WEBVTT - After 30 Years, Blue Man Group Says Goodbye 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.040 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:25.320 Thing from iHeart Radio. That's PVC IV, a song featuring 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:31.040 PVC pipes being played by three men with their flip flops. 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:34.440 My guests today are some of the most famous performers 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:37.560 in the world, though you've likely never seen their real 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:43.360 faces nor heard their actual voices. Created by Matt Goldman, 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:47.520 Chris Wink and Philip Stanton in nineteen eighty nine, Blue 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:51.239 Man Group began as a performance art piece inspired by 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:55.920 nineteen eighties counterculture. The show would eventually grow into the 0:00:56.040 --> 0:01:00.880 worldwide phenomenon we know it as today. In addition to 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:04.560 the original Astor Place theater show, Blue Man Group has 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:10.920 staged three world tours and taken up residency in Las Vegas, Chicago, Orlando, 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:15.280 and Boston. The group has released five albums, received a 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:19.680 Grammy nomination, and performed on numerous TV shows and in 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:24.400 some of the most memorable commercials. This past weekend, Blue 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:29.080 Man Group's original New York City show closed after seventeen 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:36.640 thousand performances over three decades. They're synonymous with creativity, ingenuity, 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:40.000 and of course, a distinct shade of blue paints. 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:45.120 My name is Chris Wink and this voice is the 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:46.560 voice of Philip Stanton. 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:48.000 Where'd you grow up? 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:49.080 Well, I grew up in New York. 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:53.800 Actually, my dad came to Union Theological Seminary by Columbia, 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:56.520 became a minister. We were in Texas for five years. 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:58.880 He was in a parsonage, but then he got hired 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:01.520 back because he was a linguist guy, and he became 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:02.040 a professor. 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:04.040 So I grew up by Columbia. It was a really 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:05.120 interesting Union. 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:06.760 Yeah, and what about you. 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:10.600 I was born in Lubbock, Texas. Group in Savannah, Georgia. 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:13.960 My father was a minister also weirdly, but my father 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:17.320 also built churches, I say, a group in Savannah. But 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:19.880 I really, you know, I grew up until I was 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:22.640 eight in Texas, So I'm kind of half and half 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:23.160 in a way. 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:28.800 So when you were growing up, what was theater art? Creativity? 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:31.200 Performance art? I mean, people could be doing what you're doing, 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.120 which is considered this highly creative thing. I'm not just 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:36.079 saying this for your benefit. I moved to New York 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:38.680 in nineteen seventy nine, and by the time I was 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:40.880 in New York and you guys opened up on Lafayette Street, 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:42.720 which was before LaMaMa. When you were and when you 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:45.480 had the he were staked out there at the Lafayette. 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:47.399 I mean everyone in New York went to go see 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.639 Blue Man. Now, prior to that, to this highly creative 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:53.000 thing you guys came up with, especially at that time, 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:55.400 we hadn't seen much like that at all. What was 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:58.880 your diet creatively? What were you into? Well? 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.080 I moved to New York to be kind of a 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:06.200 traditional career in film and television. I wanted to study 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.880 acting and audition and everything. I didn't really know about 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:13.440 performance art. I was pretty innocent. Chris was actually the 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:16.480 first person I met on the first job that I 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:18.920 had when I moved to New York for a catering company, 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:21.840 Glorious Food, and so we kind of hit it off 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:24.320 right away somehow, and I kind of learned about performance 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:27.960 art in the downtown scene through Chris, and having grown 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.720 up a minister's son, I kind of inherited this feeling 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:34.640 that what you do has to say something to the world. 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:40.040 But I didn't want to be preachy, like my literally preachee. 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:42.839 Like, especially back then, a lot of the performance art 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:46.680 was like intolerably preachy and just you know, some of 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:50.760 it was great, but I would say most performance art 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:53.360 I don't like, even back then, and at a certain 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:55.680 point we're saying, don't call us performance art because I 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:57.720 like Larie Anderson, you know what I mean, she's a 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.880 performance artist. We're trying to come buying a bunch of 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.640 different forms, including vaudeville. You know, we do comedy. We're 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:07.600 not trying to get into the gallery. We're taking Captain 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:10.080 crunch and we're eating it. We're trying to be outsiders, 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:12.120 to have some sort of exploration of the world. But 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:14.320 when I was young, and I think Phil is like 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:16.720 this too, watching those Marx Brothers movies was a. 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:18.159 Bit oh yeah, yeah. 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:21.040 And I had graduated from what Bugs Bunny and Bugs 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:23.480 Bunny's true for real. I had explored all these things 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:26.040 at Wesleyan, but I wasn't up that's where it went. Yeah, 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.799 it was great because I I was a drummer. American 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:30.479 Studies was just a way to get to stuff. I 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:32.719 studied film, lots of drumming there. 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:33.480 I was a DJ. 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:35.800 But when I got out, I was like, well, now 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:37.520 how do I get a job? You know, I liked 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.640 technology and science, but as a layman, you know, so 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:42.600 I was like, well, I guess I'll work in advertising 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:44.360 or marketing. And I got on a track for that, 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:46.120 and I probably would have been you know, it was 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:48.320 kind of traditional. I was good at it, you know, 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:49.800 and I would have been a regular. But I was like, 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:53.919 this is not making me happy. I quit that and 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:56.120 I said, I'm just going to be a waiter. And then, 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:58.200 you know, with my friends, we're going to create this 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:05.120 stuff that combines comedy, acting, drumming, technology, design, lighting, and art. 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:07.640 And you know, it's not going to make us a living. 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:09.719 So we got to take this catering thing very seriously 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:12.880 and we just started doing it literally just as a joy, 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:14.840 as a bliss, you know. And you know, one thing, 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.560 we'd have to find places to do it. So it'd 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.200 be like lea Mama or p S one twenty two whatever. 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:22.839 We would work for three weeks straight, you know, Phil 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:24.479 and I would do like fourteen hour shifts. And so 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:26.680 Matt had a job in a software company, and then 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:28.640 we would take off a week and we would build 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:30.080 this thing. And then we'd go and we do one 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.080 night and about eighty percent of it would suck, but 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:34.479 there would be like a little bit in there that 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:34.800 was good. 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:36.560 Little nugget, you know, And so we were. 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:38.680 Like, yeah, so we'd grab we'll keep that thirty seconds, 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:41.080 We'll keep that thirty combined it with another thirty seconds. 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:43.400 And the thing is, our performance art friends would have 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.159 been like, no, it's your art. If the audience doesn't 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:48.919 understand it, then there it's their problem. We're like, no, 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:52.240 we're about villions. The audience matters, you know, and I 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:56.480 love that, and yes, vaudeville, you know. And in fact, 0:05:56.560 --> 0:05:58.560 a lot of our early pieces were kind of we 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:01.320 needed to make fun of the pretend justness of performance 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:03.520 art a little bit, like when we catch these marshmallows 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:04.920 and we put them on a pedestal and we say 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:08.640 five thousand dollars, it's like, you know, really, you know, 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:11.679 and we make the painting at the like the first 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:13.800 two three pieces of the show, even to this day, 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:18.200 are kind of spoofing the pretentiousness of performance art in 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:20.440 a way that the audience doesn't even get anymore, but 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:22.800 they don't care. And what we found too, is like 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.560 the jump cut to Burning Man, you got a piece 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:28.040 of art and you got a dude on a bike 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:30.160 that's all tricked out, and I think they're both art. 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:30.839 You know what I mean. 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:34.000 To me, I don't care how much the museum has 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:35.719 blessed it, you know what I mean. I think it's 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:39.760 just creative expressions are awesome, but the whole pretentiousness of 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:41.200 arts never really appeal to us. 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:43.359 I had this image of you with the catering company 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:44.920 and one of you has got your back to him, 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:47.240 and you come over there and you go, Chris, why 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:48.920 did you paint all the eggs blue? 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:49.480 Right? 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:51.760 Everything starts getting blu erry. 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:53.800 Well, we wrote that piece where we're sitting at the 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:56.360 meal with the guests and then stuff starts shooting out 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.120 our chest all over the at a catering gig because 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:00.120 we're sitting in our text. 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:03.160 And I was thinking, like, wow, the only reason. 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:05.560 This is possible is because it takes so long for 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:08.280 the food to get to our anus. If it came 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:10.880 right out, hopefully it would, it would make this whole 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:13.760 thing impossible. So we said, well, what if the blue 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:16.120 man had a really short loop in that regard, and 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:18.280 if he ate something it came right out, that would 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:22.040 be interesting, at least to us. So remember how many 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:24.040 times have people tell us so you can't do that piece? 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:27.600 Oh? Yeah, every time? Whenever we opened a show, they'd say, no, 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:28.400 you can't do that in. 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:30.080 People think that's too gross. 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:33.800 And we do that piece and everyone goes everyone goes ew. 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:35.840 And then they go, yeah, that was great. Yeah, I 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:38.880 mean it's true. Every every step of the way they'd 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:41.560 say like, no, you have to change that. Yeah, nobody 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:44.600 in Vegas will like that, nobody in China will like that. 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:47.760 Do that in France. But so you're catering together, and 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:48.520 where's Matt. 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:51.520 Well, Matt had a software job, and so you knew 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:53.840 each other from where, oh, from seventh grade? 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:56.360 Yeah, I was the odd man out coming from. 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:58.640 You with Anna and you knew him from seventh grade? 0:07:58.720 --> 0:07:59.320 What's cool? 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:01.680 Fieldston with the field step in Riverdale. 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:04.120 We went to the school and there's all these like 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:08.000 celebrity kids and stuff, rich kids and all, and we 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:12.000 felt like outsiders. But on the outside we looked like 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:14.320 we fit in perfectly. There was sports and all we 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:15.960 were outside. Well, you know, he was like the captain 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:19.520 of the soccer team, but we felt like imposters. They 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.200 were like, all right, we're just trying to make sure 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:24.800 no one notices that we you know, we don't have 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:26.360 the money these kids have, and we don't. We don't 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:28.400 feel like we fit in. So we created a character 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:30.920 that embodied on the outside how we felt on the 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:34.160 inside because we had managed to pull off a great disguise. 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:36.679 We were walking through the high and we weren't getting bullied, 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:36.880 you know. 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:39.839 So it was art performing any of them? How did it? 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:42.800 I was a drummer, first rock and roll and yeah, 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:46.200 well new wave punk kind of, and I wasn't supported 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:48.760 at all. I feels I remember, couldn't do it there. 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:50.959 I had to get lessons outside, and to do theater. 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:53.200 You couldn't do theater during the day, so if you 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:55.560 were on a sport, you couldn't do theater. And then 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:57.520 there wasn't really any art I would I didn't have 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:01.520 any painterly art talent, so if you'd asked anybody there, 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:03.680 they wouldn't have said, oh, you know, he's likely to 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:05.920 be an artist. But I think we all shared the 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:08.080 idea of like, well, we don't need to be an 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:10.680 artist capital a, but we have this creative impulse. We 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:13.839 just don't have any like specific thing that's like, oh, 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:16.160 this is really talented. But what if we combine different 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:19.960 arts together and used our mediocrity to an advantage. 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:21.680 The three of you together would riff about this. 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.520 Well, we talked about like because Matt was like the 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:26.720 same thing, Like, he hadn't even done any training in art. 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:29.319 I had studied art history and stuff, but I couldn't 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.079 draw a bird, you know, I have a nine year 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:37.040 old level drawing ability. And so we were like, maybe 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:40.240 if we kind of mixed different mediums together we could 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:42.320 find a form of expression. And Phil was like, well, 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:44.440 I'm an actor, but I'm also a builder. And he 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:46.960 was the one with a saw on the screw built 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:49.160 the drums, and they were like, you know, that's just 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:51.680 as much a form of creation as anything else. 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:54.880 I think it's an important story about the creative impulse. 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:57.400 Going back to the kind of art stacked at the 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:00.680 top of the show, the spoof on art, there's another 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:03.280 layer to it that I think it's important to mention. 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:07.640 It's it's like this simple, out of the box sort 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:10.079 of creativity. You know, you take a gumball on make 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:12.160 a painting. It's not a great painting, but it's a 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:16.000 creative impulse. And I think that's one thing to mention 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.440 about that at its core, Blue Man is sort of 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:23.479 a celebration of our human attributes, you know, our creativity, 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:27.240 our curiosity and our innovation and our innovation in our 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:29.079 desire for community. It's kind of those you. 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:30.920 Take a gumball, make a pinion and you're actually innovating. 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:35.800 It's not a miss misuse exactly, and that's misappropriation. 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:37.480 That's what could be more human than that. 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:39.800 That's what's gotten us here, is that like tinkering with 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:41.880 stuff that's sort of divergent thinking. 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:43.559 As Sir Kit Robinson. 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:45.400 I just want to say, if you hit that more time, 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.080 how does it start? How does it start? Covering yourself 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:53.680 in blue paint and going and having a nervous break 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:54.320 down our stage. 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:57.160 So we started with the characters like, all right, let's 0:10:57.320 --> 0:10:59.320 see what it's like to be blue, and we would 0:10:59.360 --> 0:10:59.880 just do socials. 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:03.400 We walk around blue, yeah, blue, the way you ended 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:04.160 up in the show. Yeah. 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:06.880 At first we talked a little bit, just so we 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:09.760 wouldn't get beaten up or something arrested. Yeah, So we 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:11.400 would just be like and the people say, what's going on, 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:14.040 We're like, we're trying to find figure that out. And 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:16.839 then we would go to a bar and like people 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:19.400 were like, you guys look interesting. And what we found 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:20.840 is if it had just been one of us blue, 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:22.360 people would have been like, oh, that's weird. I don't 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:25.160 even but the three of us identically, they're like, oh, 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:27.360 now this is interesting. What what what do you got here? 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:30.040 I always said, well, we're hoping you'd buy us a drink, 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:31.439 and they'd be like, all right, I'll do that, and 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:32.800 then they would buy us a dream and would talk 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:33.160 to them all. 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.400 The best thing though, is when people would just kind 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:37.880 of like shake their head yes, you know, as if 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:40.559 they got something, and they were like, I don't know 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:42.679 what they're something's resonating. 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:46.160 But we wanted to go inside because it got cold, 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:50.120 and let's start creating pieces. So we'd create five minutes 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:51.920 of something out of time. And we put the drums 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:54.080 in pretty early on. I mean it was selfish because 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:57.000 I was a drummer, but also we wanted so we 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:58.960 have an outsider character, but we didn't want it to 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:02.079 be like a robe or an alien with like theorem 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.840 and tech music. We also had this idea that the 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:09.000 blue Man maybe came from our ancient past, Like we 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:12.000 wanted there to be a tribal primal quality so that 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:14.280 maybe people go as an alien, but actually that's me 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:17.319 that's the tribal past that we've left behind as we've 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.439 become so modern. That's as about as intellectual as we 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:22.640 would get. But that's why when you go to the show, 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:25.280 it isn't sort of techno music, even though I like 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:28.000 some of that, you know, it's this tribal, primal thing 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:30.120 that is this undercurrent. 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:32.480 We have comedy and this and that, but there's a 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:34.000 boom doon to kadom to katoom. 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:37.040 So it was kind of another impulse that we had 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:38.959 that we shared was this sort of sense of here 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:42.440 we are in this city, walking around feeling weird, and 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:46.720 like where's the damn cave? Where's the fireplace with the drums? 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:48.320 You know, like what do we do as a culture? 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:49.880 Why do we throw all that stuff out? I mean 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:55.400 we we left behind organized religion but there's no well 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.320 it would be Christianity and that was Jewish but we 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:00.680 and there's nothing against religion, but just didn't work for 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:02.440 us as an organized thing. But so we didn't have 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:04.400 any where do you go for like, you know, you 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:06.199 go to a rock show, but like where's but I. 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:08.920 Don't know, you know, we should make a fomentary where, 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:12.360 you know, And just since since blue mant there have 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:16.560 been like six new species discovered. We should make a 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:20.160 documentary because of bla right, because we should make a 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:22.880 documentary as if as if we were discovered as a 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:23.680 new species. 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:25.920 Species was there, but it was hiding. Let me ask 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:29.000 you this, though, seriously, which is that this notion that 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:31.120 mad for me in acting and so for when you 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:33.760 when you love something and what you'll give because you 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:35.160 guys wind up giving a lot. You have to put 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:36.920 the appliances on and do all this stuff all the 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:38.959 time for years and years and years. But you want 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:41.720 to get to that. What was it about this early 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:44.640 on that you invested in? Yeah, no, it's a big 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:46.720 committment every night for the years. 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:49.800 Years because you know, we were really doing it out 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:53.320 of a love of this thing. We'd seen Bill Moyer's 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.600 interviewing Joseph Campbell and heard that shot that was heard 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:59.640 around the world to follow your bliss was the theme 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:01.360 of a lot of the you know. 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.120 The thing it wasn't is a hope that we would 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:05.240 ever make a living from it. 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:08.480 Yeah, we had no idea, but we were finally being 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:13.480 able to finally had an outlet for the disparate things 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:16.440 that we were interested in and we had a way 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:17.600 to hang out together. 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:19.200 And it was really pleasant. 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:21.720 When does it become a show, Well, it starts out 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:24.080 as bits, you know, and then little by little somebody 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:27.600 invites us to perform somewhere up in Rochester or La Mama. 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:30.080 This by the way. At La Mama. One of your 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:32.920 brothers came. He was with Oliver Platt, my brother Billy's 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:35.680 very good films. Yes, yes, So they came together very 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:38.000 early on and were very supportive, and it was really 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:40.440 nice to see people being supported. They kind of encourage you. 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:42.080 They were like, you know, I get it. A lot 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:44.240 of it didn't work, you know, but keep going, you know. 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:47.400 And you could see that even people that had gone 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:51.360 on to do films and stuff, I understood the gestation period, 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:54.840 you know. Dustin Hoffman came Yea and invited us to 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:56.920 come to his office and he said, you know, all 0:14:57.000 --> 0:15:00.600 my work is about how actors have to work, and 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:03.080 I love that you guys. I could just tell it. 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:05.840 You're like, you were just doing this out of your love. 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:08.200 And we were like, you're right, you know, and he's like, well, 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.560 keep going, and then all right, that's the end of 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:13.960 the meeting. And then we never saw him again, but 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:16.360 it was so sweet that he took a little bit 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:18.160 of time to just say. It reminded me when I 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:20.080 was young, he said we would go and do all 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:22.480 these things. It's just because we. 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:23.840 Loved worked hard, and we worked hard. 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:26.280 There's been a couple of times over the years where 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:27.520 someone will come up to me and they want to 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:28.080 get the secret. 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:30.200 Ah, you guys made it up here. What's the secret? 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:30.920 You know, how did you do it? 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:33.360 They want me to give them an answer so they 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:35.440 can just take it, and then like, okay, I'll do that, 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:38.120 and it's like a shortcut, and I'm like, I don't 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:40.400 know what to tell you. Follow what you love and 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.760 work really hard and who knows what will happen. 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:46.480 I mean, but that's all I can offer because I 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:49.640 can't say, here's the recipe. We didn't know it would 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:51.800 work out. It could have easily not worked. Yes, you 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:52.320 know what I mean. 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:54.480 We were having fun and you know a lot of 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:56.880 them is just trying to crack ourselves up. Yeah, but 0:15:57.000 --> 0:15:59.239 we took cracking ourselves up seriously. 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:01.880 Now, what about yourself? Like if you said to me, 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.560 what is the ultimate extension? Maybe that's the wrong phrase. 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:08.640 What is the truest. I mean your artists. Was this 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:12.480 your artistic expression, whether other forms of artistic expression you 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:15.760 were playing with, dreaming of, thinking of, and this is 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:16.600 how it ended up. 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:20.400 Well, what I discovered through it is a love of 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:23.600 Even though I had it in my background, I disregarded 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:27.240 it as important, the ability to work with tools and 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:31.800 understand hardware and you know, pipes and things like that. Yeah, 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:34.840 I thought, well, I'll leave all that behind, that's useless. 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:38.640 But through Blue Man, I discovered my love of like 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:42.360 making shit and being a creator of stuff, you know. 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:46.480 So that's kind of what I'm embarking on now is 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:49.720 I have a lot of ideas for like useful objects, 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:52.720 and I'm just going to try to execute all of 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:54.640 that stuff that's in my head. I'm trying to follow 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.080 the the way that Blue Man started to follow what 0:16:57.160 --> 0:17:00.520 makes me happy right now, you know. And so that's 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.200 it for me. I'm kind of pursuing what I found 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:05.840 through Blue Man to be sort of my real pursuit. 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:12.560 Blue Man groups Chris Wink and Phil Stanton. If you 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:17.199 enjoy conversations with eccentric Las Vegas performers, check out my 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:21.280 episode with Penjelette of the world famous Penn and Teller. 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:24.520 You have to know that my mom and my dad 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:29.400 never said hell or damn or any absent in the house. Hardcore, 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:33.840 no alcohol, no heller, damn. When I started doing card tricks, 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:37.359 my father was like, you won't be gambling though. You 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:39.520 can do card tricks, but I don't like having a 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:41.119 deck of cards in the house. I would say, Dad, 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:44.199 I'm just doing manipulations and tricks. Well, that's fine. 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:48.439 To hear more of my conversation with Penjelette, go to 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:52.040 Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Chris and 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:55.560 Phil talk about debuting Blue Man Group in Las Vegas 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:59.800 and how an unlikely series of computer ads helped explode 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:16.520 the group's popularity. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:31.679 Here's the Thing That's drum Bone from Blue Man Group's 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:36.840 nineteen ninety nine debut album audio. When Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton, 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:40.399 and Chris Wink first began performing, there were only three 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:45.439 Blue Men. Eventually, the original trio would train and hire 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:49.720 other performers to don the Blue Cape. I was curious 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:53.480 what was involved with running Blue Man Groups organization off 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:56.520 stage and what projects they've been working on since. 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:00.800