Gabe Gibbs on Finding Laughter and Healing Through Comedy, Storytelling and Music in Life's Journey-Encore Episode
Comedy Saved Me
Host Lynn Hoffman interviews musical comedian Gabe Gibbs about his journey from a pastor's son in Detroit to a Broadway performer and viral
Key takeaways
- Gabe Gibbs utilizes 'musical comedy' as a distinct medium to bridge the gap between theater and stand-up.
- His three-year run in 'The Book of Mormon' served as a professional 'finishing school' for his comedic timing.
Main topics
- Musical Comedy
- Broadway Career
Notable quotes
I don't have to like kill it every time... But is my batting average generally decent?
Conclusion
The episode provides an inspiring look at how embracing the fear of fa
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:02) Comedy saved me. I'm Speaker 4 (0:04) Lynn Hoffman and welcome to Comedy Saved Me. I'm so excited you're here. Also wanted to let you know I host another show called Music Saved Me, very similar to Comedy Saved Me, but with musicians. But today is a huge twist of worlds. My guest today has done it all. Broadway, network television, viral social media, and somehow... He's managed to make all of it funnier than it probably ever needed to be. He has starred as the Elder Price in National Tour of the Book of Mormon. He had a recurring role on ABC's show Schooled and has also guest starred numerous times on shows like Grey's Anatomy. But what really sets him apart is his incredible gift for creating original music-driven comedy. Yes, I said music-driven comedy. This is why I'm so excited. from his musical comedy podcast called Musicals That Never Made It to sold-out original shows in Dynasty Typewriter in Los Angeles. And if you ever saw his viral music parodies of Britney Spears or the Backstreet Boys, Jonas Brothers, you already know this guy is something very special. He just released his first special on Veeps. And lucky for us, because he's coming up next right here on Comedy Saved Me, the wonderfully funny and absolutely adorable, ridiculously talented Gabe Gibbs. Next. Don't move. Speaker 2 (1:28) This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Speaker 1 (1:37) Comedy saved me. It is the Speaker 4 (1:39) one and only Gabe Gibbs. I'm so happy. Welcome to Comedy Saved Me. It's so great to meet you. Speaker 1 (1:44) I'm very happy to be here. I do have to say, listening to the intro, it was lovely to hear. And you have one of the nicest speaking voices in the world. Are you a singer? Thank you. Do Speaker 4 (1:57) you Speaker 1 (1:57) sing? I Speaker 4 (1:57) am not, although I did do musicals when I was in junior high school. I do voice work for a living. Speaker 1 (2:04) Yeah, yeah. Well, it's very well calculated, very well placed. And hearing your own little accolades, they sound fancier coming out of your mouth. So it was a nice little way to start the day. Thank you so much. Speaker 4 (2:17) What a beautiful compliment. I appreciate it. My parents used to say that I talk so much that one day I would have to find a way to make money with my mouth. Speaker 1 (2:25) Well, here you are. Speaker 4 (2:26) So there I am. And Speaker 1 (2:27) you've done it. Speaker 4 (2:28) Well, Gabe, it's so great to have you here. You're just, your energy just, I actually felt it when I watched some of your YouTube videos and your specials and stuff. You really have a way of just really making people feel like you're talking to them. Speaker 1 (2:43) Oh, whoa. Thank you very much. Yeah, I tried. Speaker 1 (2:49) to do that. I think coming from like the musical theater kid world, there's a lot of talking at you in the theater world. You know what I mean? It's all very big and very whatever. And so something clicked when I started doing more like comedy comedy. Well, I don't do real standup. I'm like a musical comedian as we've talked about, but something clicked when I started doing that. My sister came up and she was like, Hey, that actually felt like you. The first time I started doing it, my sister was like, it feels like you're actually talking to me. Do more of that. Wow. Speaker 4 (3:22) So I just hit it right on the head. Speaker 1 (3:24) You totally did. Now, when you grew Speaker 4 (3:26) up with your sister in Detroit, the son of a pastor, is that correct? Speaker 1 (3:30) Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Speaker 4 (3:31) So when did you first realize that making people laugh was something that you needed to do, not something that you were just maybe good at? Speaker 1 (3:38) Totally. That's a really good question because those are two different things. I think, um, uh, Because my sister and I were very similar to you, it sounds like, in that we were doing a lot of talking. There was a lot of noise making in the house. My two younger siblings are a little more well behaved in the audio department. But my sister and I were making a lot of noise and it felt like we had no choice but to figure out how to make that a big part of our lives. But yeah, I grew up a church kid and was like singing in church. But like I had, I was at like... hip church so we were always also doing like you know more contemporary fun songs and sketches and things and so i got the bug there and then was like doing theater in high school and then at some point It clicked doing that that I was like, oh, I kind of like I can't I have to do this. I have no choice. There's nothing I think about more. There's nothing I feel more like at home and like suited for than to do this. And so I was kind of like juggling a love of music because I had always wanted to be in bands and stuff because all my all my friends were like cool music guys. But I felt like I was. a good enough musician to hang with them sort of, but really all I wanted to do is make people laugh. And so then it was like years of trying to figure out how to combine the two. And I do feel like in the last few years I've started to go, oh, okay. Speaker 4 (5:10) Really? Speaker 1 (5:10) There's a world where those two things can touch. Yeah. And Speaker 4 (5:13) most people looking in from the outside into your world would think, oh my God, you've already become so successful. You've already made it to network television and you've already toured with Broadway. But you're saying that you feel like you've just come into your own in the last couple of years. Speaker 1 (5:28) I feel that way, yeah, because I think like actor Gabe, the actor version of me is like servicing other people's things, which I really enjoy doing. I really love acting and there's like a lot of fun in that. But you're there to like help get the story from A to Z. but you hop in when the story is already ready. Speaker 4 (5:53) So Speaker 1 (5:53) there's a lot of fun now for me to try to figure out like, what do I make when it's starting at zero? And like, how do I, what sort of take do I get to have? And that I think has happened in the last five or six years. I've really started to be like, okay, I don't know what it is, but maybe we put this weird Broadway kid. in like comedy settings and he's the only one doing music at a standup show. And what do I, what do I do? And so trying to get these two worlds to, to overlap and do like a, and see what version of me is in the middle of that Venn diagram. And that's been happening in the last few years. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 4 (6:36) That is completely horrifying to me to think about what you just said. I mean, it is, it's a little overwhelming because you're really just, Speaker 1 (6:44) you're out there by yourself, one man show. Totally, totally. Speaker 4 (6:47) And it's your writing, like you said, you're servicing another client, you know, a job when you're acting, but this is like you and your job at Speaker 1 (6:56) the same time. Totally, totally. It feels very, it definitely does feel scary. I describe it as, there's no, like when I talk to, I go back to the college I went to and talk to the students sometimes and I'm like. Guys, it's mostly just a lot of drowning. You're just going to do a lot of drowning. And then all of a sudden you catch like a... And that's like your first like, oh, okay, there's something here. No longer just drowning. Maybe now I can tread water. Okay, great. But it's like... It does. It is like a scary, like, you know, people talk about like, you know, taking the plunge and really trying a new thing. And they don't talk about that after you take the plunge, you still have to keep drowning for a few years to like really figure it out and piece it together. And I don't know, I don't know a version other than that, that it is, you know, there's no version that's not like drowning for a few years until you figure it out. I mean, unless you have a version that's like you have an idea and it goes perfectly, then please tell me, Lynn. Oh, yeah. That was my whole Speaker 4 (7:59) life. It was just perfect. Every Speaker 1 (8:02) new idea you had. Yeah. Yeah. It Speaker 4 (8:04) was just amazing. I've never made the choice to go out all by myself. Actually, it's funny you say that because I was so scared of drowning that I didn't even want to do a show. I started in radio. Yeah. And, you know, when I was asked to host a show. Actually, by Buzz Knight many years ago, he called when I was doing traffic reports. That's how I started. No way. And he offered me an afternoon drive show on WZLX in Boston in the 90s, early 90s. And I was like, no. And it was such a huge offer. And I'm like, no, I can't do that by myself. I'm putting myself out. I was petrified, you know? Yeah. Speaker 1 (8:45) I get that feeling. I do think there's a lot of... That's the thing that I'm trying to... I think people like us have to spend kind of our whole lives going, okay, am I actually scared of this because it's a bad idea and because it's going to put me in danger? Or am I scared of this because it's new and I probably could, but I don't... I haven't... gone from A to Z in that environment yet. So I haven't seen the shape of it and I don't know how it feels. Speaker 4 (9:15) It's Speaker 1 (9:16) hard to know which one it is because often they feel the same at the beginning where you're like, Speaker 4 (9:19) hey, Speaker 1 (9:20) do you want this opportunity? And you're like, hell no, that sounds so scary. Speaker 4 (9:23) Just say yes to everything. I, you know, looking back, giving my old self advice, I would say just, I should have said yes. I should have done it. But I was too scared. But even now, wouldn't you agree, it's still scary, even though you've had all of these winds under your belt and you're coming up for another breath of air. And it's like everything's still kind of scary. Speaker 1 (9:42) Totally. I think about it right now as like, even though I'm a theater kid, I'll use a baseball metaphor. I think about it now as batting average, where they don't, I don't have to like kill it every time. I don't have to like. You know, every decision doesn't have to go perfectly in the way that I thought it would. But is my batting average generally decent? Then we're doing well because you only see the home runs from all the people around you. You don't see the fact that they're also like striking out a lot. You Speaker 4 (10:14) know, like if I can feel like Speaker 1 (10:16) my batting average is decent, then I can just keep going in that, you know. Speaker 4 (10:19) That's such a great, I love that. That is so true. I gotta know. Well, I've got one question for you, but first, when did, I want to get into what you're doing now, but I also have a couple of questions from before. Was there a specific moment in your life when comedy genuinely saved you, like got you through something really hard, kept you sane? Speaker 1 (10:40) I think for me, it was like such a wonder. It's always been a wonderful shield of like how to get through middle and high school for me, because I wasn't like, I was like athletic ish. I was like smart ish. I was like, I was definitely like odd. Yeah, totally. Like I like, but, but. I found that in every setting, if you're funny or if you make people laugh, you can find safety in sort of any environment. And so once that kind of clicked up, like, oh, I'm the funny guy. I'm not the football guy. I'm not the