Comedian Mae Martin wrote a rock album. When the world’s chaotic, “So much of life doesn’t have a punch line”
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When comedian Mae Martin first moved to L.A., they held a monthly residency at Largo at the Coronet. Martin, star of the biting sobriety comedy “Feel Good” and many beloved standpup specials, fell in love with the music history that had passed through the club.
“They had the piano that Elliott Smith played, I think, on ‘Baby Britain,’“ Martin said. “Flanny, who runs Largo, encouraged me to have musical guests, so I started doing Elliott Smith covers. It was such a nice feeling that the comedy audience had the patience for that, when you could hear a pin drop and the energy would shift. Those shows built my confidence in music.”
That work paid off with “I’m a TV,” Martin’s debut album of original songwriting that evokes the millennial indie they grew up on as well as the arty pop of the Largo canon. The LP is pithy in the way that Phoebe Bridgers or Jenny Lewis write one-liners, but it’s an unexpectedly tender songwriter record from one of the sharpest, most self-aware minds in stand-up. Martin will perform it live at the Regent on Wednesday.
The Times spoke to Martin about making peace with sincerity in music, how plot lines about cults hit differently now, and what to do about comedy’s tangled relationship to the far right.
This is obviously a tense time for a nonbinary Canadian comedian in the U.S. How are you holding up?
Like everybody, I’m full of existential dread, and trying to not let the doom permeate too much and not to be paralyzed by how hopeless it all feels right now, because I know that it’s not hopeless. It just feels like such a massive step back. I have a lot of friends who are articulate activists, and I try to take my cues from them.
You hosted a CBC documentary about nonbinary identity recently, it must be disheartening to see people here getting their passports forcibly misgendered.
It’s always scary when the government disagrees with science. Yeah, it felt like we were really moving toward a place where young people wouldn’t have to be defending their identity as much. Or that I could walk into a room and not have that be the first thing that comes up. But visibility is super important, and I try to hope that just by being a happy confident person, that’s some kind of resistance.
I’m sure we’d both rather just be talking about your album and upcoming show at the Regent on Wednesday.
It’s life-affirming going on tour, because you have this little microcosm of society, and you’re reminded that people are good, and they want to connect and that we have so much more in common than not.
So let’s talk about the record. It hits my elder-millennial sweet spot of melancholy indie rock. When did you feel like you were ready to make an album?
I always wrote songs, but very privately. I made this show called “Feel Good” in England, and my friend Charles Watson was the composer on it, and I played guitar on one of the songs. It was the first time that I felt empowered to have opinions about music and my taste, particularly the emotionality of music.
When I moved to L.A. after 12 years in England, I had a lot of time to myself, and reconnecting with my earnest North American side was nice. One of the guys who produced the album, Jason, I went to summer camp with when we were 13. We used to play acoustic guitars by the campfire, playing Ben Harper and Tragically Hip and Third Eye Blind. I think that comes through, the warmth of the period where I fell in love with music. So much of life doesn’t have a punch line, and in music you can be more confessional because you’re not saying, “Hi, I’m Mae, and I’m saying this about this particular incident in my life.”
You can really hear that Elliott Smith “Figure 8” influence on a few songs like “Garbage Strike.”
Oh man, I’m such a deep Elliott Smith fan. I loved his last album, ”From a Basement on the Hill,” which was so dark and heavy, and I love Heatmiser. People have these associations of him with this sort of mournful acoustic stuff. But his arrangements are so full, and there’s so much Paul McCartney and George Harrison in there. “Garbage Strike” is the most Canadian of the songs, because it’s about the garbage strike in 2003 in Toronto. But that’s a cool comparison, I love that album so much.
The comedian and co-creator of “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” talks about his songwriting once again taking center stage with the release of his new album “Slipping Away” out Friday on Bloodshot Records.
There are songwriters like Jenny Lewis or Father John Misty who are very funny, and comedians like Tim Heidecker who have written evocative music. How does wit work differently for you in these two different settings?
If I have moments of wit, it’s probably referencing a true irony in life. I had to unlearn the muscle memory of taking people to a poignant place and then relieving that tension with a punch line. That’s so ingrained in me, to not bum anyone out. Playing those Largo shows was really like ripping the Band-Aid off, because there’s a temptation to wink at the audience or bail halfway through with a joke, but I had to commit to the entirety of a song.
Speaking of L.A. nightlife, we’ve seen queer bars like Ruby Fruit close over the last year, and it’s going to be hard to preserve small clubs of all sorts. Do you worry about nightlife here?
I remember in my early 20s in Toronto, there were tons of amazing lesbian or queer bars that aren’t around anymore. We’re definitely feeling that retraction. Most of my life I’ve felt more a part of the comedy community than the queer community, because most of my nights I’m in comedy clubs. I’ve never really made a concerted effort to enmesh myself in queer nightlife, but now I feel compelled to do it because I want to support those businesses, and community feels more important than ever.
You’ve been candid about addiction in your work, especially “Feel Good” and “Dope.” When the world feels like it’s falling apart, is it hard to keep recovery as a priority?
I try to be vigilant about when addictive behaviors are bubbling up. But you’re right, when the world is feeling increasingly apocalyptic, those self-soothing behaviors are so at our fingertips. Growing up and being in rehab, I felt like addiction was just something that was for drug addicts. But a big shift for me was when I understood addiction as a soothing mechanism for underlying things, and how we all participate.
It’s such a boring thing to say, but I’m so profoundly addicted to my phone. I feel like I have a pretty good handle on substances, but I definitely feel myself slipping into numbness because of the scale of the bad news. I do a lot of escape rooms. I think I’ve done over 60 in L.A. I have this app for them that was like, “Hey, here’s an award for doing so many escape rooms.” It’s a healthier diversion, but I found myself being chased through a labyrinth by a guy dressed like a Minotaur, and I was like, “This seems like a red flag that this is the way I unwind.”
“Wayward,” your upcoming Netflix series, is set within the troubled-teen industry and explores cult dynamics. Do those themes land differently now then when you started working on that show?
Definitely. I’ve been working on it for years, and a couple of years ago, that topic entered the zeitgeist with the Paris Hilton story. It has a truthful framework about the troubled-teen industry, but it’s also a cult genre thriller, and cults are such a great analogy for the coerciveness of society.
It’s set in 2003, and that’s been interesting thinking about the differences between then and now, the intergenerational conflict and all the critical thinking that you have to suppress as an adult just to participate in these systems. We spoke to a lot of sociologists and cult experts who talk about the language that cult leaders use, the double-speak that I’ve definitely noticed in current discourse.
This election cycle showed how some elements of stand-up comedy culture drive a lot of the far right, with President Trump going on Joe Rogan and Tony Hinchcliffe performing at a Trump rally. Dave Chappelle arguably contributed to the current anti-trans backlash in his work. Is it unnerving to see people with backgrounds in stand-up having this direct line to the far right in power?
Yeah, it’s very strange. But I can see where they met, because governments reach into reality TV now. You’ve got the host of “The Apprentice,” so of course he’s gonna want to talk to the host of “Fear Factor.” But those guys that you’re referencing, they’re not a part of my comedy community. I don’t think about them. What they want is for you to engage in combat with them. I’d rather be aligned with qualified people and thinkers and scientists. I hope that heroes of mine are still fighting the good fight and not falling into this perception that the enemy is the woke left.
I think back to the bit in your recent special “SAP” where you talk about how our minds are these little rooms we’re showing off to others to be known. Given everything happening here, do you think your room will always be in L.A.?
I just bought a house here, which I never dreamed I’d be able to do. But will we crumble into the sea or light on fire? L.A. gets such a bad rap, though. After living in England for so long, and being Canadian, L.A. was so mysterious to me. I had the sense that it was this scary, vapid, lonely place, and I’ve found that so not to be the case. I’ve found people who have come here with so much enthusiasm, looking for collaborators and community. It’s such a cliché, but I’ve got this sunset out my window and my palo santo. I’m becoming very L.A. and I love it.
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