#2116 - Kevin James

Kevin James (0:08)

All day.

Joe Rogan (0:14)

Shiver!

Most people don't know about Shimmy. They don't know about your alter ego.

Kevin James (0:20)

No. Well, yeah, you were the one who brought it out of me.

You were, right?

Joe Rogan (0:29)

Well, we would do shows in New York, and you would go full Shimmy. I'd be on the side of the stage yelling out, Shimmy!

Kevin James (0:37)

Well, when we first started, by the way, we did The Joe Rogan Experience 30 years ago. Yeah, just hanging out. Exactly.

Joe Rogan (0:46)

Just playing pool.

Kevin James (0:47)

I remember Sussman brought you into town. You started at Nix, was it Nix or?

Joe Rogan (0:54)

I started at Stitches in Boston.

Kevin James (0:56)

Stitches.

Joe Rogan (0:57)

And then I was like two years in when I met you. And then I think we met at Eastside, which was awesome.

Kevin James (1:03)

What a great club. What a great club. I was just there.

Joe Rogan (1:05)

Shout out to Richie Manorvini.

Kevin James (1:06)

Yes, my man. He was the greatest, the greatest place to go. I remember it would be a line around the block, two shows like on a Wednesday night. It was insane.

Joe Rogan (1:18)

It was the golden age of comedy at the time, 1990

Kevin James (1:21)

Yes.

Joe Rogan (1:22)

Oh my God, it was incredible back then, 91-ish.

Kevin James (1:24)

I started at 89 I think I met you in, what is it, 91 maybe?

Joe Rogan (1:30)

90, 91?

Kevin James (1:31)

Yeah, somewhere in there. And I was following everybody. That was my thing.

I was being the stand-up comedian with the jacket sleeves pushed up and the bolo tie.

I was just that straight thing, and you came into town, and we were like, who is this dude? 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 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 people. Do what you want to do. And I was like, I just got to get going. Yeah, I got to wrap my head around that. You're right. You know, I just I would just try to make the audience so happy, you're like, stop it, stop it.

And you got to let go. And you'd get me going crazy. I get all fired up there. I'd be like, you know, the people, they'd be like, it's like, well, maybe we bring it back a little bit. But it was different, man. It really was. It was it really taught me to most of all to be comfortable in front of audience and not care about them. You know, I still I literally battled with it to this day. Yeah, that anxiety of, oh, gosh, I get nervous and I start overthinking things. So but it really helped me to say, like, just do what you do. And it's almost like the because the audience is like a dog, right? They sense fear.

Yeah, they're animals.

Joe Rogan (2:56)

Yeah, just like we are. We're all animals.

Kevin James (2:58)

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. If they look around and everybody's like, oh, it must be funny because he's just got confidence by it. And you had that confidence always, man. You're always insanely intense and just never look back. And way to go, man.

Joe Rogan (3:19)

Way to go for you, too. You just always needed a hype man.

You just need someone to like let you go. Like give him the green light. Give him the green light.

Kevin James (3:28)

It's so funny. You're right. You're right.

Joe Rogan (3:29)

Yeah, you just needed a hype man.

Kevin James (3:31)

You were the one who did it for me in Montreal, too.

Joe Rogan (3:33)

Yeah.

Kevin James (3:33)

Do you remember that? By the way, do you remember the beer we would drink? There were two kinds of this beer. I can't remember this Canadian beer. I've been racking my brain to think about it. It was like there was like a gold version of it and like an amber.

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.