All rights belong to their respective owners. Digitally remastered and AI Full HD 1080 Upscaled. R.I.P. Sam, (1953–1992)
Tag: Slash
-
Second-Chance Sam
By Joe Rhodes
Frequent Contributor To TV Times
Originally printed in The Los Angeles Times
Sunday, November 17, 1991Sam Kinison has been sent to his corner, away from the main set of the new Fox network sitcom “Charlie Hoover,” isolated from the rest of the cast and most of the crew.
Tim Matheson, Kinison’s co-star, is in the midst of an elaborate set, surrounded by extras and scenery: slot machines, miniskirted waitresses, crap tables, all the details necessary to evoke the ambience of an Atlantic City casino.
Kinison, in his trademark beret and long coat, is standing barely 30 feet away, but he might as well be in another world. His area, brightly lighted and painted entirely in blue, is roped off from the casino set and his only clear view of the other actors is via a monitor. Kinison looks strangely disembodied surrounded by all that blue, the lone resident of a monochromatic universe.
“Every time they say, ‘OK, time to change sets,’ I always start to move along with everybody else,” Kinison says, waiting patiently for his cue. “And then I realize, hey, I’m not going anywhere. They may be changing sets but I’m stuck right here in Blue World.”
Which, all in all, is not a bad metaphor for Kinison’s career. It’s been 10 years since he first roared into Los Angeles, the howling stand-up from hell. He has, for the last decade, been the comedy equivalent of a Scud missile, loud, messy and you could never be sure just exactly when he’d explode.
Kinison, a former road-show evangelist, and his act embodied his conversion to the wild side of life. Designed to provoke, it served him well. He was criticized for bashing women, bashing gays, bashing Christianity. And every criticism brought in more paying customers.
His personal life did nothing to soften his on-stage image. There were drugs, alcohol abuse, danger and debauchery on a grand scale. He hung out with the heavy-metal crowd, acting more like a rock star than a comedian.
“It was fun to be at the China Club and be up there jamming with Slash or Joe Walsh and John Entwistle (of The Who), and I’d be a liar to say I didn’t love it, that it wasn’t my high school dream, ’cause it was,” Kinison says. “But there comes a point where you say, I’ve done enough of this. I want to move on to something else.
“I mean it was great to be the rock comic, the shock comic. But after you’ve played Giants Stadium with Bon Jovi in front of 82,000 people, after you’ve done the “Wild Thing” video with Jessica Hahn and every rock band from hell, you’re not gonna top that. And I’m on the other side of 35 now, so it’s time.”
Which is why Kinison, who’s 37 to be exact, is standing on this blue stage, pursuing that most mainstream of comedy goals, a network sitcom. “I want to show people that there’s a side of myself other than just the outrageous comedian,” Kinison says. “I hope this shows that I can do family entertainment, that my comedy doesn’t just depend on vulgarity.”
In “Charlie Hoover,” Kinison plays Matheson’s 12-inch-tall alter ego, the inner voice who’s always urging him, as Kinison explains “to not go to work, to call that girl, to run away. I’m his pleasure center.”
Kinison’s scenes are shot with a special-effects camera that allows his 12-inch image, shot against the blue background, to be inserted, live, into the master shots. Kinison and Matheson rehearse face to face and then, when its time to shoot, return to their respective sets, able to see each other only through occasional glances at the monitors.
“It really doesn’t feel that difficult to me because I’m used to performing by myself when I do stand-up,” Kinison says. “But (the producers) seem to think it’s really hard. Don’t tell ’em. Let ’em think I’m bustin’ my ass.”
Kinison seems genuinely grateful that Fox took a chance on him, considering his longstanding reputation as a less than reliable performer. “I think a lot of ’em were wondering if I was up to it and I was kind of wondering myself. It was like, ‘Gee, I hope I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew here.’”
But instead of hating the long hours and the morning calls, Kinison has found himself invigorated by having a steady job. “I kind of needed this, I think,” he says. “I needed something to turn the nights back into the days.”
Image considerations aside, Kinison was getting plenty of clues that he needed to slow down. He was forced into rehab programs to deal with his substance abuse problems. His younger brother, Kevin, committed suicide in 1988; last summer his girlfriend was raped by his bodyguard while Kinison, allegedly passed out drunk, slept in the other room.
“Yeah, those were pretty sobering experiences,” Kinison said, quietly, his demeanor as far from his raging stage persona as it could be. “Those are things that can either destroy you or, if you survive them, make you stronger. Those are hard things for anyone to get through, especially people with the title of comedian.
“I’m just glad I made the transition from when I could have overdosed or when I could have fallen asleep at the wheel and run off a cliff or something. It’s good to have survived those years.
“I don’t hear anything screaming in here any more,” Kinison says, pointing to his heart. “I’m just happy to be here. I’m just happy to have the chance.”
“Charlie Hoover” airs Saturdays at 9 p.m. on Fox.
-
The Man Who Would Be King of Metal
By Patrick Goldstein
Originally printed in The Los Angeles Times
Sunday, March 18, 1990Could Sam Kinison be rock’s new head-banger hero?
The heavy-metal comic, who boasts “I can play guitar at least as well as (Guns N Roses guitarist) Slash, is hoping to cross-over from comedy to rock audiences with his new album, “Leader of the Banned.” Due March 27 from Warner Bros. Records, “Banned” features an entire side of thundering metal, including new versions of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell,” Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen,” Cheap Trick’s “Gonna Raise Hell” and the Rolling Stone’s “Under My Thumb,” which will be the first single.
Now touring the Midwest with his comedy show, Kinison says he’s trying to put together an all-star band “who could go out with me and maybe even open for Motley Crue on their tour.” The Crue, who have cleaned up their act, would be a perfect match for Kinison, who says he has “cut out the booze” and is attending AA meetings.
It’s hard to say whether he’s more proud of his sobriety or his new album, which features such hotshots as Poison’s CC De Ville, Guns N Roses’ Slash, Bon Jovi keyboardist David Bryam, Whitesnake bassist Rudy Sarzo, Dweezil Zappa and rock vet Leslie West.
“Listen, I’ve been playing guitar since I was 15,” Kinison said. “I’m not intimidated by these guys. I may not be as good as CC De Ville, but it’s not like I’m William Shatner doing ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.’”
But is rock radio ready for Kinison? “I haven’t heard the record yet, but if the songs are good, we’ll play ’em,” said KLOS-FM program director Carey Curelop. “He certainly won’t be penalized because he’s a comedian. Eddie Murphy had a big hit–he wasn’t treated like a novelty artist. So if Sam’s serious about making a good rock record, we’ll treat him seriously.”
Kinison said his video for “Under My Thumb” is set in a courtroom, with a tentative cast featuring Ozzy Osbourne as the judge, Paul Williams as Kinison’s attorney, “Married With Children’s” Dave Faustino as a defendant and a jury of 12 sexy dancers. “We have a bit where I put on these special X-ray glasses so I can look at the girls and see their lingerie,” Kinison explained. “We only cast dancers who were born after the Kennedy assassination. We tried to come up with everything that would shock MTV.”
When it comes to shock, Kinison is a master (though he’s covered his bets with the video channel by having Dweezil appear in his clip playing a guitar in the shape of MTV’s logo). His last album was so incendiary that Warners put two warning stickers on the jacket–and inserted an AIDS awareness pamphlet because gay activists were so outraged by Kinison’s jokes about AIDS. This time around “Banned” is “being treated like a regular release,” said Warners publicity chief, Bob Merlis. “There’s no firestorm of controversy that I’ve heard of.”
In fact, Warners let Kinison design his own warning sticker, which will read: “Pan Am 103: The Truth Must Be Known. Explicit Language and Material: Parental Advisory.”
Kinison says Warners only added its warning stickers and AIDS pamphlet to his previous album under pressure. “I feel I really got singled out last time,” he complained. “They put so many stickers on my last album that you couldn’t even see my (expletive) face! Comedy isn’t a pack of cigarettes. It doesn’t need a surgeon general’s report on it. I always get blamed for being a (jerk). But play Andrew Dice Clay’s record and tell me who the gay-basher is.”
With arch-rival Clay now performing rock music in his concert act too, relations between the two contenders for the title of King of the Metal Comics have soured considerably.
“We get along about as well as Poison and Warrant,” said Kinison, referring to a pair of feuding rock bands. “Dice is the Morton Downey Jr. of comedy–his career is gonna burn up like Larry Storch. I think he saw me do my act and said, ‘Duh, I’ll put on the leather jacket and insult everybody,’ as if no one would notice he was ripping off my (expletive) jokes! Now he’s even closing his shows with an all-star jam, except no all-stars ever show up!
“When he reads I might do four or five songs with a rock band, he’ll probably do it too. I’m surprised I haven’t seen him come out wearing a long coat and a beret already.”
-
Press Release: Have You Seen Me Lately?
October 1988
A comedy explosion has swept across America in the ’80s, and in 1985, its most potent weapon was introduced to the public, Sam Kinison. From the minute he blasts onto the stage, Kinison, an ex-preacher, takes his audiences over the edge with his powerful approach which pushes comedy to its darkest, and often loudest, limits.
Kinison’s meteoric rise to the top has brought him fans of all types, ranging from the wild heavy-metal set to the John Does of America, and he has been applauded with an equal fervor from the critics. With a non-stop work schedule that includes films, concert, records and television specials, there is no doubt that Kinison’s controversial topics and behavior will continue ruffling feathers well into the ’90s. It’s in his blood.
His October ’88 album release on Warner Bros. Records, Have You Seen Me Lately?, is filled with Kinison’s trademark hard-hitting monologues. Kinison’s approach is outrageous, challenging, and hysterically funny, and it finds him jumping headlong into monologues about taboos, preacher scam artists, the Pope, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. With titles such as, “Robo-Pope,” “The Story of Jim (Bakker),” “Jesus The Miracle Caterer,” “Lesbians Are Our Friends,” “Pocket Toys,” “Parties With The Dead,” and “Sexual Diaries,” Kinison leaves no stone unturned.
The LP also finds Kinison embarking on his adventurous singing debut on the revised remake of the Troggs classic, “Wild Thing.” After bringing the crowd to it’s feet with an impromptu performance of the song at his sold-out show at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles last July, Kinison decided to record the song and include it on his album. No surprisingly, Kinison has revamped the lyrics as only he can: “Wild thing, you made me trust you then stuck a knife in my heart. You lying, unfaithful, untrustable tramp…”
Kinison didn’t have to look very far for help in recording the song. Joining Kinison for this raunchy rendition were some of his biggest fans, including such notable rockers as members of Whitesnake, Poison, and Motley Crue. The recording, which was produced by Richie Zito, known for his studio work on Cheap Trick and Eddie Money, is accompanied by a video that turns the temperature up even more with its “who’s who” of rock ‘n rollers.
The video version, described by Kinison as “everything I always wanted to be in high school,” was directed by the acclaimed Marty Callner, and teams Kinison with his rocker pals, which includes none other than Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi, Poison’s C.C. DeVille, Billy Idol, Rudy Sarzo of Whitesnake, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Tommy Lee from Motley Crue, Slash and Steven Adler from Guns N Roses, various members of Ratt, and John Waite and Jonathan Cain. It also features the notorious Jessica Hahn as the ‘Wild Thing,’ and a special appearance by Rodney Dangerfield.
Logging over 250 concert appearances every year has helped Kinison achieve across-the-board success, and his popularity knows no geographical or cultural boundaries. Following his initial appearance on Rodney Dangerfield’s 1985 HBO Special, Rodney Dangerfield presents the Young Comedians, which Kinison filled with what he terms, “the six minutes that changed my life,” Sam’s career moved into high gear. He followed up with four appearances on Late Night With David Letterman and five guest shots on Saturday Night Live, culmination in a sixth appearance as the show’s host in November of 1986. Longtime friend and mentor Rodney Dangerfield asked Sam back for his 1986 HBO special, I Don’t Get No Respect and for a memorable part of Rodney’s crazed history professor in Back To School.
Kinison then starred in his very own HBO Special, Breaking The Rules, and his debut comedy album, Louder Than Hell, went on to sell over 200,000 copies, making it one of the biggest selling comedy albums of all time.
Currently looking to develop a feature film which would combine his two greatest loves, comedy and rock ‘n roll, Kinison is sure to continue his attack on the American psyche, while Have You Seen Me Lately? challenges his audience to follow him to even deeper depths. The question is, just how deep can he go?