It’s not uncommon for comedians in Vancouver to have their fingers in several different pots at once. In addition to providing music as part of the well-regarded Sunday Service, Emmett Hall is also a regular at several other comedy shows around town and the frontman of new experimental group Revered — but we’ll let Hall struggle for himself to describe this latest project.
Tell our readers about what you do, inside and outside of the Vancouver comedy scene.
My day job is working in children’s animated cartoons. I’ve been an animator and storyboard artist for over 10 years, currently working on My Little Pony. I’ve been with The Sunday Service since about 2006. I’m generally their musical director/the piano player for their improv, though I’ll get on stage with them from time to time. On my own, I do a lot of alternative comedy stuff in town, stuff through the China Cloud Theatre, a lot of the Cameron MacLeod produced comedy things, and shows at Little Mountain Gallery.
How did you become involved with The Sunday Service?
Back in 2000, I was going to an art college in Toronto but I was also taking improv classes at Second City. They had a piano in the rehearsal room, so during breaks I’d just doodle around on the piano and my instructor said they were always looking for piano players to play along with improv shows. When I moved back to Vancouver, through a mutual friend I knew Taz VanRassel and he introduced me to Instant Theatre. By the time 2006 rolled around, that’s when Sunday Service really started forming. I was just playing semi-regularly for the Sunday shows but after a while I was there every Sunday and every Sunday since. We’ve been at the Fox Cabaret for just over a year. That’s sort of my story mixed with The Sunday Service’s history.
How do you like the venue change to the Fox Cabaret?
It’s great! Now it’s a spectacle, which is great. We’re on a stage, we have curtains, we have lights. Just last night, I think we crammed in over 200 people. So now there’s pressure to put on a real show, you know? It was intimate and fun at the previous place and I miss a lot of those elements, but it just felt a little more slack, kind of like you’re in someone’s living room. But now we’re up high on a stage, we’re being amplified, and we’ve got a name for ourselves, so we have to maintain that.
How often do you join in on the acting?
I’m like a member on reserve, when they’re down a few people. If we do a gig outside of the Fox and we’re performing with a different theatre company or a corporate gig or something, then I’ll get up on stage. Personally, I find improvising an anxiety-ridden craft. Behind the piano, it’s okay, but onstage, I’m thinking too hard, which is kind of the opposite of what you’re supposed to do.
What’s your favourite form of comedy?
For me, it’s always very high-concept things. That sort of stuff I usually do by myself, so it’s pre-written and it might involve music or a PowerPoint presentation or a weird character. I guess that’s just my individualistic approach. I think that’s an easy way for me to not present myself in my entirety. It’s kind of cheating, because comedy can be very personal and very vulnerable and very honest, and I try to incorporate that a little bit, but if I’m hiding behind characters and really weird, meta-style jokes, there’s probably a bit of me running away from that. At the same time, I like suggesting a sentiment that’s really absurd, but that’s somehow familiar. You catch the audience with the familiarity, and then you twist it. That’s very specific to me and my kind of comedy when I get on stage by myself.
How did your musical project Revered get started?
Weekend Leisure was working with Cameron MacLeod to make Steel Viper Force, an independent action movie in the style of old ‘80s blood sport but with comedians. Their sound designer, Pietro Sammarco, asked me to work with him to make an “Eye of the Tiger” style montage song and so we worked on a song together. Pietro and I worked really well together and we also involved another comedian named Ken Lawson, who’s an amazing guitar player.
It’s been about a year since then, I think that’s still on the shelf, with things percolating with it, but I thought, “What if Pietro and I worked on something with a slightly more earnest sentiment behind it?” Still full of bravado and a clownish aspect to it, sort of pseudo confidence, but the context is still self-deprecating.
So I approached Pietro if he wanted to work on these songs that I’ve been writing, if he wanted to help produce them and put them on stage. The album should hopefully be done by early summer. It’s tricky. People know me as a funny guy and a comedian — and that’s not to say this music isn’t funny — but it’s going to be hard to not have them blend completely into each other.
Describe Revered to someone who’s never seen you live.
It’s kind of like self-deprecating catharsis through pseudo bravado, if I want to sound pretentious. It’s like performance art, I’m taking the piss out of myself but I want people to be entertained and hopefully leave a little bit of sincerity out there while it happens. This is just the beginning so I don’t know what people can expect yet; I don’t know what to expect yet.
What do people have to look forward to about the upcoming show on June 5?
A cape. I’ll be wearing my cape for sure, some synthesizer madness. Some ill-choreographed dance moves. I’ll throw in some acoustic, jazzy numbers on the piano, amongst the 16-bit-sounding laser rock we’ve got going on.
Yeah, close enough. I think I’m selling it, right?
You can catch Emmett Hall onstage every Sunday at the Fox Cabaret as part of The Sunday Service, or you can see his new project Revered at the Anza Club on June 5 as part of Vancouver’s Music Waste.
