Riki Lindhome Figured It Out

There are so many heavily-anticipated albums coming out this year, but only one record contains lyrics this hot: “Have you heard of vaginal atrophy? / When your vagina gets smaller after menopause?” 

That’s from “Second Best Lover,” a pseudo-romantic ballad meant to reassure the listener that, really, he’s good in bed — even if the singer has had (at least) one better. You’ll find it on No Worries If Not, the first solo album from Riki Lindhome, perhaps best known from the musical-comedy duo Garfunkel and Oates, alongside Kate Micucci, and films like Knives Out and the Netflix series Wednesday. No Worries If Not, based on Lindhome’s one-woman musical Dead Inside, is a collection of funny, sometimes caustic, sometimes sweet tunes that speak frankly about her struggles to navigate relationships, infertility and endometriosis. The opening track, “Middle Age Love,” sets the tone, addressing the challenges of sexy time when you’re no longer a spring chicken. (Sample lines: “You wear a sleep apnea machine / I’m in early menopause / Let’s fuck / You’ve got lots of extra skin / Every vein in my body is visible / Let’s fuck.”)

Now in her mid-40s, Lindhome has been on quite an odyssey over the last several years. In no particular order, she tried to have a baby with her then-current boyfriend, she experienced several miscarriages, the boyfriend changed his mind about having a baby, they broke up, she tried having a baby on her own, she found out she was infertile and then she finally had a child through surrogacy with a sperm and egg donor. (Her son Keaton was born in March of 2022.) If all that wasn’t enough, shortly before the baby’s birth, she started a relationship with Fred Armisen, whom she spent serious time with when they were both in Romania shooting Wednesday. They got married in 2022, although the world didn’t find out until last year. 

Needless to say, her life has been a whirlwind, and in 2024 Lindhome started talking about parts of it with Dead Inside, which premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The show, which she continues to tour, has received great reviews, with critics commenting on its mixture of heart, humor and clever tunes. In Dead Inside, Lindhome lays bare her personal experiences — an incredibly vulnerable feeling for any artist — but adding to the potential discomfort was that fact that, before the show’s premiere, she hadn’t been solo on stage in just about forever. Not only did she have to figure out how to write a musical, she had to learn how to do it on her own. Which also meant figuring out who she is as a performer.

When Lindhome jumps onto our Zoom chat from her Los Angeles home in late March on a Monday morning, she apologizes for looking tired, although she needn’t. First of all, she looks great, and second, she’s raising a kid, which is both wonderful and exhausting. Plus, she had a fun evening. “Last night I went out to dinner,” she tells me, excitedly. “I hadn’t been out to dinner in so long. I finally went out to dinner for a date night.” She and Keaton both have birthdays in early March, but according to Lindhome, “I didn’t even celebrate my birthday — I just forgot about it. He had a birthday — that’s the kind of mindset I’m in.” But at dinner, the waitstaff surprised her. “I had my birthday two weeks ago, but they brought me five desserts that I didn’t order. I was like, ‘What miracle is this?’”

She’s been counting her blessings a lot lately — happy baby, happy marriage — that seemed, not that long ago, unattainable. Over the next hour, we talked a lot about the struggles that went into Dead Inside and the new album, which drops April 4th. She’s not completely alone on No Worries If Not — she’s backed by other musicians, including Armisen on drums — but this recent work forced her to think of herself as an artist in her own right, not as part of Garfunkel and Oates or part of the creative team that shepherded her 2010s Comedy Central series Another Period. 

“That was a fire I was going to have to walk through: ‘What is it like with no one else next to me? I don’t totally know,’” she admits. “I had to find that — and I’m still finding it.” 

Below, she sounds off on how Jewel influenced her early musical-comedy development, what Armisen provides as a creative partner and why she doesn’t care if you think she writes novelty songs. 

You’ve often written songs with a political or social bent. With Trump back in office, are you finding yourself doing that a lot to cope with everything terrible going on?

I think my coping mechanism is different than it was in 2016. In 2016, it was more generalized — like, the Women’s March — but now I’ve gotten more granular. I’m like, “Here are the things (I can deal with),” because it feels more hopeless. I’m like, “What if I put all my energy into some little things?” There are smaller things that I’d like to focus on not getting worse — mostly, women’s fertility. I’m very passionate about gun control and fertility, and those are where I’ve focused my energy this time instead of the constant outrage that I want to feel. That’s my coping mechanism, but it’s not great because it feels like I’m a little bit in denial out of exhaustion — I find a lot of people are feeling that. But I don’t know the solution.

What do you do when there’s a revenge presidency? We’ve never had that. We don’t even have the feelings for it — no one’s like, “In the case of a revenge presidency…” It’s really weird.

It makes sense why your one-woman show, Dead Inside, and the ensuing album, No Worries If Not, would be solo projects — they’re so personal to your experience. But had you already been itching to do something creative by yourself?

No, I didn’t want to. I like the slumber-party vibe where we’re up and laughing and giggling and thinking of ideas — I’m so comfortable in that dynamic that I would’ve stayed in that forever. But the pandemic (was) particularly isolating. Most of my collaborators had children during the pandemic. Going through all my infertility stuff, I was like, “This would be disingenuous to tell with more than one person.” The actual material dictated that for me — I know people who’ve gone through similar things, but it’s so specific that telling this from a double point of view, no one would buy that. And Kate had done her solo album already, so I was like, “This is not your slumber-party time.” I want it to always be a slumber party, but that’s what was happening.

I totally get that. But just having a collaborator where you could say, “Hey, I’m having trouble with this bridge, what do you think?” — not having someone to bounce musical ideas off of must have been weird after working in Garfunkel and Oates for so long. 

I missed that part a lot. It’s lonelier creating by yourself. Some people thrive in it more than me. I’m more of a social animal — I thrive in the bouncing, the finding, the laughing and the joy. Creating by yourself, it’s not joyless, but it’s work. You’re just like, “I think this is funny. I’m just going to stick by it and then put it out in the world and find out.”

Certain things are funny to me, but I can’t tell if anyone else will think it’s funny. But it is what every other comic goes through — most comics are solo, so they have to sit through that discomfort of “I guess we’ll find out.” I’m like, “Okay, if everyone else can do this, I can do it, too.” Not every moment in my life has to be a joy-filled laugh fest, even though I want it to be.

Where does your sense of humor come from? Were you watching a ton of comedy growing up?

I had such a lack of media as a kid. I lived in a town, we didn’t get cable until I was maybe 15 or 16. We had the three channels, we only had one radio station. We didn’t have a Blockbuster. It was a long drive to a movie theater. It wasn’t until I was around 16, I started renting movies from the library. I remember the first movie I rented was The Philadelphia Story, and I’m like, “This is amazing.” But I wasn’t particularly into comedy — I never saw SNL. Then we got cable, and I saw The State and I was like, “That’s for me.” Something in that was where I wanted to be.

Lots of kids think that way, but they ultimately discover it’s pretty hard to get from that dream to actually making it a reality. Especially when you don’t have performers in your family.

Yeah, my family is all skiers and athletes. (Comedy as a career) didn’t feel at all practical — I’m from a town of a thousand people, and the internet wasn’t really accessible to me at that time. I remember driving two hours in the snow to the Barnes & Noble in Buffalo and looking in the arts section. I found a book called How to Be an Actor by this woman, K Callan. That was my guide. It’s a great book except it was, “Step One: Get an agent.” (laughs) Cut to 20 years later, I’m on the set of Knives Out, I’m talking to this woman and I realize, “Oh my god, I bought your book! I was in high school!” It was a weird full-circle moment.

I was lucky — it was so impractical that I didn’t even have a chance to think it through. I had the gift of ignorance to carry me along.

You had the kind of parents who were supportive of you doing something so impractical?

You ask my family, they were 100 percent supportive 100 percent of the time, they never questioned it. That’s their party line — I’m like, “I don’t know…” My mom was more practical — she basically begged me to go to college after the first semester (when) I was like, “I want to drop out.” My dad, he’s like, “Find the thing you love to do, be the best in the world at it, and someone will find a way to pay you for it.” He believes that, but my dad also worked in a quarry moving rocks all day, so I worked at McDonald’s, I worked as a waitress, I worked as an assistant — I had the practical underneath. But my mom found this thing when I was five years old of “What you want to be when you grow up.” It was this crayon (drawing) of me smiling — there was a movie camera on me and I wrote “Movie Star” and spelled it wrong. It was always what I wanted. 

I used to listen to Weird Al all the time. I loved Weird Al. Then in high school, I got that first Jewel album — my mom had a guitar and I was like, “I’m going to teach myself guitar so I can learn these Jewel songs.” I was learning these Jewel songs, and then I went to college and there was a record store that had bootleg tapes of concerts, and there was a Jewel bootleg — she sang some funny songs at her concert. They weren’t even really comedy, just sort of funny. I learned those and I was playing those for my college roommate — people kept wanting me to play these funny Jewel songs. I think they maybe thought they were mine. Then I was in this musical — I turned those songs into comedy songs. That’s a pretty typical comedian thing where you start (by) impersonating Adam Sandler, but I was impersonating Jewel.

Your comedy secret weapon has always been that you present as a sweet, beautiful blonde, but you have this filthy mouth. When did you realize, “Oh, this juxtaposition of how I look and how I talk is really funny”? 

That just happened naturally — it was what was working on stage (with Garfunkel and Oates). I don’t really have that dirty of a mouth in real life, but I talk about those subjects frankly with my friends. I am interested in that stuff, and my friends and I are very open with each other. We talk about all that stuff. 

When (Garfunkel and Oates) started, we were like, “Are we comedy?” We thought we were half and half: “We’re going to do half serious songs and half comedy songs.” But then the comedy songs were just so overshadowing (the serious songs) — people (were) waiting through the other things to get to the comedy songs. The audience dictated it back to us, which is the best part about the stage — you see immediately what people are responding to. I think especially with Kate at that time, she was so little that her saying those dirty words was pretty shocking. 

How long did the two of you need to figure out your onstage personae and how they would work off each other?

It had to develop, especially for me. Kate came into it with more of a persona. I felt a little more blank — I needed to have my persona almost in response to hers (while) still being true to myself. “Which pieces of myself work best against this already-crafted persona?” It was probably two years on stage really finding our groove — it was working right away, but just we felt it click into another gear probably two years in.

So, how did you define what your persona was going to be in that band?

It’s weird — I don’t know that I did. So when I started going solo, I was like, “What am I?” I felt the most blank I’ve ever felt in my life. Against Natasha (Leggero, her Another Period co-creator), she’s so brash and I was the sweet one. I realized most of my personas were in response to other people with more clearly-defined personas. That was a fire I was going to have to walk through: “What is it like with no one else next to me? I don’t totally know.” I had to find that — and I’m still finding it.

You also do a lot of acting. Did that help at all in terms of figuring out who you are?

Some people have one of those careers where they play the same thing over and over. Mine is, every part is vastly different than the others, which in a way is a gift. But as far as looking for clues in crafting a stage persona, being a chameleon isn’t helpful.

How did Dead Inside begin? Obviously, you have this very emotional, surprisingly funny subject matter you’re tackling, but was it always in your mind a one-woman show?

I always wanted to do it as a musical on stage — a fertility musical. But my first thought was a musical with a big cast. When I say “big,” maybe as big as A Strange Loop, maybe seven people. I’d been listening to A Strange Loop — something about that felt like something I could do. It was totally accessible — it was small, it was funny, and it was so personal to (writer-composer Michael R. Jackson), yet it felt universal. I had not had the experiences that that character was having, but I felt completely invested — I was like, “Infertility is not a universal experience, but I don’t think it matters.” When I was listening to (A Strange Loop), I found it very inspiring: “I can write for seven people. I don’t know if I’m ready to write for a hundred people on a stage, but I think I can do this.” 

I started with the script, and it was so bad and I didn’t know why. I actually asked a playwright friend — I didn’t know her that well, but I was like, “I need real advice. I know you started as a playwright and now you write TV and film — what was the switch for you? I need to make it in reverse.” She told me, and it unlocked everything ​​— but then she goes, “Can I tell you something? You’re talking about all these other characters and I zone out, but when you’re just telling me the (main) story, I’m so fascinated. Have you thought about doing it as a one-person thing?” This is still me avoiding being alone, so I’m like, “I don’t know…” And she goes, “Well, you need to do one of two things. Either make every character on stage as interesting as the main character — give them arcs, bring them up to that level — or get rid of them.”

I explored both (options), and then I was like, “No, she’s right.” And so I put the script away — I was like, “Actually, I’m better at songs. I’m going to start with the songs and then find the script after that.”

But was it hard writing songs by yourself?

Neither of (the first two) songs (I wrote for Dead Inside) had a lot of jokes. I didn’t want to put on myself that it had to be funny — I just needed to get a song written.

Then I was at a barbecue with my husband, and Wolves of Glendale was playing. They’re friends of mine, and as I saw them play, I was really wanting to be on stage. I was like, “Gosh, I want to get ready enough so I can play. I want to add jokes and I want to play these songs on stage.” I said to my husband, “If I could do a show opening for them, I could get myself into (that) place.” Ten minutes later, the guy from Wolves of Glendale walks over — he goes, “Are you doing songs? You should open for us.” My husband (says to me), “Well, now you have to, because you just said that.” I got myself back on stage that way. 

How did it feel when you eventually did open for them?

It felt really bad. I was nervous all day. I was sick to my stomach. I didn’t have any jokes for my songs — I didn’t feel ready, I didn’t feel confident. It was in the middle of the day in a parking lot, so it couldn’t have been lower stakes. I felt proud of myself, but I felt like, “Wow, I am rusty. I lack a persona. I have no jokes. My guitar feels out of tune.” It felt awful, but a new beginning. I was like, “Okay, now I go from here — I did the hardest thing, I kind of sucked, now here we go.”

This process of writing songs and not worrying about having jokes: Is that how you usually work?

That’s not usually my process — I just felt lost. I had to really go baby-steps so that I didn’t quit. I was like, “Okay, all I have to do is one verse — and it’s not funny. Okay, all I have to do is a chorus — and it’s not funny.” I was giving myself these teeny micro-goals. But once I was on stage (a few more times) and people were laughing, it felt different — I went back to my old songwriting process.

So what’s your usual songwriting process? Are you writing the song based on a joke idea?

It’s nugget first. I’ll think of a funny general topic — like, say, sperm donation — then I’ll have a 20-page document of just free-associating. I’ll read articles about (the subject) — I’ll read scientific things, I’ll be like, “What’s weird about this?” Or I’ll cull through my personal experience of it. I’ll go on RhymeZone and see what words rhyme with “sperm.” I’ll just have this nonsense document, and then I’ll reread it and find the one word I like the most — that’ll be the chorus. And then I spread out from there.

One of the songs on No Worries If Not, “Don’t Google Mommy,” is an imaginary conversation you have with your child acknowledging that you’ve performed a lot of filthy songs in your day. How do you imagine the actual conversation going?

I’ve anticipated it. I had all these preconceived notions about what kind of mom I would be, and it’s like, no — your kid is a full person. Talk about being in response to something — you become a mom in response to the type of person your child is, and he’s always changing. He has a new whole personality every three months. My preconceived notions are mostly wrong — things (that are) true about someone else’s child, they’re not true about mine. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it — I have no idea when the bridge will appear.

Earlier, you mentioned your husband, Fred Armisen. He does comedy and music like you do — is he someone you bounce ideas off of?

We work so differently. He is such a solo worker. I’ll bat an idea off of him, but he doesn’t need that in the reverse — his mind is all he needs. But he’s really good at confidence-boosting because he’s not rattled the way I am. I’m like (panicky), “These songs don’t have jokes! I’m in the middle of the afternoon! I’m opening for a comedy band!” and he is like (nonchalant), “Yeah, then we’ll have dinner.” 

He doesn’t catastrophize the way I do. That’s been more an essential part of the process than the ideas back and forth. Having a bad comedy set is not something I can’t live through. I’ll learn and I’ll get better. He’s very calm in that regard. But I wouldn’t trade it — I wouldn’t want to be like (he is) because (my personality) helps my comedy. It fuels who I am, it fuels my writing. I like having every big feeling all the time — it’s part of who I am. But it is nice to sometimes get that perspective of “It’s actually fine. Even though you haven’t performed alone, you’ve been performing a really long time, and this will be fine.”

Were those “big feelings” tougher to manage when you were starting out?

Yeah, I think that’s why I was always better with a partner — you have someone to share the bombing with. (laughs) It happens to both of you, so they absorb half of it. Now it’s just on me.

You and Armisen knew each other for a while before getting together. How did you first meet?

Just around. The comedy world’s pretty small, especially the musical-comedy world. We both had shows on IFC at the same time. I’d see him at comedy festivals, IFC events, backstage at Largo — you end up having a lot of hangout time with other comedians. Even though I said we skipped the trenches at three in the morning, I still had the 7:30 p.m. hangout times. It was through that world and we just stayed friends and had a lot in common with our types of things we like to make.

Then, we were in Romania (for Wednesday) and we had a lot of time. We were usually in groups and things — we’d not had a lot of one-on-one time together, nor had we ever both been single at the same time. We had a lot of alone time, so that’s a good place for it to develop. 

The show and the album talk about your struggles with fertility, as well as experiencing early menopause. That topic has been in the news a lot lately — Naomi Watts just wrote a book about her own journey through early menopause and how she worried it might ruin her career. Were you concerned that making jokes about menopause would hurt you professionally?

I’ve had the good luck of never being in Naomi Watts’ career. (laughs) Playing the fifth lead on a sitcom as a guest star, I’m sure they’re not going to be like, “She’s in menopause?!” With her, there’s higher stakes because she’s this glamorous movie star — or maybe that’s just what I tell myself, that it’s lower stakes for me. 

For me, it was the dating aspect of it. Now I’m married, but when I (was dating), I was like, “Do I want to lead with this?” I had to shut that out because, the more I learned about fertility and our bodies, I just refused to be embarrassed. I was like, “I didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not my fault. I have endometriosis, I went into early menopause, that’s just what happens. I can live with whatever consequences there are of that.”

That attitude doesn’t surprise me. When I think about you on stage, the word that comes to mind is “steeliness.” That character in Garfunkel and Oates never apologized for how she felt, even if the song was self-deprecating. 

“Steeliness” is interesting — I hadn’t put that word in for myself. But when I was examining my own persona, I think that’s the thing I am — I’m the one who will move through those things and say it. I’m the one who refuses to hide. I’ll just be like, “This is the weird, bad thing about me, and it’s funny — and it’s probably weird and bad about a lot of people.” Maybe “nerve” is my (persona), but I think every comic has that in some sense. (In Garfunkel and Oates), I was always the one being like, “Let’s talk about this topic.” That was more my role, pushing us toward those uncomfortable topics. 

Like you said earlier, you’re much taller than Micucci, so I wondered if naturally you got used to being someone who, literally, stood out. Were you tall as a kid, too?

I’m 5-foot-10. When I was about 13, I was this height. You get a little more comfortable being a target — how sad is that? Maybe “target” is the wrong word, but you feel very conspicuous. And when I was 13, men would think I was 18 or 19, so that was always confusing. I never had anything bad, but people would say hi, and I remember my mom being like, “He was hitting (on you).” I was like, “Whoa!”

At that height as a kid, it was probably hard to blend in. Did that inspire you to be funny as a defense mechanism? 

I don’t even know. I have a little bit of amnesia about that whole time. In certain ways, it was traumatic and transformative, and when I was done with it, I was very done with it. I never went to a reunion — I was like, “That chapter is closed.” 

I think I was the same as I am now, which is, some comedians are just so funny all the time — that was never me. I was, like, this amount of funny — whatever this is? (laughs) A medium amount.

I noticed that in this conversation and in other interviews you’ve done — you don’t seem like the type of comedian who worries about killing all the time. You’re not trying to make me laugh every other minute. 

You meet so many comedians who are so amazing at that — you’re like, “Oh, that’s their thing.” You got to find the thing that you’re the best at. Some people are just so funny 100 percent of the time. I excel more in my writing — it’s more in the lyrics and the topics and the deliberation on things and the care I take in making stuff. That’s more where I excel than an interpersonal, day-to-day level. That’s why I never really pursued improv — I took classes, but I was like, “Some people, they’re unreal at this. I’m not unreal at this.”

I got very lucky — there’s those comedian trenches, people doing two minutes at three in the morning in Santa Clarita and then drinking until five in the morning making each other laugh. We just skipped that. I’d been writing funny songs on my own for probably eight or 10 years before I met Kate — and her, the same thing. Maybe people think that it was quicker than it was, but it was still pretty quick where we never did the open-mic thing. We never were in those trenches of that community, so we weren’t up trying to prove our funniness to the other people. We never really had to do that.

I want to talk about one specific song on the new album, “Trash Bag.” You lovingly describe your surrogate, which was your last option for becoming a mother, as a trash bag — meaning, that last option somebody turns to when it’s raining and you have to go out somewhere. It’s really touching, but it’s a tricky tonal balance you had to pull off. Handled poorly, that song might have seemed really mean to your surrogate. How did that song come about? 

That’s a nugget. I was trying to think about the complex emotions of having a surrogate, and I was just writing about it and writing about it, and most of the emotions are gratitude. But then I got to the (idea of a) trash bag: “No, I still want (a baby), but (a surrogate) is my last choice. What’s like that? If you’re in the rain, you want an umbrella, you want a roof, you want a coat — if none of those are (available), but there’s a Hefty bag, you’ll use it.” To me, that was just funny.

But that took me a long time. With this whole album, I was trying to give myself a higher degree of difficult topics than I had explored before. And that was a particularly hard one — I really wrestled with it. I knew I was going to perform it — I was like, “I got to send it to my surrogate first, see what she thinks.” She was like, “Hell yeah” — she loved it. Then she came to the show the first time I performed it, and she said it made her cry because she knows my heart and she isn’t confused about how I feel about her and my gratitude for her. I was like, “Okay, phew.” (laughs)

Part of what makes “Trash Bag” work is that, when you’re describing other trash-bag situations in life, you mention that Hollywood only casts you in roles after other, bigger actresses say no. You turn the joke back on yourself — was that important so that people knew that the song was written out of love for your surrogate?

It wasn’t particularly calculated — it just made me laugh. I was like, “What are different things that you don’t get your first choice for? What’s your last-choice phone? What’s your last-choice car?” I wanted to take out anything that was money-related — a lot of things were like, “I don’t have a BMW, so I ride the bus,” and I’m like, “No, that’s not the thing.” And I thought that a lot of the roles I’ve gotten are because other people turn them down at the last minute — I was like, “Oh, I’m actually the trash bag. That’s funny.”

Forget talking about menopause or infertility — that line seems especially vulnerable to sing. You’re basically acknowledging you’re not too high on the Hollywood pecking order.

You’re the first person to catch onto that. That was a line that I was like, “I don’t want to put that out there about myself. I don’t want people noticing.” But then I was like, “Well, it’s funny, so I’m going to do it.” (laughs)

Years before you went through the process of trying to have a baby, Garfunkel and Oates had some pretty cutting songs about pregnancy — I’m thinking about “Frozen Lullaby” and “Pregnant Women Are Smug.” Do you feel differently about those songs now?

Feel the exact same. The times I was pregnant, I was totally smug. I was reveling in my smugness. I loved it — I was like, “Yep, that’s me.” Those (songs) haven’t changed for me at all, actually. (laughs)

Micucci has done her solo album, you’ve done this one-woman show and your solo album. Are Garfunkel and Oates going to be reuniting again anytime soon?

I’m totally down. It would have to feel natural: “Oh yeah, this is the right time.” You see it with Lonely Island — sometimes they get back together and do an album — or Tenacious D or Flight of the Conchords. If something’s feeling right, we’ll come back together — not currently, but yeah, I’d love that.

When you were on Katie’s Crib back in 2023, you talked about a goal you had during the pandemic: “four screenplays and a baby.” We know about the baby, but did you write the screenplays?

I did. And they all fell apart during the strike. 

What happened?

The algorithm says the (idea) is unprofitable. Or there’s a new executive. (Since the strike), the business is still slowly inching its way back. Some things are just on pause: “We’ll examine this when we find out what our financial situation is.” But you never know.

Were these comedies?

Nope. Two animation, one kids movie and one drama.

And none of these were inspired by what’s happened to you these last few years?

No.

I ask because your journey to having a baby — and then getting married out of the blue — feels like a movie.

Isn’t it? I would love to do it as a movie or show. That would be amazing. 

Are you writing that? Obviously you made Dead Inside, which covers some of this, but…

My bandwidth is so much less than it used to be since having a child that, no, I have not. Past Riki? Oh yeah, I would’ve been like, “Here’s the TV version, here’s the movie…”  I have vague ideas in my notes app, but the capacity I have to bring something to completion (laughs) is much less. 

Maybe every creative person (feels this way), but I always find myself in the engine position. I rarely find myself in the position of someone being like, “Hop on this train! We’ll make this happen and I’ll take care of all the details.” I always am the person being like, “All right, Tuesday at nine, I’m going to figure this out.” I’m such an engine person that it’s exhausting. If someone called me and they’re like, “There’s this huge producer, he’s going to start developing this,” I’d be like, “Great!” But that’s not really how my trajectory normally goes. It’ll probably be when I have more bandwidth to try to develop it.

Sometimes, comedy songs are dismissed as “novelty songs.” What do you say to that?

It’s funny — I used to care, maybe the first few years. But then, I don’t know what it was — I just was like, “Oh, I don’t care, you can think that. I own my home based on these songs. Go ahead and call it whatever you want.”