Interview: Steve-O Talks New Super Dummy Comedy Tour, Tom Cruise, & More
ComingSoon Senior Editor Brandon Schreur talked to Steve-O about his upcoming United States comedy tour, Steve-O: The Super Dummy! Tour.
Steve-O discussed what fans can expect out of his new tour, why he has a personal vendetta against Tom Cruise, what turning 50 means for the future of his career, and much more.
Steve-O: The Super Dummy! Tour kicks off in October. Click here to visit the official website for more information and to purchase tickets.
Brandon Schreur: Can you tell me a little bit about what people should expect from The Super Dummy Tour? What is it like to be doing this and what are you excited for fans to see?
Steve-O: What it is, it’s a multimedia live comedy event. To give a little bit of a background to it, I took on stand-up comedy as a new vocation over a decade ago. It was 2010 when I began relentlessly touring comedy clubs. At the time, it was just me, the microphone, and whatever happened on stage. I taped my first comedy special in that format in 2015. I went about putting together a new show in 2016, which just occurred to me as being comprised of stories that had largely happened on video camera.
I thought, ‘Man, this new show I’m doing, I’m telling stories that there’s footage for.’ Like, wow, what if I edit the footage in during post-production and make it multimedia stories that are illustrated with actual video footage? That was my second comedy special, which worked tremendously well. Then it left me with the desire to incorporate the multimedia component into the actual tour. Also, after that second comedy special, I had started to find it depressing that I was living in the past with all my stand-up material. Reprising old stories and experiences; I very much wanted to bring fresh, new material into the fold, as well as crazy new footage.
I set about recording stunts that were just way over the top. That was my Bucket List tour. That worked tremendously well. Now, Super Dummy Tour is kind of the next phase of the evolution of this format that I’ve stumbled upon.
I think what is particularly satisfying for me and what is most appealing about the show is the fact that I, along with many others, have had to abide by the community guidelines of YouTube and social media, to be extra careful not to show nudity or anything too crazy. It’s just kind of a lot and it’s frustrating, feeling stifled by these community guidelines. What I’ve done with my multimedia comedy has been really gratifying and satisfying to just deliberately film things that are wildly inappropriate and unsuitable for YouTube, streamers, or even Jackass movies, for that matter. To really push things to kind of new levels of edginess and craziness. That’s what it’s all about.
Now, with the Super Dummy show, it’s an exercise in trying to raise the bar yet again. And doing it when I had just turned 50 years old.
Sure. Two competing things.
I don’t know what presents more of an obstacle for me. My advanced age or the impossible height the bar currently rests at. Trying to raise the bar, at any age with where it’s at, would be tough. Doing it at 50, it makes it kind of all the more delicious for me to…try to surmount these obstacles. In a way, it’s a comedy of errors. I sought to out-crazy myself — crazier than ever before — and some of the ideas I came up with were admittedly not good ideas. My epic fails, I don’t shy away from the level at which I failed nor the shocking levels at which I succeeded. It’s all rolled into one and it’s a real battle against Father Time, is what I think of it.
I’ve been leaning into the precedent of certain artists who have been incredibly physical in their 50s. Namely, Tom Cruise and Tony Hawk. Tony Hawk is my buddy, so he’s safe. Tom Cruise, not so much. Even if it’s only in my own head, I have declared war with Tom Cruise.
That still counts.
My stunts, in this show, I think objectively make Tom Cruise look like a big, fat p—-.
I’m going to run with that quote, right there.
Yeah. That’s my goal, anyway. I think Tom Cruise doing his own stunts; if Tom Cruise was a Jackass, if Tom Cruise were to do Jackass stunts, I think that might end up looking like Steve-O’s Super Dummy Tour.
I guess you got to find out, someday. I’ve seen some of the stunts you’ve been promoting and teasing on Instagram for this new tour. I think it was just yesterday you had the one with the Cybertruck. That one looked like it hurt, I’m dying to see how that ends.
That one was definitely uncomfortable. It’s good fun, man. Everything I did for this tour has been, it’s been fun, man.
I’m sure. It looks like it’s tons of fun, it looks like it’s tons of fun. I can’t wait to see it. Just on the stand-up side of things, like you said, you had your previous stand-up specials, it sounds like it’s kind of been evolving along the way. How does it feel to get back up there now and do it again? Are there still nerves that come with it or is the fourth time the charm and you’re good to go?
The nerves are in starting from scratch. Starting from scratch and building an entirely new show, it’s a lot. I love the process, too. When you’re running the same material, it will always evolve. But the more you run the same material, the slower the evolution becomes. The tiniest little things will change. At the beginning of the process, everything is new. It’s challenging and it sure sucks when things don’t work, but it’s all kind of trial and error. When things do work, it’s super satisfying. I don’t know if I’d describe it as having nerves around it; it’s more challenging than it is scary.
That makes sense. You’ve been doing it for a while so I’m sure you know [how to go about it], I’m sure it’s going to be great.
I mean, it’s already to a point where I’m f—ing thrilled with it. Before this next run of shows, I’ve got more that I’m shooting for it, too.
Oh, gotcha. So you’re still doing the stunts and everything for it?
I’ve got to believe that I’m never going to stop. Like I said, it’s an evolution and I imagine that, for the next year, maybe even two years, there will be bits that get kicked out of the show and replaced by new bits. That’s how it happened with my last tour.
What does that process kind of look like? The way Jackass has always looked, the way all your stunts have always seemed, it always looks so natural like you just woke up this morning and were like, ‘Let’s do this today.’ I’m guessing it’s obviously a lot more complicated than that.
Whenever we set out to do a big one, it’s not the kind of thing that possibly can happen spontaneously. There are certain things that you’ve got to set up. I think the stunts that I do for my own tours — in a lot of ways, it resembles shooting for Jackass. Sometimes I even get together with the guys from Jackass and they’ll make cameos in my thing. My shoots are maybe a little less formal, on a little smaller scale. Sometimes, a lot more illegal. Maybe no insurance. But I love it. I don’t know if I have another physically dangerous and destructive project in me. I might be packing it all into this and maybe taking a step back from the really dangerous physical stunts.
I’m sure. Like you said, you just turned 50. Which, happy late birthday.
Then again, maybe, Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise, I looked it up the other day, he’s 62. Which means that he was doing stunts when he was 60. So maybe, you know. We’ll see what happens. Every project, I’ve always viewed it as my last project and given it hell to make it as crazy as I could.
It’s been over two decades now, right? Two decades of insane, life-threatening stunts. Is it surreal to kind of look back on all that and just be like, ‘I f—ing survived that?’
Oh yeah. For sure. I think, even the life-threatening aside, I think that the amount of experience I’ve been able to pack into this lifetime is genuinely remarkable. I was in a conversation with a couple of guys last week. Last week, I went skydiving 25 times in four days. That might be some kind of record in its own right. Especially given that I was riding like a wing-suit dude through the sky like some f—ing dragon in Game of Thrones. We really got into some pretty crazy stuff last week.
These skydiving people were talking about what a valuable commodity time is. And how you never get it back, it’s a travesty to waste it. As they were making those comments, I found myself thinking that I don’t have a lot of regrets about how I’ve utilized my time. Sure, I’ve made a lot of mistakes and there’s plenty to regret, but on the whole. I’ve really, really had a life that I’m tremendously grateful for. And 50 years old, goddamn, I’m in such great shape. It’s almost like my new addiction, health and wellness. I’m on a fitness bender.
That brings up a question I was going to ask you. Speaking of regrets, semi-related, it’s been a couple of months since the Post Malone tattoo. How are you feeling about that? Any regrets there?
After getting the penis tattooed on my forehead, there’s that moment where you wake up and kind of figure out what’s going on and maybe what happened the night before. Put it all together in a quick second. I remember waking up and realizing that it was real and having a bit of a moment of panic where I was like, ‘Oh my god, what have I done?’ That first day, I thought the rest of my life might be eerily similar to Bret Michaels. Always a bandana that never comes off. Gradually, over time, it proved to not be an issue on social media.
Oh, that’s good.
I didn’t even know if my face was going to be allowed on Instagram or YouTube.
It could have gone either way.
That was nice, nothing has been taken down from social media as a result. Honestly, if there’s something that really sticks out as notable, it’s that it’s not changed my life. You would think that having a f—ing penis tattooed on your forehead would dramatically change your daily experience. Quite shockingly, it has not.
Wow. I would have also guessed it would have changed some things.
Right? And I never really was too concerned about it because I knew I could get it lasered off, if I wanted to. And perhaps I will at some point. But the experiment has proved to lack the urgency to do anything about it. I have zero urgency to do anything.
Well, that’s awesome. It looks good!
Well, thanks, man. Thanks. There’s some fun stuff in the show around that. That was one of the things that I wanted to do for this tour.
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