live recording of an indie band and you don’t go, “Well, how’s he standing? I don’t get this.” It still works.

You’ve been known to alienate your audiences with political material before. Do you think that’s a thing of the past?

Yeah, now it’s not that fun. I like that challenge of who am I going to piss off, but who am I going to piss off by saying, “George Bush sucks”? That’s like going onstage and saying, “I don’t care who I piss off, but Avril Lavigne sucks.” It’s not like someone’s going to go, “Excuse me? She’s great!” Jonah Bayer