Now Here's a Highlight. From Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Sam Tripley is a fearless comedian and podcast team Powerhouse. He's been a headlining comic for over thirty years. He's released six comedy albums. His latest comedy special is Why Is Everybody Getting Quiet? Sam has appeared on Comedy Central, The Late Late Show, The Comedy Store on Showtime, and Mysteries to Code It on CW. He's a true og. Sam has been featured on The Joe Rogan Experience and
The Ice House Chronicles podcasts. Sam's podcast Empire includes Tinfoil Hat, Conspiracy, Social Club, and Broken Simulation, all consistently ranking in Apple's Top two hundred comedy podcasts. Sam also hosts Punch Drunk, Sports, Cash Daddies, The Union of the Unwanted, and Zero with Sam Tripley, offering everything from conspiracy theories to sports and financial advice. On stage, Sam is a whorldwind, relentlessly questioning
authority and finding humor in life's strangest corners. His comedy's raw and unfiltered, and often the voice in your head that you're too afraid to say out loud. As Sam puts it. I'm the little voice in your head, but funnier. Sam's career started with a dare in Las Vegas, where he became a key figure in the comedy scene, co founding the Mutiny Improv Troupe and hosting a weekly show
on the strip. For Sam, comedy isn't just a job, It's a calling, Sam TRIPLEI welcome to Coast to coast, Am, How are you?
Honor and a privilege. Good to be back with you, Richard. You make me sound good. Dude, you make me sound good. I might need you to call my mom once in a while and tell what I'm doing.
All right, how are you?
Brothers, I'm terrific. Thank you. I'm such a square.
I got to ask you, what does it mean to be an og of the Joe Rogan experience?
Well, well, I'm one of the original guts from way back to the day. I was actually one of the I used to go to his house when he did it, way way way back in the day. He used to do in this side room. I was actually one of the original podcasts on a podcast network called death Squad and which I think changed the game. I think Desk Squad was in the Nexus the nucleus or the movement of the content creators away from Hollywood and legacy media, and it's never been the same since. And I've been
blessed to be a part of it. And here I am on your show. If I could give a quick shout out to one of my favorite comics working today, Dustin Yarbro. He's on listening. He's a conspiracy comic. He he crushes it on stage, and you know, just he texts me that he's listening. So I want to give him a shout out. So here, let me look good in front of my friends, Richard, I appreciate that.
All right.
Now.
I don't want to get political, because you know, here I am a Canadian interloper speaking to a primarily American audience, but I am I am sure is to get your thoughts on the ascendancy of the podcast during this election cycle, the power and influence circumventing the legacy media, particularly you know with Joe Rogan and others. I mean, I'm not sure anything is ever going to be the same after this election cycle again with the podcast.
What are your thoughts?
Well, you know, when I started a Tim Faull hat podcast, I had a t shirt which said the Revolution will be podcast and it turned out to be true. I mean, the game changers the you know, my good friend Phil Vaughn, my good friend Joe Rogan, one of my favorite people, Tim Dillon. They are the new media and people listen to them and it changed the game. You know, people want. Really, the future is authenticity in my humble opinion, and we're
entering a wonderful, wonderful time riture. I don't know if you saw Trump's big I know we're not getting a politic I'm totally fine with that. But you know Trump's big video we put out today talking about free speech. I mean it was, I mean that is That is the greatest New Rockney speech I've heard from a politician in a very long time. So I believe the future is great and I'm excited.
Man.
We live in a time where the masses can exchange ideas and to me that that's a beautiful thing and it's a wonderful time to be alive.
It is exciting, It is exciting.
I remember you telling me a story about how your whole world view changed. I'm not sure how old you were. You saw two professional wrestlers who were supposedly bitter adversaries in the ring, and then you saw them hanging out drinking beers, and that just changed everything.
Tell me more about that.
Yeah, you know, everyone always asked me when did I become a conspiracy theorist? What was the first conspiracy? And, like I told you before, or one of the first conspiracy to me is Santa Claus. That's a giant blackmailing scheme to get kids to pay attention to the parents. And then the second one is is when Hacksaw Jim Duggan and the the the one of the most amazing wrestlers, one of the nice people you ever met, the Iron Sheet got busted in a pickup truck together drunk, and
my world shattered. I'm like, oh, it's all a theater and it's so funny because later on in my life, Richard, the next time I felt that was when Bill Clinton went to the the the hanging up Trent Lott's picture in the Library of Congress. He's getting his portrait put up, and they all showed up. So it was Trent Law, Newke Gingrich, and Oral Hatch and they're smiling. With all of them. Was Bill Clinton, and I remember going dude,
you're supposed to hate this guy. You got girls first, I hate each other, and I go, ah, dude, it's the Iron Chic and half saw Jim Duggan. It was all a show. And you know, even you know, we can get into my thoughts on Trump, but you know, when I saw Trump at the Catholic event and you know, and he's just padding. No, I forgot who the Democrat was on the back. I just say, oh, there it is Matt's theater again. It's all theater again. And that's why I just kind of I find it interesting. But yeah,
one of the big wake up moments for me. My father raised me very paranoid. He said, never believe anything in what your year and half what you see. And now it's almost do you believe anything what you see? And so my dad raised me that way and it turned out to be right. It's a real blessing.
Is comedy and conspiracy. I mean, are there is it a natural sort of convergence when you're on stage, and because I think one of the things that comedians do is they tell us the truth and and that that's what you know, Conspiracy theories are sort of trying to do as well, talk to me about that convergence of the blending of comedy with conspiracy.
Uh. You know, it's very interesting to me because you know, we're the we're the gestures. You know, there was a time in the in the past when the gesture it was the only person could be honest with the king, and even that would get him in trouble. So the whole key to this what I do, and you know we have some interesting moments on stage, is get him laugh and slip them the truth. You know, it's a weird blend right now to it's a it's an interesting
time in comedy. You know, I think everything else is extreme. And you know, the the cancel culture, the the shadow in the cave that is cancel culture, meaning everybody thinks it's everywhere all the time, has done a little damage to comedy. Uh, in terms of mad people scare to talk the truth. Me, I'm not there. I always stay in the pocket, dude. And you know, I've said this forever, mostly to myself because no one listens to me. But
I never change. People come to me. You know, I've always I've always been the conspiracy guy for the last you know, my podcast is almost eight years eight years old. That's a long time for a show. And you know, I was doing conspiracies before that. So now I'm seeing everybody do conspiracies on stage and I love it. It means,
you know, my work is happening here. And you know, it's always fun when you hear friends like Joe Rogan, you know, talking about stuff either I talked on my podcasts or things I tweeted before, and you get to see, you know, he's out there talking to a much bigger group. It's like a real blessing. I've always said this, man, a paranoid population is the best population. You want a paranoid population. You want a paranoid population that ask questions,
that puts the politician's feed to the fire. You know, we got to be support but there at the same time, we have to really be on the lookout for them pulling some stuff.
You know.
It's like I saw the saying today, expect the worst, hope for the best, and that's kind of how I live my life. I always I'm gonna treat Donald Trump's presidency like my favorite football team, the the Las Vegas Raiders. I'm gonna treat them like every new season, every new season. I believe the Raiders are gonna win the Super Bowl. Three weeks in the train goes off the tracks. So that's all I'm gonna do with with uh, with Trump's new next four years, I'm gonna have hope it's all
gonna work out. I'm gonna give it them all this positive energy, and but I won't be surprised if the trains go off the tracks. I always want to be positive.
Well, I can relate. I'm a Toronto May Beliefs fan.
Oh yeah, through it. You guys are going through it. You guys need to win a cup.
Come on, yeah, just one more before I die.
As we say, you know, speaking of comedy and conspiracy and truth bombs and so forth, isn't it amazing now the all of these old George Carlin clips on social media and how they have so much currency again, yeah, on him.
And Bill Hicks is very much like that. You watch anything they do, it's like, oh wow, that is totally you know, that would totally fit in today. The only difference between what Bill Hicks and Richard Pryor went through was comedy is a little different right now because of social media, because there's so much there's so there's so with with Twitter and everything, there's there's a lot of
like doom scrolling going on. So when people go to comedy clubs, they sometimes want to have a little break. They want a little break from uh, from the news all the time. When when Carlin was roaming, you know, you get your news one hour at night, then you read the newspaper and that was kind of done with it. Now it's like people are just saturating in the news all the time. So you have to walk a fine line. People are there to be entered, so again, you gotta
get them laughing, slip them the truth. That's how I operate.
It's a very stude observation.
Do you have to tailor your act differently depending on what part of the country you're playing? So, for example, are there certain regions of the country that are and either more hungry for the conspiracy stuff other people just want to laugh, Like you know, whether you're playing in I don't know, Iowa versus Chicago, La versus I don't know Tucson.
Great question, dude, great question, And the answer is it's changed. Like it used to be you could go for in LA. That has changed. Now you have to kind of dumb it down, you know, not to scare that they're scared.
In La.
It used to be you could drop the hammers here. Then you go on the road, go to Middle America, and you'd have to dumb it down a little bit. Now it's like totally slipped. Now you go these red states, you can just totally drop hammers. Now when because of Tim Foulhattan, I have a I'm blessed, have a little bit of a following. You know, they come to hear what I have to say, so I can go a little farther with people than most comedians. But like I'm telling you, La, dude, you get into some wars with
these crowds. Like last night at the comedy store, they like they were in on something and then the bottom just dropped out, and I'm out there just trying to press them, like and this whole thing about leaving the country and going on like love making bands and just all the ridiculous baby stuff's going on. I'm talking about. They're getting quiet, They're not happy. You know. It's like the whole city of Los Angeles is in like mourning. Kamala Harris and I just don't get it because you know,
La was these used to be the outlaws. This is where the outlaws came to create art because it was the only thing they could do, you know, whether it was mainstream or alternative entertainment. This is where you came. And now that's all dead, dude. It's it's like the cancel call culture, the me too movement just h everything just kind of destroyed what was happening in La. Now you got your places like Austin and you know, Tampa is great. There's these other cities. There are a lot
of fun. Man in La. It's like it's it's it can be. You can catch the wrong crowd and they just stare at you. And it used to suck because La is where all the rock and roll was. It's not like that anymore. These big cities are just it's changed, like the wolf virus has rotten it. You go on the road, you go to Dallas, you go Austin, you go you know, Florida. There's so many great places to go. Kansas City is a fire comedy market. There's so many
great markets out there. It used to be La was the place you want to be in New York's this place you want to be not like that anymore, not like that anymore.
Things are so divisive.
Now, do you still feel a responsibility as a comedian to try and to bring people together, maybe to heal that rift.
This is a great, great, great question.
Dude.
You're crushing this interview, Richard, You're crushing it. Okay. One thing I want to say is like you're talking about the busiesusness and people that get along. Uh you know, I had guested on and she brought up this point about how the New Tower of Babel is basically the Internet, but more specifically algorithms like these algorithms are digging us into a place where we live in alternative realities and we don't live in the same world, and therefore it's
hard for us to talk to each other. My data points in your data points to be totally different. It's probably more like because we're both kind of in the conspiracy world. But like my girlfriend, I love her the pieces, she's a shell shock of what happened in the election. I'm not shell shocked at all. But her data points and my data points are totally different. So it's like, uh, we we it's dividing conquer man, and that is the
conspiracy rate there now. In terms of bringing people together, all I do I do, and I have a weird way of doing it. You know, there are some great comics who just go up there, like my buddy Dust and listen, guy's a crusher. I watch him. I wish I could do the comedy does. I'm just not wired that way. But my whole way of bringing people together is saying the stuff that nobody wants comics to say, because they have these like weird views in life, these
woke views. And I like to say it and then point out that the walls aren't bleeding, their world doesn't shatter that we can talk about each other, we can laugh about each other. You know. I had a buddy of mine who's got a really big YouTube channel, and he's leaving LA because it's too woke to go to Austin. And I go, yeah, man, it's like it's great out there.
You know, they're kind of letting it go. And then he starts talking about how like he doesn't want to, he doesn't want to, you know, conservatives to take over comedy. I go, you mean back when you can make fun of people in the eighties, in the early nineties, in the seventies, But what are you talking about? So so for me, man, it's like I come from a place
of love. I have no hate in my heart. I love everybody and I love I love the You know, if you hear from Toronto, you know this, Like, diversity is beautiful, It makes a it makes for a wonderful world to live in. But they've weaponized it and they turn us all against each other, and I think that's dying. So I don't try to bring people better together through a Kumba Yas situation. There's a lot of great comics to do that. That's not my style.
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at one am Eastern, and go to Coast to coastam dot com for more