Stephen Kramer Glickman – Voices in My Head

By starrymag | March 31, 2020

By: Jamie Steinberg

 

 

Q) What are the recent projects that you have been busy working on?

A) I recently shot the press photos for my line of shirts, which is for sale at Hot Topic.

Q) Who are some of your comedic influences?

A) Growing up, my comedy influences were Mel Brooks and his album The 2000 Year Old Man. As I’ve gotten older, some of the more contemporary people that I’m a huge, huge fan of are of course Dave Attell, Jeffrey Ross and Sarah Silverman. They are all people I’m a big fan of. If you’re in the acting world, the chance that you are going to get to work with the top, top dogs like Meryl Streep or Al Pacino (someone like that) … It’s a real long shot that something like that would happen. But in comedy, if you’re funny you get to work with your heroes within like the first year. I got to perform with Robin Williams, Maria Bamford and Dave Chappelle and Jeff Garlin…People who I’m just a huge, huge fan of. I get to work with people that I love.

Q) How did the idea come about for your new album Voices in My Head?

A) The idea for the album…I’ve been doing standup for fifteen years and I just felt like I had enough stuff built together that was really resonating with audiences in a regular basis. When I’d go and perform, I would do a fifteen-minute set over at The Comedy Store and then I would do a completely different set at The Laugh Factory and then a different fifteen-minute set over at The Improv. Before you know it, these all fit together and they all started to have this cohesive nature between all of this material. A lot of it was about different people that I have had to deal with and who I ran into and people who have had to deal with me. Some of the situations that I’ve gotten myself into where I’ve talked to people around the world…You go to the Urgent Care and you have a doctor who gets to know you. You talk to the same doctor every time. You get in an Uber and have a weird experience and that sparks a funny story. Before you know it, you have all these different characters that you’re meeting and getting to know. It started to feel like an album and not just a bunch of jokes.

Q) What was your process for figuring out which stories you’d include on the album?

A) This album was recorded with 800 Pound Gorilla Records. It’s a big record label for standup comedians. One of the reasons we did the album through a record label was we wanted it to be like a clean album, where I’m not using a ton of bad language. That way the record could be played on Sirius XM and Pandora and places like that and not need an adult rating. So, I did not limit myself. We really combed out the material that was appropriate enough for a younger audience and stuff that was a little more offensive or dirtier I either cleaned it up a bit to make the language cleaner. If it was too inappropriate, we just pulled it back and left it for the next one and tried to focus this one to keep it as clean as possible so it’d have a wider audience.

Q) Were there any stories you really pushed for that weren’t approved or a story you didn’t want on the album yet they were able to change your mind on?

A) There is a joke on the album that I made…It took a little convincing for the label to be comfortable with. The joke was, “Every week, kids on Twitter are upset because their favorite DJ died of an overdose. Guess what kids, that’s how DJs die. You know what DJs don’t die from? Old age. There are no elderly DJs with Alzheimer’s waking up every day saying “I was a DJ? What have I done with me life!?” It took some convincing because they thought it was a little hard…a little too mean.

Q) What do you hope listeners take away from checking out this album?

A) My hope is that they walk away from listening to this feeling better about themselves and about their own lives and have some laughs and are able to not take things too seriously. In this album I make fun of George W. Bush, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, President Obama and Bill Clinton. The most fun part of making fun of those five people is watching an audience panic when you mention their person and then get relived when they mention a person they don’t like. No joke, no matter where I have done this material, I’ll say Obama’s name and there will be people that go, “Ahhhh!” Then, four seconds later I’ll say other people and they’ll go, “Ahhh!” You need all those people. By the time that routine of talking about these individuals is over, everyone is having a good time and everyone is enjoying it. They’ve gotten made fun of, who they like has gotten made fun of a little bit, but they’ve also gotten the relief and release of having someone make fun of the person that they don’t like. I hope I give people some relief.

Q) You have great comedic timing. Does it come naturally to you or have you had to work at it?

A) I think comedy timing comes from your relatives. My mom is super, super funny. Her timing is hysterical. She is constantly, constantly making me laugh and saying super inappropriate stuff. My grandparents, aunts and uncles are all very, very funny. When you grow up around good comedy timing it definitely rubs off on you.

Q) You have this incredible podcast The Nighttime Show. How did you decide to launch this?

A) I live and work in a really weird business and I’m constantly running into people that are extraordinary pieces of Hollywood history of the industry in general. I just was so tired of not being able to record these conversations we have when we run into each other. For example, when I was at the photoshoot, I ran into Caroline Rhea. She walked into the place we were shooting at and her and I talked for a while. I was like, “This is why you have to have a podcast!” It’s because then you can just go, “Hey, Caroline Rhea (this person that I just met), would you come and do my podcast?” Then, they go, “Yeah. Of course! Why not?” Suddenly, you’re sitting for an hour with this person and by the time you’ve finished the podcast now you have a new friend. You know amazing things about them. You’ve learned so much. In an hour sitting with anybody you learn so many things, especially with people who you are a fan of. After a few minutes you stop fangirling and then you go, “Oh my God! There is a lot to learn here,” and that’s really cool.

Q) What have been some of your favorite projects you have been a part of?

A) I’ll say this, “Big Time Rush” is a staple in my life. I run into fans from that show every day. All the fans are now in their early 20’s and they are so cool. They stop me in Starbucks and in the movie theater and all these random places and it’s so much fun. So, “Big Time Rush” was a massive, massive impact on my life. I owe Nickelodeon for that forever. That was so much fun working on a big Nickelodeon show. Storks was really cool because I’ve always wanted to be in the animation world and be a voiceover actor, hence the album Voices in my Head. It’s where I’m just doing impressions of characters and accents after accents through the whole album. Being able to do that as a job and to go in and do an animated film, Storks was an extraordinary experience. I got to work with people like Andy Samberg, Nick Stoller, Phil Lord and Chris Miller – all these phenomenal people and learn from them. I loved it. I would do anything with Warner Brothers any time, any day of the week.

Q) What does it mean to you to still be recognized for your time on “Big Time Rush?”

A) What’s crazy about “Big Time Rush” is that when the show came out, we had this reaction from kids here in America. I would go places and little kids would reach out and their parents would call me and say, “Would you talk to my son?” It was really fun and it was a great time. Then, the show started airing in Mexico and then Germany, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Sweden and The Netherlands. Then it becomes number one in Germany and it becomes number one in Thailand. At one point, “Big Time Rush” was playing in ninety-six countries around the world in something like fifteen or sixteen different languages and it was insane! That all stopped like three or four years ago because they had aired all the episodes in all of the countries around the world and all the different languages so it finally ended. Then, it was a good year or two I kind of felt it kind of quiet. Then, Hulu picked it up and it was all over again…Now, these kids are graduating high school and heading to college. They’re all hitting me up on TikTok and trying to ask me to come to their college to perform and it’s so fun! I love it. It’s nice that I get to be a part of peoples’ childhood and be a positive memory for people. It’s nice.

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who are fans and supporters of you and your work?

A) I would say I’m so thankful that my fans support me and follow me on the road that I choose to go. They are super kind and are there for me when I’m having a hard time or going through a rough period. They are always there and super positive. I get to interact with them in a lot of cool ways. Sometimes I’ll play Fortnite with my fans on XBOX or Play Station. I do a lot of Instagram live sessions where I call “Ask Me for Advice” sessions. I tell them I’m not a psychologist, but I will give them advice about anything in their life. It can be amazing! The things that fans ask for and stuff that they share is about very personal stuff. We do it live in front of everybody. It’s like doing a radio call-in show. It’s so fun and it’s a nice way for me to connect with all of them. Then, I had a fan ask me to hand write some lyrics from “Big Time Rush” so they could have it tattooed on their body. I did that and it sparked a bunch of people to hit me up for the exact same thing. A second fan is about to have another lyric tattooed that I hand wrote out. It’s pretty wacky! It’s pretty crazy, man! I’m very lucky to have the fans that I have.

 

 

Snag “Voices in My Head” on Pandora