{"id":8475,"date":"2014-01-22T08:50:05","date_gmt":"2014-01-22T16:50:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=8475"},"modified":"2014-01-29T10:23:45","modified_gmt":"2014-01-29T18:23:45","slug":"bruce-mcculloch-the-nexus-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2014\/01\/22\/bruce-mcculloch-the-nexus-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruce McCulloch: the <i>Nexus<\/i> interview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bruce McCulloch is one of Canada\u2019s most well-known comedians, most notably for his work on the hit sketch TV comedy series<i> Kids in the Hall<\/i>, but also for his work in film both as a writer and director (<i>Dog Park<\/i>, <i>Superstar<\/i>, <i>Stealing Harvard<\/i>). Currently traveling through western Canada with his latest standup show, <i>Young Drunk Punk<\/i>, detailing his rowdy days growing up in Alberta, McCulloch took some time out of his busy schedule to talk to<i> Nexus<\/i> about the bad choices, drunken fights, and peaceful resolutions that make up his latest stage production.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_8477\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8477\" style=\"width: 420px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/BRUCE-54.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-8477 \" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/BRUCE-54.jpg\" width=\"420\" height=\"279\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/BRUCE-54.jpg 700w, https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/BRUCE-54-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/BRUCE-54-180x119.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 420px) 100vw, 420px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-8477\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Comedian Bruce McCulloch delivering his funnies on stage (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><i>Hey, Bruce. How\u2019s your day going?<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Good. I\u2019m at home, prepping feverishly for the show.<\/p>\n<p><i>So are you listening to some old punk records while you\u2019re getting ready for it?<\/i><\/p>\n<p>No, I listen to the laughter of children outside my door. And it\u2019s actually not laughter, it\u2019s crying, but I want to construe it as laughter because it\u2019s easier.<\/p>\n<p><i>Tell me a little bit about the show. It sounds like you\u2019re going back to your glory days and reliving some memories?<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Well, yes and no. It\u2019s kind of about how a guy from a weird family in Alberta became an old man living in the Hollywood hills with two kids who are always yelling at him. I\u2019ve been interested in how we become who we are, and how I became who I was, so it references punk, but it\u2019s punk in the spirit of trying to figure out who we are, which we all do. So it\u2019s a show, but also a night of comedy. And my friend Craig Northey from [Canadian rock band] The Odds plays on stage with me!<\/p>\n<p><i>So is the music portion of the show songs that you\u2019ve already had from before or&#8230;?<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Well, it\u2019s a mixed thing. I have a couple of records, which is what we used to call them, so there are a couple of things that weave in from those, and there\u2019s a new song I wrote. The music serves as the score for poems and stories that I have, so it sort of weaves in and out in what I hope is a tasteful manner.<\/p>\n<p><i>What\u2019s been the reaction to the show so far?<\/i><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been pretty good. That\u2019s why I\u2019m doing more shows, because it felt really good the first time around. It\u2019s pretty fun to still be able to do this after all these years.<\/p>\n<p><i>When you think back on your early days in Alberta and being a young punk, what kind of memories come back?<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Well, I was kind of a young jerk trying to figure out who I was. You know, getting into fights and actually getting beat up. Although, getting into fights implies that I threw some punches. But it\u2019s also interesting that I found a few people along the way and went somewhere else in my life, and now I want to revisit all of that.<\/p>\n<p><i>Some of the characters you played on <\/i>Kids in the Hall<i>, like Sid, the alley fighter, and Grivo, your parody of [metal rocker] Glenn Danzig, seem to be inspired by those times. Do any of them come back into the show?<\/i><\/p>\n<p>No, I don\u2019t play characters in the show. I tell stories&#8230; about my stupid life.<\/p>\n<p><i>And it seems like you have a lot of material?<\/i><\/p>\n<p>I certainly do [laughs].<\/p>\n<p><i>When you first started putting this show together, did you have to go to some friends to fill in the pieces or did it all come flooding back?<\/i><\/p>\n<p>I have a freakish memory for certain things I\u2019ve been through, for whatever reason. Of course, I don\u2019t know my own cell number, but I can remember everything that happened 20 years ago.<\/p>\n<p><i>Are there any morals or messages to the show?<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Well, as comedians we don\u2019t like to have morals. If people come away with stuff, that\u2019s fine. People have said that it\u2019s cool that the angry young man who they grew up with on TV is now a middle-aged dad in his pajamas. But, for me, and most everyone I knew, we all crawled out of crappy families and somehow now I\u2019m holding together a better one, so that\u2019s my personal victory. When I first started doing <i>Kids in the Hall<\/i> I just thought I was this lonely guy, but as I started communing with the people who liked our work, there was a lot of us out there. So that\u2019s what the spirit of the show is, theoretically&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><i>Do you have any major regrets or major mistakes that you made when you were younger?<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Oh, thousands of them. Literally thousands. I always laugh when people say they don\u2019t have any regrets. I\u2019ve had mostly a lucky life, but there\u2019s the odd broken bottle, or heart, or Toyota Corolla, along the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bruce McCulloch is one of Canada\u2019s most well-known comedians, most notably for his work on the hit sketch TV comedy series Kids in the Hall, but also for his work in film both as a writer and director (Dog Park, Superstar, Stealing Harvard). Currently traveling through western Canada with his latest standup show, Young Drunk [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-january-22-2014"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8475"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8479,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8475\/revisions\/8479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}