Joe DeRosa’s Biggest Influences

Joe DeRosa is a veteran comic, writer for The Pete Holmes Show, and frequent guest on The Opie & Anthony Show. In 2012 he authored Cheat: A Man’s Guide to Infidelity with fellow O&A regulars Bill Burr & Robert Kelly. His weekly podcast, Down with Joe DeRosa, draws a huge audience. All told, he’s a fellow with quite a lot cooking in various media, so naturally we decided to ask him the tough, compelling questions about ninja turtles.

Man Cave Daily: You’ve recently made the move from New York to Los Angeles. Was that a smooth transition or do you find it’s still an adjustment at times?

Joe DeRosa: It’s a gradual thing and every day I’m adjusting. The pace is the biggest difference I think. A lot of people say it’s the weather or the industry but for me it’s definitely the pace. Here you can walk outside your door and see grass and trees. In New York, you walk outside your door and you’re immediately apart of this conveyer belt almost. It’s a machine. I think that was the most challenging thing for me. You get used to that pulse and you really miss it for a while and I still do miss it at times. I will say it was great to move to LA and see people I know who had moved out here. That was nice.

MCD: How does it feel working with Pete Holmes?

JDR: It’s great. I’ve known Pete since he was the wide-eyed kid from the Boston comedy club that had just moved to New York where I was fairly new myself. All these years later to get to see him host a late night show and get to be apart of that is great. I’m proud of my friends when they get to achieve something like that and that is a rare achievement. It’s been a lot of fun.

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MCD: You’ve had some really great guests on your podcast Down With Joe DeRosa where you have one guest and discuss one topic for one hour. If you could have anyone living or dead on the show, who would that be and what topic would you discuss?

JDR: It’s funny you should say that, we’re actually about to start a new series on the show with a round of special episodes called “Respect The Dead” where we discuss a person that I admire or my guest admires that isn’t here anymore. My first two picks would be George Carlin and Frank Zappa. I plan on doing episodes about them early on in the series. My question for both of them would be – how did you maintain it all? How did you not let this business just eat you alive or force you to tap out? When you’re a person that’s trying to do something different the way they did, how do you maintain that?

MCD: Who would you say are your top comedic influences?

JDR: George Carlin is number one, hands down. His work reshaped the way I think and approach everything and that goes far beyond comedy. I just learned so much about perspective and looking at things from an angle other than the one that had been taught to me. He’s inspired me to question things and not be afraid to go my own way artistically or with whatever. He was the first non-musician to do that for me.

I saw Carlin for the first time when I was 11 on his special Doin’ It Again. The first thing he does when he comes out is say “because of the FCC, I’m never sure what I’m allowed to say, so here is the language you will not be hearing tonight…” and obviously that setup makes you think he’s going to say “I won’t speak profanity and mention this or that…” and it’s not. It’s this whole piece about language and politically correct language and certain euphemisms or whatever and the whole piece ends with “If you’re one of those people who needs a little space, please go the !*(% outside.”

I was like, oh my God, I can’t believe that’s a job. There’s a job you can have where you can get on stage without any accompaniment and tell an entire room of people if you don’t like me, go !*(% yourselves and at the same time tell these “authority figures” the same thing and get paid for it. It’s not just accepted, people actually applaud it. It blew my mind. He was a grown-up, older than my parents, on stage saying “!*(% you.” I couldn’t believe it. That was it, I was obsessed with him from that point on.

MCD: Is there any show you’re keeping up with right now?

JDR: I was obsessed with True Detective like everybody else. That was the first show I had seen in a long time where I was like “Oh, maybe I need to stay home tonight to watch this instead of just watching it later.” I hope there’s more of that, I know they’re going to do another season and I hope there’s a lot more of that show to come. Right now I’m actually watching Twin Peaks because I was a little too young the first time around. I remember my Mom saying, “That show’s weird. I don’t like it.” So I was like “Okay, I guess it’s weird” and never watched it. I’m watching it now and I like David Lynch for the same reasons I listed earlier in regards to music. I’m really liking it so far where I’m at.

L-R: DeRosa, Kelly, Burr

MCD: We got to see your acting skills on the web series We Should Break Up with Nikki Glaser as well as the movie Cheat with Bill Burr and Robert Kelly. Have you considered pursuing acting more in the future?

JDR: I’ve done some TV shows and a couple things this year so far, did an episode of Sullivan & Son which was great. I did an episode of Louie a couple years ago and Bored to Death which was fun. I got to do Inside Amy Schumer again, she’s had me on both seasons which was nice. I continue to act and audition and plan on keeping it as part of my career and hopefully I’ll get to do more.

MCD: You’ve mentioned your love for music in the past. Who would you say is your favorite artist or music group?

JDR: It started with gangster rap. Tons of classic hip-hop albums came out when I was growing up and I loved many of them but I remember there were certain albums I just wasn’t into. I wanted stuff that was more aggressive and rebelled against everything I had been conditioned by. I still love that music.

It was gangster rap at first and then that took me into hard rock and heavy metal and Sinatra eventually. Sinatra to me was the same thing, it was a guy with attitude. I loved it. In high school I got into punk rock and that’s when I found Bad Religion and that became my favorite band of all time, for the exact same reasons Carlin was so instrumental in my life. After Bad Religion I got into Mike Patton from Faith No More and his music was just daring stuff. He played by his own rules and I loved it. Eventually, Frank Zappa became my favorite musical artist of all time. So Carlin was the comedian, Bad Religion was the band and Zappa was the musician. The three are still my biggest influences.

MCD: Which Godfather was the best of the trilogy? Don’t mess this up.

JDR: The second. Who doesn’t like that one the best?

MCD: If you were stuck on a desert island and could only bring one item, which Bill Burr comedy album would you choose?

JDR: I should say something funny here as I’m sure he would but I particularly like his last album the best, You People Are All The Same.

MCD: This is a question I know everyone’s asking and you must get sick of hearing but – who is your favorite Ninja Turtle and why?

JDR: Leonardo. He seems the most balanced, he’s got the best weapon, he’s not always making stupid jokes. Raphael I never even counted like, who are you? What is your personality? Your weapon sucks. Donatello is right there too. Michelangelo is too funny all the time. I like Leonardo, he’s balanced, has the best color, can’t go wrong with him.