Why Reggie Watts learned to be funny

It doesn't matter if you're the coolest kid in the world, a person who identifies as a quirky geek, or the regular kid next door, you need community. Everybody needs community, because no one can make it on their own. Reggie Watts explain how his career would not exist without his lovable weirdo crew in his hometown of Montana on a recent episode of "Salon Talks." 

Writer, musician, and comedian Reggie Watts is most known for being the bandleader on CBS’ "The Late Late Show with James Corden" and IFC’s "Comedy Bang! Bang!" Watts has also been featured in multiple comedy specials on Netflix and Comedy Central. He has now laid out the details of his compelling story in the new memoir, "Great Falls, MT: Fast Times, Post-Punk Weirdos, and a Tale of Coming Home Again." 

The book begins with Watts’ family relocating from Germany to Montana. Watts walks us through the many issues he faced dealing with race and being the one of the few Black guys around, addiction and some of the wildest relationship stories you may ever read. Ultimately, art, creation and Watts finding his community of weirdos, just like him, saved his life. 

You can watch my "Salon Talks" episode with Reggie Watts here or read a Q&A of our conversation below to learn more about his experience as a Black man in Montana, the new way in which he viewed his town when he traveled back home and who should play Reggie Watts in the biopic. 

The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

We're here to talk about your great new memoir, “Great Falls, MT: Fast Times, Post-Punk Weirdos, and a Tale of Coming Home Again.” Let's unpack the subtitle. Let's start there.

Sure, sure. Yeah. I wanted something that was kind of an '80s movie, iconic vibe. I don't know, it has that a little bit, but it's also descriptive, it's true. It's what it is.

I had so much fun and got so many laughs reading the book. It set my mind spinning because I've been everywhere, I've been all over the place, so many different countries, so many different cities. I never thought about going to Montana.

It's easy to forget to go there. It's a great place. I mean, I like it. It's simple. It's just a simple life. It's like the interior. You could go to Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota. It's got the same vibe. Idaho.

Apparently, they have big parties in Wyoming now.

Oh, do they?

Yes. It's time for you to come out with your Montana thing.

Oh, god damn. Wow. Well, I got more work ahead of me. I thought I'd done everything, and now you've just added more work. That's fine.

It's a transformative place for you, so much that it make it onto the cover of your book. Can you start off by talking about the journey and that transition from being born in Germany and moving to Montana?

I don't remember a ton of it, but it definitely had an impact for sure because just being around, hearing people speaking German and my mom speaking French, and living in Spain, I was around a lot of different languages and things like that. That was super helpful to me. 

Then moving to Montana, I had to learn English, and it was weird. It was kind of trial by fire as soon as I was born, in a way, on a human, cultural level. I just experienced so many different things, and then when you go to Montana, where it's really slow and what it is, and it doesn't really change that much. It's not immediately dynamic or anything like that, so yeah, it was culture shock a little bit.

I mean, it seems beautiful. It seems like there's a certain type of peace that you could never get in a city with as much motion as a New York or a Los Angeles.

Oh, 100%. Yeah. I mean, you just got time to figure out what do you want to do today? Well, I guess I better go pick up some sandwich fixings. I don't know. Or I am going to go visit my friend at the coffee shop and talk about whatever, or we're going to go for a quick hike outside of town or something or go fishing. It's chill.

If I'm moving there, what's the top five rules for a Black guy moving to Montana? 

Just a lot of firearms. No. No. Rules for Black guy? I don't know, man. Growing up there, the thing is, people are generally pretty nice. They might be suspicious at first, but I noticed that sometimes that's suspicious isn't necessarily because you're Black. I mean, I think that's definitely a part of it, but it's not just that. It's that you're a stranger. "I don't know anything about you, and so I'm going to treat you as a stranger until something clicks." Once something clicks, everybody's super sweet and they're really nice, and you're done. That's it.

That's fair. It's better actually. I shouldn't just want to be your friend because I think we identify, because you could be a scammer.

Yeah. Oh, 100%. I don't know. It's like I kind of get it. It's like someone comes into the village; it's a tribal reaction, right? It's like you're in your tribe, you're in your village, and then someone comes in, and you're like, "Who is the stranger? I don't know who the stranger is. The stranger helped with water yesterday and the stranger helped build a fire. So stranger OK, now not stranger." In my experience, that's why I kind of learned to be as useful and as funny as possible, and for better or for worse.

One of the most powerful elements of your journey is just your friend group, and you found the group of people that made you feel comfortable. Can you talk about that right now? Because I think we're having a big issue just today in society with people lashing out because they haven't been able to find that community, or a group of people that speak to what they like and what they care about.

100%. Yeah. Finding your crew, finding your community is way more important than I think people give credit to. We're in life, so we just kind of go through the motion sometimes, but we might still feel separated or lonely, and it's different when you have a bunch of [people around you]. Obviously when you're a teenager, there's a higher chance that you're going to find a group, some kind of group of some sort, even if it's just a friend. 

For me, finding that group was huge because that became my platform for experimenting with myself in a safe way and being who I wanted to be and having everybody around me accept me for who I was, and then me accepting my friends for who they were. It was hugely important. I got really lucky. I found some really incredible people.

Were those relationships different when you went back?

No. No, not really. I mean, everyone's kind of still the same. I've got probably, I would say maybe 50%, 60% of my friends still live in Great Falls. Some of them left and came back to start families and things like that. But no, people haven't changed. My friend Wally hasn't changed a lick. I mean, that guy, he is just forever Wally. Everybody I run into around town when I'm doing errands and chores and stuff, they're like, "Yo, it's Patrick Murphy from high school." I'm just like, "Oh yeah, man, what's up?" It just takes you right back. People are, yeah, they're still themselves. Whether you think that's a positive thing or a negative thing, it doesn't really matter, but it's just like, yeah, they're them, and that's who they'll always be. It's kind of comforting in a way.

Sometimes I feel that way when I venture into the neighborhood that I grew up in, because I live in Baltimore and I never left. With business, with success, with opportunity, you kind of get pushed around and thrown into these different worlds sometimes, when you miss it for the nostalgia piece of it, but I was just wondering, how long can you stay in Great Falls before you got to get on the road?

Yeah, no, I hear that. That's a great question. I'd say in general, about 10 days. I think 10 days is a good amount.

After 10 days, you're missing your latte and . . .

Yeah, I'm just missing my friends because I have so many friends in LA, and I do have friends in Great Falls, but there's only so much you can do there. Like I said, I have friends that live there and they're very happy and stuff, but because I do what I do, I still have people that live there, and so it's not to trivialize it, but because I do what I do, I do comedy and I do music, I kind of need to be around a place that has comedy and music. Great Falls, for as cool as it is, it doesn't have those things in abundance, so I do tend to miss it.

Reggie Watts, the multi-billionaire who has accomplished everything that he set out to accomplish is not going back home to retire.

Well, I think I will go back, but what I would do is I'd probably build a studio and have projects going on there in Great Falls. That's the way that I think I could keep my creative, as long as I know I could keep making stuff, then I could spend more time in Great Falls, for sure.

Some of the more brilliant elements of the book outside of the location was the way you write about your parents and how delicate you dealt with family and grief and all of those different things. I think that was special. As I was reading the book, I was like, wow, when's the film coming? It has to be a story, right?

I would love for it to be told in film or a series. Absolutely. 100%. I think it's a good story.

Who plays you?

Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Anybody not on the list?

Not on the list? Bill Cosby. Oh yeah, yeah. Tyrese. Geez. Oh my God. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. It's probably some young kid that no one knows. I think that's what it would have to be, because otherwise you're just like . . . I always hate it when famous actors take on mundane characters. The whole time, I'm just like, "Am I not going to be able to tell it's that actor.” The whole time, I’m like, “That's pretty good. That almost made me feel like I don't think it's that actor." It's like, just hire someone that no one has an association with. Way easier. Anyways . . .