Joel McHale Returns
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Why does Joel McHale feel “blank” about being Conan’s friend?
My name is Joel McHale. And I feel blank about being Conan O'Brien's friend. You know, when I look into your eyes, I get blank.
Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, brand the shoes, walk in blues, climb the fence, books and pens. I can tell that we are gonna be friends. So I can tell that we are gonna be friends.
Hey there, welcome to Connor O'Brien Needs a Friend. People are giggling here in the studio. I don't know why. Um multiple reasons. I'll just, yeah, I'll just go with it. And I am uh I'm here with my buds.
Yep.
My buds, my contractual buds, Sonom of Sessian, Matt Gorley. And um, I don't even know w want to know why you're giggling, you know? That's that's your business.
Sometimes we just giggle, it's okay. Okay. We talk beforehand. I wanna ask you a question.
Yes.
I saw your band perform a couple weeks ago. Which one did you come to? I went to the lodge room in Highland Park to watch the Vagodas. You guys crushed it. It was so much fun. It's
a lot of fun to do.
And you look like you're having a really good time.
Yeah, I love it. It's really fun. Um it's a pretty simple story. I was feeling like I was getting stagnant on guitar. And then in this studio, I don't know how long ago, maybe two, three years ago, we had Norah Jones on the show.
Oh yeah.
And afterwards she always knew that I played guitar and it was kind of a hobby of mine. She said, How's that going? And I said, You know what? I just feel like um I need to work with someone 'cause I'm I'm I'm just playing the same things over and over again. I'm not learning anything new, I'm not challenging myself. And she said, I know a great guy. Give this guy a call and she gave me this name, Jason Roberts, and so I called him up and Jason Shout out. Shout out to Jason. And Where's the Robert heads at? Yeah. So I call this guy up. He comes over to my house. He's fantastic. And he's an amazing player. And so we just started hanging out like once a week and he'd or once every two weeks, whenever I had time.
And he would show me things and we would play together. And I just had a blast. And then one day, uh, not that long ago, like six months ago, I said, Hey, if we were to start a band, would you know the guys? He said, Oh, I know the guys and cut to immediately I'm in a garage in No Ho and playing with an amazing keyboard player named Ben and Jason's on guitar. Uh Josh is on drums and Eric is a killer bass player. And um I do vocals and rhythm guitar and uh occasional goofy solos and And it's just fun. It's just really fun. Yeah. So we started playing these really tiny venues. We played a really uh kooky venue in Ohio, which was fun. And it wasn't And it was this older crowd, and so I started to tell them.
In
Ohi?
Yeah, in O High.
Which
this older crowd that they politely applauded when we came out. It was a pretty small room. And so I started telling them that listen, I know that y your minister doesn't allow you to dance And they all started laughing. And then I went on this whole thing about I don't care what the minister says. Screw that. You have a right to dance. It's not a sin. And so they all started getting up, these older people, and they were all dancing. Oh, cool. And it was kind of a happening. So we've been playing these shows. We just did um The Moroccan, which is down near the uh train station in uh downtown LA. And that was fun. What What
uh do you d covers, I assume we do all what are some songs you guys do?
Um I there's one song I wrote myself called uh uh bad podcast partners. Um it's self
reflexive. How does it go?
How does it go? Uh you know, finding uh something that rhymes with gorley was hard. Um well but easy it's right there, poorly.
But yeah.
And then Movcessian, forget it. Oh, no, no, no. Uh we do uh we we play a wide variety of um I mean I I love rockabilly, so there's some old rockabilly tunes, but there's also Elvis Costello, Harry Nielsen. What Harry Nilson song? Well, we've been playing around with Jump Into the Fire. Oh. Yeah, I just like it to be sort of an eclectic mix. We do a song by the band, we do we sort of jump around, but uh what I like is I like uh fast, energetic things where I can channel my hyperactivity.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why does Joel McHale feel “blank” about being Conan’s friend?
0:03–8:50
2
How did Joel’s impromptu band “The Vagodas” get started?
8:50–16:23
3
Why does Joel refuse to eat oysters and how does his phobia affect his travel plans?
16:23–24:22
4
What does Joel think about hosting game shows and why does he feel unsuited for them?
24:22–31:46
5
How did Joel’s collection of odd weapons (sword‑cane, grenade, etc.) come about?
31:46–38:56
6
Why did Joel leave his college fraternity and what memories does he have of it?
38:56–47:28
7
Which U.S. president does Joel feel he could portray and why?
47:28–54:49
8
What is the “Review the Reviewers” segment and how does it work?
54:49–1:04:51