- 8 months ago
Join comedian Roy Wood Jr. as he sits down with Southern Living’s Sid Evans, for a fun chat about Southern culture, food, comedy, and storytelling. From Roy’s Alabama roots to his journey in journalism and stand-up, they explore how culture and place have shaped his career. Plus, they discuss Popeyes Chicken, his new comedy special ‘Lonely Flowers,’ and what it truly means to be Southern.
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00:00Roy Wood Jr., welcome to Biscuits and Jam.
00:03My favorite. At what age do you, do Biscuits and Jam become like a snack after breakfast?
00:11You ever have like that after breakfast snack?
00:14I feel like that's a southern thing where you have breakfast and then there's like three biscuits left
00:18and somewhere in that no man's land from 10 a.m. to noon.
00:23I'll eat them anytime, anywhere, but you know, I'm the one that has to make them in my house.
00:28If I'm not making them, then they're not going to be lying around.
00:32Yeah, I'm trying to get into that world of homestyle cooking, but I'm going to need a little time.
00:37I'm not there yet.
00:40I'm sure your mom could teach you a thing or two about that.
00:44Yeah.
00:45So, Roy, the last time I saw you was at the Alabama Humanities Awards, and it was here in Birmingham.
00:55And you were being recognized, along with Rick Bragg, for contributions to the humanities.
01:02And the craziest thing happened.
01:05We were getting ready to do the event, and some kind of alarm went off or a security thing happened.
01:14And the entire audience of 700 people had to go out on the street.
01:21Was that a first for you?
01:23Yes.
01:23A full-blown fire alarm where the fire department responded.
01:28Apparently what it was, there was some elevator work or something that had happened earlier that day.
01:33And whatever dum-dum was supposed to turn off whatever sensor didn't turn off whatever sensor.
01:41And so I think the elevator not moving made the elevator think, oh, someone's trapped inside.
01:45I must call the authorities.
01:47But it was an exciting night.
01:48It must have been really something for you to be recognized in Birmingham, in Alabama.
01:58I mean, this is an award that Harper Lee has won, Brittany Howard from Alabama Shakes, so many great folks, and puts you in some pretty rare company.
02:11Must have felt good.
02:12It was very humbling.
02:14I still don't, I mean, this is from my therapist, not me, but you must work on accepting compliments.
02:21And now you're talking about a whole-ass award, and then I have to sit on stage with people who are, in my opinion, far better at what they do than I am at what I do, and be told, hey, you're good.
02:35Not only are you good, but thank you.
02:38That's a rarity in my business.
02:43And, you know, coming from Alabama, I don't think anybody who's ever done anything for the state has ever done it with the idea of thanks or praise.
02:53The thing I've always remembered about Alabama is that there is a humility to how you should carry yourself.
03:02So even walking around with an air of, oh, well, I should be here, and how dare you for not recognizing that I am, oh, you do the job.
03:13You know, because I'm from a place where celebrity don't impress people much, I've never carried myself as one, so I've never really thought about the concept of doing anything with a thanks in mind.
03:30Like, it ain't a lot of people that's not from Alabama going, how can I help the state of Alabama?
03:36So, you know, in that regard, I feel like it's, you know, it's up to us.
03:41The idea of how to carry myself in the state, I just kind of picked up, you know, from other people.
03:49Ruben Studdard or, you know, Taylor Hicks has his spot.
03:52You liable to just see him in there.
03:54Yeah.
03:56Cooking, you know, just like that's.
03:59So there's just a chillness to have always seen people carrying themselves, so to turn around and be honored, you know, with this humanitarian award is just, that's very like, oh, wow.
04:14And in my head, I'm not even close to the stuff that's on my chin.
04:17Well, you're still, you're still young.
04:19You got a long road ahead of you.
04:21Oh, yeah.
04:21We need the money, so I'm working on that once I get that straight.
04:26So, Roy, I want to start off by asking you about your name.
04:31It's Roy Wood Jr., and I'm wondering, has the junior always been part of your identity?
04:37I mean, were you Roy Wood Jr. as a kid, or was that something that came along later?
04:43I mean, legally, I was always junior, yes.
04:46But I did not have junior on any of my school yearbook photos until my senior year of high school.
04:55Okay.
04:56Which is when my dad died.
04:59My dad died that October yearbooks come out that April.
05:03And like that year, I was like, hey, make sure there's junior on this one, you know.
05:08And it wasn't so much about being ashamed of lineage and family and all of that jive.
05:15Early on, it was about trying to have my own identity, you know.
05:20Like, I tried to not be in my dad's shadow, you know.
05:25Like, once I had that choice, like, I'm thinking sixth grade, seventh grade, maybe.
05:33It was like the first time I had.
05:35I think, matter of fact, it was sixth grade.
05:38I went to W.J. Christian for a year before I went to Center Street for seventh and eighth.
05:44And they had a yearbook at Christian.
05:46Go, is it Roy Wood?
05:47Print your name how you want your name in the yearbook.
05:50And I just wrote Roy Wood and teacher or whoever.
05:54You know what, junior?
05:55I was like, nah, I'm good.
05:58I think I just want to be me.
05:59Now, my dad was furious.
06:01He didn't like that one.
06:03Oh, yeah, posterity and, you know, all of this jive.
06:08And then once I knew that annoyed him, you know, near the back half of his life, like that sophomore and junior year of high school,
06:19we were kind of getting into a situation where, you know, great father, not always the greatest husband, if we're going to be honest, you know,
06:26for what he meant to black culture in the city of Alabama.
06:29And, man, I would deliberately not put junior on my shit because I knew it drove him up the wall.
06:37And it was the only thing I had over him that I knew I could just, you know, just a little thump behind the ear, you know.
06:43And also, you know, you go through that same rebellious phase as well around this time where you try to reject anything that is your parents.
06:53So it's a way of honoring your dad, the fact that you use it.
06:57Absolutely.
06:57I am not the first.
06:59And it's important that people know that.
07:01And, you know, we try so hard as children to disavow our connection to our parents, not realizing that we're just extensions of them.
07:12Roy, can you tell me a little bit about your dad?
07:14I mean, he was kind of a legendary character in Birmingham.
07:21I mean, he was a well-known radio broadcaster.
07:26He had an extraordinary career.
07:28He covered the civil rights movement.
07:30He was here during some wild times.
07:37He covered Vietnam, right?
07:38Yeah, South Africa during the Soweto riots.
07:43Zimbabwe during their civil war.
07:45He got shot at everywhere, like pretty much wherever he was shooting at black people.
07:49My dad was like, give me a tape recorder.
07:53And I'm going to go get to the bottom of it.
07:55Give me a tape recorder and a cannon.
07:56Oh, excuse me, in those days, Nikons.
07:58He was a Nikon man, Enrico's.
08:02My father worked at a lot of radio stations in the 50s and 60s doing television news.
08:08I mean, doing radio news.
08:10And, you know, for the most part, most stations where he was hired, he was the first black to work in those places.
08:18And, you know, it was, for him, I'm sure, extremely isolating.
08:25But, you know, he cared about black issues, you know.
08:28And so he got to Chicago in the 60s and co-founded the National Black Network, which at its time was the first of its kind.
08:36And it was a syndicated news network, it carried news and stories that applied to black Americans.
08:43And so, you know, he would record these news segments and news updates and commentaries.
08:48And then those would be, you know, sent out to various black radio stations across the country as a way for those black stations to essentially have a newsroom.
08:59And so during that time in Chicago, my father, he hired Don Cornelius.
09:06Don Cornelius was a cop, pulled my dad over.
09:08And my dad said, you have a nice speaking voice.
09:12You should be in radio.
09:14And that's how Don Cornelius got into radio and eventually into television.
09:18And so.
09:19And Don Cornelius started Soul Train.
09:23Soul Train.
09:23Yes.
09:24Also, funny story.
09:26My dad had a chance to be a producer in Soul Train and like a long-term investor in Soul Train.
09:32Turned it down because he said, and I quote,
09:35It's a terrible idea.
09:37Nobody wants to watch black people dance for an hour.
09:42Leave that dance and s*** to Dick Clark.
09:45This is a newsroom.
09:47He just, he couldn't see the vision.
09:50He couldn't see the vision, bro.
09:52And how many years was it on TV?
09:55Oh, long enough for my dad to not allow me to watch it by the time I was born.
09:5920 years probably at least.
10:00Yeah, 40.
10:01And then with award shows and everything else that came with it.
10:06But, you know, Don Cornelius did, he did, he did aight with Soul Train and Money.
10:11We'll just say that.
10:11Yeah, you know, my dad, he was very serious about covering stories that focused on inequality in this country.
10:20And so, you know, he went from Chicago.
10:22And then from there, he was at WCBS for a while in New York City before coming down to Birmingham to be the news director at WENN at the time.
10:32And so that was, that was the beginnings of his time in Birmingham.
10:38And, you know, during that time, of course, you are the man in town.
10:43And people already knew who he was because of his syndicated news segments.
10:47Like, I remember one year in the 80s.
10:49Was it 88 or was it 84?
10:54I think it was 88.
10:56Democratic primaries when Jesse Jackson ran for president.
11:00And he had a primary stop at the Boutwell Auditorium.
11:06And I remember being backstage with my father and Jesse Jackson and Mayor Arrington.
11:10And just all of these just black high hat dignitaries, just men.
11:16And so that was kind of what I came up around.
11:19And so, you know, just in observing him, I just saw somebody that always cared about community and always cared about, you know, black people.
11:28And then eventually that grew into a love for Birmingham and being a conduit.
11:33His job, I believe he saw his duty as providing a pulpit for the issues so that people could go be educated about them and go fight.
11:41Which, as much as I rejected that existence and insisted, first I wanted to be a firefighter.
11:48Then after that, I wanted to be Stuart Scott.
11:51I want to do sports and be funny.
11:52I want to be Kenny Mayne.
11:53I want to be Jenny Moose from CNN Headline News.
11:57I want to do weird stories.
11:58There was a guy at CNN SI, at Headline News at the time, named Van Earl Wright.
12:06He's still on today doing sports.
12:09But he would read the news so funny and like kind of like that, that George Carlin hippy dippy weatherman type of, oh, wow.
12:20And he scored in a dunk and he got a dunk.
12:23And that's the sports.
12:25And this dude could go through every sports score in the big four leagues in this country in 90 seconds and make you laugh.
12:36And I was enamored with that type of ****.
12:39And then you look up years later and you're working on The Daily Show making funny jokes about the same issues that your daddy was yelling about.
12:46You can't escape that shadow.
12:48You're not an exception of your parents.
12:51You're an extension.
12:52We all are.
12:53But were you at one point thinking that you might want to do serious journalism like your dad?
13:00I mean, you went to you went to school.
13:01You studied journalism in school.
13:03Did you see that as a as a path or were you always kind of had this, you know, I want to do something different.
13:10I want to do something funny.
13:13I always wanted to be funny.
13:14That I know I did.
13:17I never wanted.
13:19A proper button down job.
13:22The first thing I clocked when I got to college and majored in journalism was I wanted to do I thought I wanted to do television.
13:31You know, I have two older half brothers that were in the industry.
13:34I have an older brother, Roy Wood, who was an anchor on NBC 13 and Fox WBRC for a while reported, then worked his way up to desk.
13:47They were very astute and serious.
13:49And this is how we do the job.
13:52I'm saying I'm funny.
13:54Where can I where can I put my personality into this?
13:58And I got to college and I peeped real fast.
14:00Television is about shit.
14:01Shut up.
14:02Literally use the least amount of words.
14:07And I go, that does not feel like humor.
14:11Where can I use the most words?
14:14Oh, print.
14:16Cool.
14:18And so, you know, I read a lot of Doonesbury, probably older than I should have.
14:24You know, you know, we were a journalistic house.
14:27So there was always newspapers laying around.
14:30So you pick up the comic strips and the brainier stuff kind of got me.
14:35I enjoyed the far side.
14:36I enjoyed Calvin and Hobbes.
14:38And so I got to college.
14:40I was in TV.
14:41But then by the time I realized in order to be Stuart Scott or Van Earl Wright, I'm going to have to go work at some sports station where I can't be funny.
14:51I have to do the job regular.
14:53That feels like prison.
14:56I would rather write news articles.
14:58Then the idea of radio emerged.
15:00And I'm like, oh, my God.
15:03Morning radio, they let you be funny first.
15:06Right.
15:06You can do prank calls.
15:10Yeah.
15:11You can do prank.
15:11But even before that, I was just like, I scammed my way into my first radio gig in Tallahassee, which ultimately was my internship.
15:20And like that became where I was like all in.
15:25I know for sure I'm not doing TV.
15:28My degree is still in television broadcasts, but I have no experience in it whatsoever.
15:34So I knew I was never going to get hired for that.
15:36So I knew, all right, let me get let me get as much radio experience as I can before I leave Tallahassee and see if I can do that while doing stand up.
15:47And maybe that can be, you know, a lane.
15:50But, yeah, I scammed my way onto radio and essentially that was the beginnings of the idea of how I could use humor.
16:03My senior year of college, you have to do like a radio practicum or broadcast practicum.
16:11Right.
16:11So you can work at the campus TV station or the campus radio station for like one or two shifts a week.
16:18Or if you can get an internship somewhere off campus, then you can do that.
16:23And the radio station, I could not work at because at this point I was doing I was on the road as a comedian and I could not get an internship anywhere in town because I was on probation for stealing clothes from the mall.
16:40So essentially my senior year, and this is important, this is important detail.
16:46It's going to feel like a digression.
16:48I was taking 15 credit hours and I condensed all my credit hours into Tuesday through Thursday.
16:53I might have a Monday night class, but for the most for the most part, I took a week's worth of college courses in three days.
17:00And the reason being is that Thursday night after I left Golden Corral, I could go get on the bus or Friday morning, get on the bus.
17:10If you leave Tallahassee Friday morning, you can probably get anywhere within a reasonable day as far north as Charlotte.
17:18As far west as far west as New Orleans, as far south as Tampa in time for an open mic.
17:25So Friday through Sunday is when I bounced around the south and slept in bus stations and did my shows.
17:32I can't do a weekend shift at the campus radio station because that's all that was left at that point, because the cool kids and the regular jocks who are majoring in radio, they get preference on the shifts.
17:46And then the TV kids and everybody else who wants to slot in to get your practicum credit, you can pick whatever credits left.
17:54Well, I can't sit here on a Sunday morning and play gospel music.
17:58I'm sleeping in a bus station.
18:00But you need the practicum credit to graduate.
18:04So this was 2000 and late 90s, early 2000s is the beginning of the separation of black radio into specific genres of black music.
18:17That wasn't a thing until 94, 95 nationally.
18:22So the idea of the old wind 107 in Birmingham, it was oldies in the mornings, classic soul till noon, pop and a little bit of R&B in the afternoon, rap from five to eight, and then the quiet storm overnight.
18:40Well, now each of those music blocks is its own radio station.
18:43So you have all these new hip hop stations popping up, and a lot of them are hiring local jocks.
18:49So there was a station that I listened to every morning.
18:52What I noticed is that the station, there was a morning show, it was called The Breakfast Buffet on WVHT Hot 105.7.
19:01Every black morning show had like weird, every radio morning show had a weird breakfast name or something in there.
19:07And I noticed in the mornings they didn't have anyone doing news.
19:14There was never any news on that station, so much so that I would, when they were on commercial break, I'd flip over to the news talk station.
19:20So I ride my bike up to the radio station one day, and I catch the program director outside just in a random afternoon.
19:30I go, hey, man, I need a college credit.
19:34You all don't do news.
19:36Can I come in every morning at 5 a.m. and do news?
19:43And we can pre-record it, and then you have a segment you can play through the rest of the day.
19:48I'll record two news breaks, one you can play at the 10, the other at the 35, and you just ride that through.
19:54God bless Van Wilson.
19:58Van and his brother Vaughn, they say, yeah.
20:00So I started coming up to the radio station.
20:03Before my day started, I was at the radio station at 5, 5.30 in the morning recording news breaks to start in the 6 o'clock hour,
20:12the same as my father did for the entirety of his career.
20:16And I did that for a couple of months, and then this is getting to kind of the scam, quote-unquote, part of it all.
20:24I go, hey, man, you know what would be cool with this newscast is if we had, like, a kicker story.
20:33I'll still do the hard news.
20:35You know, we do two national, one local, and a sports story.
20:39That was the existing format, right?
20:41I go, can I add a kicker story?
20:43Just something fun.
20:44Cool.
20:46So now it's open season, baby.
20:48So now I can find any story on earth that I want to mention.
20:54And so what I would do, I would read the USA Today.
20:56And back in those days, USA Today would have one page in the A section that was just one story from all 50 states.
21:05It was literally like a paragraph, four, three, four sentences, tops.
21:13In Hawaii today, Alaska, and somewhere in those 50 was something funny or something I had an opinion on.
21:21So I would do the kicker story and then be done.
21:26Then, as we got more comfortable, I would do the kicker story, and then I would give my opinion about the story I just read.
21:34Then, instead of pre-recording, I'd go, hey, man, can I do the breaks live?
21:39Is it okay if I hang around the studio?
21:41Yeah, yeah.
21:42So now I'm in the studio and I'm doing the news breaks live on days that I don't have classes that start, you know, morning conflicts.
21:49So I would do the stories, do the kicker, give my opinion, then I would turn to the other two co-hosts.
21:57Well, what do y'all think about the story?
21:59Now we're having crosstalk.
22:01Next thing you know, the phones are ringing.
22:03Now the next hour is people wanting to talk about the story they just heard.
22:08So the other co-host, William E. Gilmore, wonderful comedian, probably, not probably, he was my first mentor in stand-up.
22:19William Gilmore was the co-host on Breakfast Buffet, but he was a school teacher.
22:25So he had to leave at 8 to be first bail at 8.30 at the school.
22:32On days that he left at 8.30, because I had proven myself funny up until that point, Van Wilson, look at me, he'd go,
22:40Hey man, if you want, you can hang out from 8.30 till 10, and you can just be on the mic.
22:49You don't have to just do news.
22:50The catch was the 9 o'clock hour, it was a music sweep.
22:54So we only talked once during the 9 o'clock hour anyway.
22:57But that 8.30 to 8.59, and we had two breaks in there, boy, we was blazing.
23:04That just opened the door wide open for you.
23:07And that 30-minute, those 30-minute segments taught me radio.
23:11Sitting in the studio, not talking, except for to do news, gave me an opportunity to literally just sit and observe a veteran radio DJ
23:19and a veteran radio comedian and learn the job and see how they interacted with the community
23:26and how much local radio mattered, still does to a lot of people.
23:30Man, we had cats, man, who would call in, they would call in from prison.
23:40Breakfast buffet, what's up?
23:42Who's this?
23:42You have a call from a collection, from a correctional facility.
23:46Your call is from, shout out Clayton County, boom, boom, room, don't forget about us, to accept the charges.
23:54And we would decline the charges, but we would play their shout out to themselves.
23:59It was incarcerated people saying, don't forget about us.
24:04Yeah.
24:05It's beautiful.
24:05And so that was what got me my internship credit, but more importantly, way more experience than I would have ever gotten anywhere else in the city, on campus included.
24:22So when I got to Birmingham, I graduate 2001, I come back to Birmingham.
24:26Ricky Smiley has left.
24:28He was king of the city.
24:29Said Delaney was running things on radio for a while.
24:32And at that point, they had flipped the morning show again, and they needed a new comedian.
24:37Well, here I am with experience in standup and a degree in broadcast.
24:43You have to hire me.
24:46You have no choice.
24:47I want to switch gears for a second, and I want to ask about your mom.
24:51I met your mom at the Alabama Humanities thing.
24:57She looks just like you, and she seems like a big personality.
25:03I'm wondering if she has given you a lot of advice over the years, whether it's on The Daily Show or it's on your new show.
25:12Have I got news for you?
25:13What kind of feedback do you get from your mom?
25:15My mom's advice has always been rooted in how to deal with people, how to deal with conflict, how to deal with adversity.
25:25It's interesting because you think that your parents have nothing to offer in wisdom because they haven't done the same thing.
25:33For context, for those who don't know, my mother's been an educator her entire life.
25:37She was in the Birmingham City School System until the early 90s and then moved over to UAB and since then has been at Miles College for coming up on 30 years.
25:51And she's still working, right?
25:53And she's in her 70s?
25:55Yeah, mid-70s, still working, still goes to work every day.
25:58She loves the kids.
25:59She loves knowledge.
26:00You know, somewhere over that same amount of time, you know, she's collected a couple of, you know, masters and doctorates and law degrees.
26:08So you think that, oh, well, you're classroom smart.
26:11You don't know about education.
26:13You don't know about entertainment.
26:14But it's all the same.
26:15It's people.
26:16It's relationships.
26:17It's conflict.
26:18It's making choices.
26:19It's deciding whether or not you know for sure that you are smarter than the person who's trying to make decisions over you.
26:28You know, the higher I've ascended, the more similar our jobs are.
26:32You know, the biggest challenge of entertainment, the higher you ascend, the more you are told or expected, rather, to trust the people around you.
26:47And somewhere along the way in your career, you stop trusting yourself.
26:51You stop listening to yourself first.
26:52And you listen to everybody else and then you do what they say do or you feel like what they're high of mine, you know, even if what you feel goes against all of that.
27:05And to me, that's what I'm like, no, no, I think I'm going to I think I'm going to do what I want to do for myself now.
27:13You know, a lot of that emerged early on.
27:17I had a contract dispute with 95.7 one year at the time I was I was ready to quit.
27:25I've probably been working at the station three years.
27:27I wasn't making a lot of money, but I had a disgusting amount of flexibility for travel.
27:33And I didn't understand because this was my first real radio job.
27:39I didn't have the perspective of knowing that most radio stations don't let you go nowhere.
27:44They make you sit here, stay in town every weekend, go do all of the events.
27:49And at this time, as a co-host slash producer, I didn't have any of those like restraints for as long as I did my job.
27:57And all the if I did print calls, I pre-record them.
28:01If I had a parody song, I put that in the can.
28:03Everything was nice and neat in the computer.
28:06So Friday morning, I can hop in my Ford Focus and dip and go to where I need to be.
28:11I needed a root canal and I didn't have dental at the time.
28:15I was on one of those dental discount plans that, you know, you pay $200, but you get $50 off enough shit.
28:24It covers the $200 or whatever.
28:27And I, and I can say all of this now because all of the people involved have left the company.
28:35Um, I was getting paid 29 hours every week to work at 95 seven at that time to be eligible for health and dental in the state of Alabama.
28:43You had to be making 30 hours.
28:46And so I go to my boss and I go, Hey man, my tooth hurts and it's going to cost $800.
28:52I don't have $800.
28:54Give me an extra hour of pay.
28:59And in exchange, I will deal with this painful tooth for a month.
29:04Numb it, whatever I got to do so I can get it fixed for next to nothing.
29:09And they said, no.
29:11And I was furious.
29:13And so, you know, I understood the idea of, of being angry and rage quitting and everything I've done for this station over the years.
29:24And y'all can't do this one thing.
29:27I ain't never asked y'all for nothing.
29:28And I'm, I'm going to follow my mom about it one night because I got to borrow the money from her to get the tooth fix.
29:35And I'm explaining to her and, you know, she's going, well, you know, they're not going to be able to do, they can't do what they can't do because the corporation does not care about the individual.
29:45But see if there is something else that you can benefit from, that the corporation, you know, basically they can't give you this, but they, but they might be able to give you that.
30:00But it's on you to figure out what that is.
30:04And so I took a long looking assessment at the station and what I do and what, what could they possibly do?
30:13And I go, oh yeah, this station goes, this station on a clear night reaches all the way to Meridian, Mississippi on the west side and all the way through the Talladega National Forest on the other side.
30:28South, you can catch us about to Coleman.
30:31And I've heard rumors that on a clear day, you can get us in Sylacauga.
30:37Okay.
30:38Well, then maybe I can get the station to give me inventory to sell my prank phone call CDs.
30:45Oh.
30:46And then if they let me plug my CDs, I can go to the record stores in those markets.
30:57On the strength that they're going to get mentioned in the commercial and people will specifically come there to buy the CD.
31:08So I made a prank call CD and I go to two places to start.
31:13I go to Music and More, none but love to Akil Rashid and his father, his wife, that whole family.
31:23They took care of me.
31:24Music and More was a black owned radio record store and they had three locations at the time.
31:30They had Midfield, Five Points West and Heritage Town Center over in West End.
31:39And they put my CD in all three of those stores.
31:42So I go to the station, hey, can I plug?
31:44And they go, well, we can't give you a full commercial, but we can let you plug it within the morning show four times.
31:50That was enough, Sid.
31:53That was enough.
31:55And this all goes back to your mom and your mom's telling you to think about a different way to make it work.
32:02Yeah.
32:02Figure out another way to make it work.
32:04You're mad about that.
32:06But before you quit, see if there's something else that you can figure out.
32:11Man, I made $500 that first week.
32:13I was head over heels.
32:15Yeah.
32:15Wow.
32:15And I was still mad at the radio station, but I understood how to play the game.
32:23And so that, by the end of the year, I had my prank call CDs from Huntsville all the way down to Montgomery.
32:30I was in Sam Goody's and I was in the bigger stores.
32:35Because once you start selling at Oz and Music and More, well, now Sam Goody's going, well, what about us?
32:42I think Turtles was still around.
32:45Maybe it was like the last days of the last days of Turtles music.
32:48What about us?
32:50Tell me about your mom as a cook.
32:52We ate on Sundays in our house.
32:57Because everybody else was gone most of the time.
33:01You know, my mom was in night school, always getting another degree.
33:05My father, in addition to doing the morning news, he had a jazz show at night or he'd be out at some mingles.
33:11He was a socialite and that was part of the needs of his job.
33:15So it didn't make sense to cook a big meal that he not going to come home to eat till 1130 at night.
33:21Assuming that's a night that he even comes home if we're being 100 about it.
33:25So, you know, I was kind of latchkey.
33:28And, you know, my mom would make a big meal on Sunday and you could ride that till Tuesday.
33:33Wednesday, she might make some hamburger helper.
33:36All right.
33:36Well, you know that for two days.
33:37Change out the vegetables each night so it feels like a new meal.
33:40What did the Sunday meal look like?
33:42Hungry Jack biscuits.
33:44We were a syrup-sopping family.
33:47We put the butter in the syrup and sop it all up in one fill.
33:52We didn't put butter inside the biscuit.
33:54That didn't come till later when we got money.
33:57Me, my mom, and my dad sitting there and just reading the paper and passing the paper around in sections.
34:03It's eggs.
34:03It's bacon.
34:06Never pancakes or waffles, though.
34:08Always biscuits.
34:09It's just, and now that I'm older and I've worked enough 18-hour days, I understand why my mom wasn't making these big, extravagant meals.
34:17But then, you know, sometimes you have a simple breakfast and then we may, my dad might take us all to Quincy's restaurant for, you know, for, you know, after church buffet type situation.
34:31Dinner sometimes, you know, we do rump roast.
34:35We do meatloaf.
34:36But, you know, some nights, you know, during the week, we were, we were, we were grabbing go, you know.
34:44I was pot pie sometimes.
34:46I was Hot Pocket sometimes.
34:47And other times, there might be a little rump roast left over.
34:50Cool.
34:50Make yourself a, make yourself a meatloaf sandwich.
34:54You know, so, you know, you might bake a chicken.
34:56Okay, cool.
34:57You know, this, because this was in the era before you could just go to the grocery store and buy a whole rotisserie.
35:03There was no Kenny Rogers roasters, you know, back in those days.
35:08But, you know, once I got into sports, I pretty much fed myself after practice.
35:14I would come home already full.
35:15So, you know, it wasn't necessarily a big sprawling meal.
35:19There would just be a bunch of vegetables to choose from and whatever meat was, yes, whatever meat we made the day before.
35:26Roy, I want to do a little lightning round real quick and then I want to talk about your show.
35:30Can we do that?
35:32Absolutely.
35:32You did a series a few years ago about Popeye's fried chicken.
35:43So, that's why I'm asking this first one.
35:46That's such a deep cut because I never really promoted that.
35:51It's very much one of those, if you know, you know.
35:55Keep going.
35:55I didn't mean to cut you off.
35:56Well, so, I came across that and I remember it was a big deal.
36:00I mean, Popeye's fried chicken just blew up.
36:05And I don't know how they did it, but they did something right.
36:07That sandwich, man.
36:08That Popeye's chicken sandwich, it was so hard to get, man.
36:11It was the Beanie Baby, Tickle Me Elmo of food.
36:15It was.
36:16Yes, you would drive by a Popeye's and there would be a line of cars going around the block,
36:21which is, you know, but if you had gone a month before, there'd be nobody there.
36:28Crickets.
36:29So, all right.
36:31So, the first one is, the best fast food fried chicken is blank.
36:36The best fried chicken is Publix grocery stores.
36:41But fast food, we're talking drive-thru window.
36:43So, I find myself more often than not going to Popeye's.
36:50So, you were a fan.
36:51If it's for chicken.
36:52You were a fan.
36:53Yeah, but it's hard to put it all together.
36:56Like, Popeye's has good chicken.
36:58Bojangles has better biscuits.
37:00KFC has better sides.
37:03Chick-fil-A has better tea.
37:05So, you know, what are you doing?
37:08Like, if it's a sandwich, I'm probably going Chick-fil-A over Popeye's.
37:15If we're just going fried chicken sandwich.
37:16You get what I'm saying?
37:17Yeah, yeah.
37:17It's all.
37:18Depends on what you're ordering, what you're in the mood for.
37:20Yeah, I'm very much a connoisseur.
37:22I'm the type of guy, if I could time it perfectly, I would go one place for the sandwich, another
37:25place for the entree, a third place for the drink.
37:27The best barbecue place in Birmingham is blank.
37:30I think the best barbecue is Jim and Nick's.
37:34But I think the best hamburger is Bob Sykes.
37:38Yeah.
37:39Oh, the hamburger there.
37:40Yeah.
37:42I know I'm not supposed to go to a barbecue spot and not get the barbecue.
37:46But that Bob Sykes, that thing is working.
37:51It is working.
37:53I know everybody talks about sauce.
37:56And I just, I haven't had it enough.
37:58The best place to get Southern food in New York City is blank.
38:03Oh, I can just say this.
38:05I haven't had good catfish yet in New York City.
38:07I've probably had catfish at 10 different spots.
38:11Macaroni up here is terrible too.
38:13I feel like the Mason-Dixon line for macaroni is Washington, D.C.
38:18I really should say Richmond, Virginia, but I don't want to disrespect the black people
38:23in the Caribbeans and D.C.
38:24because I know they can put some flavor on this stuff.
38:26I'll put it to you like this.
38:28If someone from Alabama asked me where they should go for a Southern style meal, I would
38:38say you probably should just get a different type of meal.
38:43Because I don't know if you're going to like it.
38:46And I don't want that weight on me.
38:48People get mad if you recommend a spot they didn't like.
38:51You know, you can go to Harlem and, you know, there's...
38:54Sylvia's up there, yeah.
38:56And Sylvia and Red Rooster, you know, and these are all very good places.
39:01But, you know, you even take a place like Red Rooster.
39:03Red Rooster, traditionally, they will separate it for you.
39:07But traditionally, they serve their mac and cheese with the collard greens mixed as a single
39:14entree, which is ultimately what happens when you put the two on the plate in the South.
39:18But they just do it on purpose.
39:19They go, hey, we just already mixed it for you.
39:22I like it, but not everybody likes that.
39:26Because, you know, some people don't want their wets touching their dries on the plate,
39:30you know, and collard green is considered a wet.
39:32Mac can be loose, but, you know, the more casserole style, that's a dry.
39:37And you don't want that touching the wet.
39:38So, it's just, it's hard for me to suggest places, you know.
39:42But there's a few spots with good catfish.
39:45But I have yet to find the perfect meal across the board, all things considered.
39:50With the exception of maybe Boulevard Bistro on 110th Street.
39:57Okay.
39:57I do like Boulevard Bistro.
39:59They're good.
39:59All right.
39:59My family would say that the best dish I can make is blank.
40:03My family would say I can't cook.
40:05They respect my barbecue skills.
40:07I spent my cooking years working and violating child labor laws on the South side of Birmingham, Alabama.
40:14So, I didn't learn cooking.
40:16I'm sorry.
40:18And I've dated women that enjoyed cooking more than I did.
40:22So, I just never went in there to learn.
40:24I'm sorry.
40:26Yeah.
40:26As long as you can cook on that grill, you're good.
40:30I guess.
40:31But I'm in New York.
40:32They got all these laws because they don't want to start a forest fire.
40:35So, I'm kind of screwed.
40:36I got to get an air fryer.
40:37I thought about buying an air fryer, but I'm just scared I'll become one of those annoying people who never shuts up about their air fryer.
40:45All right.
40:45Last one.
40:46The funniest person in my family is blank.
40:49My mom.
40:50My son is a close second.
40:52He's gaining on her.
40:54My son's eight and he has a very keen sense of humor and sarcasm and analysis.
41:01And he's gaining.
41:04Uh-huh.
41:05He's gaining for sure.
41:06And your mom's name is Joyce, right?
41:09Yes.
41:09Yes.
41:09My mom is Joyce.
41:11Hands down funniest person I know because she's never tried to tell a joke.
41:14It's just funny.
41:16So, that's where you get it.
41:18Oh, yeah.
41:18Oh, a million percent.
41:20A million percent.
41:21I've never seen my father laugh ever.
41:22I don't even know if he ever had a favorite comedian other than Dick Gregory.
41:25All right, Roy.
41:26Let's talk about the new show for a second.
41:28So, you've got a new comedy special out.
41:30It's called Lonely Flowers.
41:32Yes.
41:32Yes.
41:33Yeah, Lonely Flowers streaming January 17th on Hulu.
41:37Tell me about the name and how you landed on that.
41:39The special is about connection and how we have none anymore in society, right?
41:43And this idea that we've become so disconnected, we don't interact with people.
41:48We don't do anything that's going.
41:52We just don't talk to each other enough in the world.
41:56And so, I feel like each of us as humans, we're beautiful.
42:00But if we came together, we would be a bouquet.
42:02And so, each person is its own little bitty lonely person.
42:07And if we try to connect with one another, I think we'd be better in the world.
42:10We need to bring back cashiers.
42:12Self-checkout is where it started.
42:13I did the research.
42:14Like, I feel like the cashier and that little casual chit-chat you'd get in the grocery store line, we really underestimated how much that made us feel good.
42:25Just a stranger going, oh, I like yogurt, too.
42:28That, to me, is where we fell off.
42:32And so, now we just live in these silos.
42:34We only talk to people through our phones.
42:37We don't even answer our phone when loved ones actually call.
42:40So, you know, it's just a different world now.
42:44Well, I think especially in the South, the self-checkout hurts, you know, because there's a lot of talking at the grocery store.
42:54And, I mean, if you're going to the grocery store in the South, you've got to build in some extra time because you're going to run into people.
43:03And you know, you know, you might have 15 minutes of shopping, but you've got to have at least.
43:07How are you doing this?
43:10So, Roy, you recorded this show down in D.C.
43:13And you have people laughing the whole time.
43:17I mean, it's, and how you do that, I don't, I don't understand.
43:22And it's an hour long.
43:25You're standing there in front of an audience for an hour.
43:27And you've got them laughing the whole time.
43:31But you also, like you said, it's about community.
43:34And you're talking about things that matter.
43:36And you're talking about things, there's some real substance to what you're talking about.
43:42And my question is, how do you balance the humor?
43:47How do you make people laugh and then also walk away feeling like they took something away from it?
43:56If you can get people to laugh, you can get them to listen.
44:00And so, you know, I'm not trying to preach.
44:02I just think I wanted to do a special that was also about community and also, you know, by on purpose, didn't do anything about politics for the most part in this special.
44:15Partly because I do the CNN show on Saturday nights every week now.
44:19I have a place to do those jokes.
44:22Here is a place where I can talk about whatever else I want to talk about.
44:26And I just felt like analyzing society at large was just a much bigger gesture, you know.
44:33But I think if you can get people to laugh, you can get them to open up.
44:37So, Roy, you're from the South and you grew up in Birmingham.
44:40As we've been talking, this is a place where connection really matters.
44:46And it seems like it matters to you.
44:48How does your southerness find its way into your comedy and into this show in particular?
44:55For this particular show, it was just about the idea of reminiscing and missing connection.
45:02And a lot of the references I make are references that I grew up experiencing.
45:07You know, I talked about how so few stores have a greeter now.
45:12The idea of just saying hello used to be an occupation.
45:16Now, I can't speak for the East Coast, but like literally your only job is to say hello and goodbye to people.
45:23That was a regular thing.
45:25Now, you can't find an employee.
45:28You know, I even joked a little bit in the special about how, like, as a black man, I even miss getting followed around the store just for the friendship.
45:36Like, we're lonely, baby.
45:40We're all sad.
45:41But I think that the idea that we have to show care and concern about the next man is definitely a linchpin of the special for me.
45:52And I think that's really, it really comes through time and time again throughout the jokes.
45:57And I think within that, a lot of what I reminisce and long for, a lot of it is, you know, entrenched in Southern culture.
46:06You know, we were talking about your mom.
46:08And one of the things that you mentioned in the show is that you talk to your mom every week.
46:15You used to call her and check in after you'd been maybe doing a club or comedy club over a weekend.
46:25You'd been traveling.
46:26And I love that.
46:27I love that that's a way that you have this kind of built-in connection back home.
46:33And it's a priority for you.
46:35You know, that call started from more of it being just a safety call early on.
46:39Because, you know, my mom, we didn't always see eye to eye on my choice of employment.
46:44But also, I'm doing comedy in strange places in the South.
46:48And she's worried about, you know, car crash or racism.
46:53So, I would call her on Monday when I got back to town.
46:57Yeah, I'm here.
46:57I'm going to class.
47:00I'm home.
47:00Wasn't a long call.
47:02No.
47:02No, it was very short.
47:04Because I'm, you're going to ask me how it went.
47:08And I'm not going to tell you the truth.
47:10Yeah, I was opening for a guy.
47:12He left his guitar on the stage.
47:14So, we were performing in the hotel where we stayed.
47:17So, I went to his hotel room to take him back his guitar.
47:20And it was every drug but crack on the table.
47:24And then he invited me in.
47:25And I said, no, thanks.
47:27Because I'm playing Madden.
47:28Because I travel with my PlayStation.
47:30So, how was your day at UAB?
47:32Yeah.
47:33Joyce.
47:33Like, we weren't going to have those conversations.
47:37And so, yeah, I'm still a Southern boy that loves his mom.
47:41And I'll take some advice and a little bit of wisdom.
47:44And, you know, when I get home, I think the thing that a lot of the Southerners who leave the South struggle with is still learning how to turn off your work mode when you come back home.
47:56You know, I think if you're always in the South, you always understand the oscillation between the two worlds.
48:01But there's a certain pressure that exists when you're trying to build a career for yourself in spaces outside of Birmingham, outside of the South.
48:13You know, New York City is a lot of pressure.
48:16And you're running with people that behave as such.
48:18So, you start behaving as such.
48:20And then one of your relatives will call just to say hello.
48:25And they don't mean anything by it.
48:26But in your mind, you're like, get to the point.
48:28I have 50 other things to do.
48:30And if they detect a smidge of that, the call is going to be twice as long because now you're going to get lectured.
48:36I struggle with navigating that a great deal.
48:39And that's not just what my mom, but that's, you know, most anybody that's not in some sort of weird rat race where your industry has never had the consistency of anything but quicksand for 27 years.
48:52At best, I've had job stability, the level of jello.
48:55The Daily Show is pretty good.
48:57The Daily Show was some solid concrete that...
49:01That's for a long time.
49:02That was for, what, seven or eight years?
49:03Yeah.
49:04Eight years is the longest job I've ever had anywhere.
49:07I can't think of anything else I've done for eight years.
49:11Before that, it was Golden Corral, two and a half.
49:15Yeah.
49:16I got fired from that.
49:21Well, Roy, I just have one more question for you.
49:24What does it mean to you to be Southern?
49:27To be Southern means to be caring.
49:33I don't think it's possible to be Southern, at least a good Southerner, without having real care and concern for people and having care and concern for your community.
49:46And I feel like I got both.
49:48I think you do.
49:50And I'm so appreciative of you being here.
49:53It's great to have you on.
49:55Thanks for being on Biscuits and Jam.
49:57Absolutely.
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