Kids in the Hall’s Kevin McDonald Becomes A Superstar

Kevin McDonald, one of the rock-star comics in Kids in the Hall, is ready to sing his heart out in Kevin McDonald: Superstar, a hilariously autobiographical rock opera alongside Janeane Garofalo, Frank Conniff and Dave Hill. The musical recounts some of the most shameful moments in McDonald’s life, including an epically drunken caper with fellow Kid Dave Foley and an ongoing relationship with a woman who wouldn’t stop cheating on him. 

I recently talked to McDonald about how Catholic school influenced his rock opera, the difference between writing for Kids in the Hall and Saturday Night Live and how his group of Canadian kids made Lorne Michaels cool again. 

“People always say you should call it Kevin McDonald's Stupid Rock Opera. But the producer wanted something more commercial. And because the first song is about how much I liked Jesus Christ Superstar when I was a kid, I thought, well, I could call it Kevin McDonald: Superstar. If I were going by my real level of celebrity, I would call it Kevin McDonald, Minor Celebrity.” 

“Maybe the only good thing that happened at Catholic school — it was Good Friday, and they played Jesus Christ Superstar. By the end of the movie, I was the only one there. And I’ve never said this because it made me stay longer in school, but I went to the teacher and said, ‘Can you play that again?’ And he was excited because I was the only person left.” 

“I didn’t get religious or anything. It was just the idea of a story told through songs. And I guess it also gave me a different perspective on Judas. Judas is so cool in Jesus Christ Superstar.”

“Kevin McDonald: Superstar is a true story. Only we didn’t sing, that part’s not true. It takes place in the early ‘90s. Dave Foley’s in it, my first real relationship girlfriend, she’s in it. Joan Rivers is in it. I don’t want to ruin it, but it’s centered around the relationship with my first girlfriend whose nickname was Cheater. She was a good person but she cheated a lot.”

“Lorne Michaels had taken 1980 to 1985 off from Saturday Night Live, and tried to do movies like The Three Amigos. When he decided to come back, he started sending talent scouts to comedy cities. He considered Toronto a comedy city, and it was just so lucky. Kids in the Hall had just happened to peak in popularity in Toronto — I mean, we never got bigger than “cult,” but our 125-seat theater sold out every Monday.” 

“Lorne sent someone from NBC to see our show. They almost didn’t let him in. It was such a pretentious theater. He was five minutes late. But they let him in. Then the next day, my life started to change.” 

“The Kids in the Hall, we always thought we’d be canceled even though we had five seasons. Someone at Saturday Night Live said, ‘Oh, Lorne will never cancel you because when he goes to parties, you’re the hip thing that people compliment him on now.’”

“We were his hip bonus points. And what makes it hipper is that we were never really a hit. He stuck with us for five years just because we were good.” (In thanks, Michaels offered each of the Kids in the Hall a new car, but McDonald was the only one who took him up on it. He was also the only Kid who didn’t drive.)

“The other Kids in the Hall are obsessed with that because he wanted us to pick the car. He didn’t want to come to Toronto and pick the car, so he gave us $20,000. And Toronto is sort of like New York — with cabs and Ubers and trains, people don’t drive. This isn’t funny, but it’s an explanation why I bought the car. I bought the car for my girlfriend Cheater and she used it all the time. She probably cheated on me in that car. She probably drove to the different men’s houses. If her name was Cheater, my nickname would be Loser.”

“And later, I did learn to drive — when I was 35 years old in Los Angeles.”

“I saw Lorne at a Saturday Night Live party, and he said, (impeccable Lorne impression), ‘Kevin, do you want anything at all?’ And I said I’d heard about this guest writing thing at SNL, and that would be a lot of fun if I could do that.”

“The reason that it was a blast was that I was just a guest. The permanent writers have so much stress. I talked to one really funny writer. We wrote a scene, and I asked him how it was going. The question sort of made him sweat. He said, ‘I think good? I’ve got two sketches on so far this season. I’ve got three others that made it a dress rehearsal, and I don’t think I’ll be fired at the end of the year.’ And I thought, What a way to write comedy.” 

“The Kids in the Hall, we wrote for a month and a half at first. We picked our sketches and went out for a few weeks to do the filmed sketches. Then we’d go to the live studio after rehearsals, and we’d do our live stuff. And that was just a third of the season. And then the whole thing started again.” 

“There was never any pressure. No one was going to get fired. Not even Scott Thompson. We were all safe.” 

“Saturday Night was fun. I had a sketch, it made it to dress rehearsal. It didn’t make it (to the live show), but it was amazing that it was picked. Everyone who had a sketch picked did the same thing that I did. We looked, tried to hide our smiles, then turned around and texted our loved ones. And right away, as soon as I texted Paula, my partner, there was a tap on my shoulder. It was less than two minutes. ‘Hi, we’re the wardrobe department. We’d like to show you the wardrobe we're thinking of.’ Then someone taps my shoulder and says, ‘Hi, we’re hair and makeup. Could you come in?’ It’s so much fun and excitement, but that would be taken away if it’s a permanent job. Just stress.”

“There are hundreds of premises that I’ve come up with that I haven’t written a sketch for. There’s one I wrote that I thought of in ‘87 that once a year, Bruce McCulloch texts me and says, ‘Have you thought of a sketch for that yet?’ The premise is — what if a guy was $10 short of being a millionaire?” 

“I wrote another scene where I’m at the graveyard and I’m burying my premises for the last time. That’s a cheap way to get laughs from the premises — I say the premise, hopefully I got a laugh and then I burn it.”

“You plant seeds of creativity and trees grow. I was on a plane back home where I live in Winnipeg, and I was half asleep. And then I started thinking of the first (Kevin McDonald Superstar) song, and it was sort of catchy. We were flying and I went to the bathroom and I put on my phone to record it. It’s really funny because all you can hear is the engine.”

“It’s different than sketch writing. It’s a story. I like long stories, but I’m not good at coming up with stories. I always say the best thing I can do is come up with a fake story that seems like a story.” 

“It was just so much fun. I would wake up in the middle of the night with an idea for a song about Howard Stern. And so I would record it to singing, and then I would wake up and write it on guitar. And Kevin McDonald: Superstar happened like that.” 

Kevin McDonald: Superstar runs at New York City’s Soho Playhouse from March 19-23.