Jeff Foxworthy

You know the country music market is a lot different then when I last did an album. There’s such a tremendous drop-off between the first five to ten spots and anything else on the chart. Of course I’ve been away for a while without releasing an album, it’s probably been two or three years so, this will wipe the board clean. Which is to say, ‘I’m not doing any more of the old stuff, I’m just doing all new stuff.’

So there was a lot of things to be a little bit nervous about when I went to record the material for this album. I think I’m three for three though, I saw the charts yesterday and I think I’m in there around Number 8, so everything is working out well. You know with what I do and with what a comedy CD is all about I don’t necessarily have a lot of the advantages that the music CD’s by recording artists and musicians have. By that I mean, you get that hit single on the radio and it drives your album.

A comedy CD, it requires so much word of mouth.

That’s to me why it’s like a marathon in subordinate. Because the comedy CD is not going to come out of the gate at Number 1. It’s the nature of the beast. I mean someone buys the tape, they put it in their car and one day while they’re going to lunch with Bill from work, they say,’Bill, listen to this. This is really funny.’ And they put that tape in the tape player and give it a listen and Bill thinks it’s really funny so he goes and buys it. That’s how it’s done with a comedy CD. I think the response by the fans to my new material has been as good as anything

Night after night, I say “Goodnight” to the fans and they’re leaping to their feet. Which is very satisfying for me. You know, with Bill (Engvall) and I, it’s a very friendly competition. Bill was in Atlanta not long ago and he spent two or three nights at the house here with us. Bill and I are really good friends. It’s a friendly competition, but we are very competitive with each other. We’re always watching what each others next move is going to be. But that’s good, that’s when I’m at my best.

There is something between comics, we like the competition.

I like the competition between Bill or anybody else who is a comic. That’s like hosting the Music City Awards show Monday night. When I told my wife I was going to do that she said,’Now why are you hosting another show?’ Well, I love hosting those shows. Because I think for a comic it’s like the ultimate challenge. Because you know something is going to go wrong. Once again it’s like walking that tightrope. At some point the rope is going to snap and I’m going to be out there on my own until they can get it fixed. That always has been the best moment of the show for me. So, I love doing those shows.

Now I knew something would go wrong and that was my moment to shine. I’ve started to trust myself a little bit more. When I went to work on this new album, I didn’t want to listen to what the album should be about or shouldn’t be about. You know, I heard a lot of,’Well, it’s gotta have Redneck stuff on there. It must have Redneck stuff on there.’ I went back to the little bitty comedy clubs when we were living in LA and here in Atlanta when we moved back home and started testing my new material in those little bitty clubs. I’d go into those clubs on Monday nights when they were normally closed and with just a few hundred people there and with my notebook in hand, I went back to performing the way I began. I just went in there and started talking to people.

When I got to Atlanta, I did a ton of dates like that. Tiny little clubs, I’d just sit there with my notebook and talk to the people there and find out what was funny. You’re never certain what’s funny. I have stuff that I jot down and then I deliver it to the fans and I find out that, sometimes I’m wrong. Sometimes the things you don’t think are funny end up being your best bet. So I mean I went back and did it the old fashion way and found out what was funny. I let the fans decide! Because there was some things I had come up with that I thought were going to be great. Well, it just didn’t pan out that way. You know honestly, this is what I love doing. This is what I do. When I’m up there on-stage with those country fans who enjoy my material, I love it. Not that there wasn’t some good times when I was making the TV series, but I’m not a sitcom actor, I’m a comic.

You know all the success I’ve had with the Redneck jokes has had two sides to it.

There were people who told me,’Oh, you have to have Redneck in the title of your next album. You have to have Redneck jokes in there.’ But hey, after I worked my new material out in the clubs, I came back and said to them,’But I don’t have to have redneck jokes on this new album! I don’t necessarily have to have those in there. I’m not ashamed of that stuff, but I did the whole HBO show without that and the response was still the same.’ However it really is a fine line because if I don’t do it (include some Redneck jokes in his albums or especially his live set) and it doesn’t work then those same people who were telling me to include those jokes in there will say to me,’Oh you should’ve danced with the one who brought you. It does work. Jeff Foxworthy’s just a one trick pony’. In that case it would not be the comic driving the material it would be the material driving the comic. I won’t have that. I want to be a comedian, I don’t want to be just “The Redneck Guy”. I’m not ashamed of that stuff I’ve had a lot of laughs and it’s made me laugh a million times, but (he screams)it’s never been the act! But, you know, especially to the people who are the critics of my material and live show, they don’t know that I’ve only included the Redneck jokes for about five minutes of my act. However, to some people, that’s the perception of who I am as a comedian. Initially early in my career, the Redneck jokes were not how I made people laugh and even at the height of it that was such a small part of the material. But on the other hand I don’t want to slam it either. Thank God people liked those jokes and it gave then something to enjoy. I mean there’s millions of talented people who never get anything for what they done.

To move back home to Atlanta after all the attention from the TV show and the craziness of life in LA, moving home for me and my family was a welcome change. I’ve always had that theory that people don’t always want to see you all the time. If you’re constantly on TV and on records and touring on-stage, they get tiered of you. People get tiered of musicians and actors and especially comics. I mean go look at any comic, Eddie Murphy or Dice or whoever, they get tiered of you, they want what’s next. So the real challenge becomes,’can I go away for a little bit and come back and get them again. Because now I know how it’s done and that still doesn’t make it any easier at all. Because you’ve lost your ability to surprise people. You can’t ambush them anymore. People can’t discover you again. So after you do it the first time, a lot of weapons are taken out of your arsenal. If you get them the second time, it’s talent. I kind of knew that going into this album. It’s not going to be having some new hook like the Redneck jokes or whatever. It had to be just a funny album.

Now I didn’t have to actually rethink why I was doing this for a living. It wasn’t this long, soulful journey. When I got through with the TV show and I started testing new material in all those small clubs, I discovered pretty quickly why I like doing comedy. When I was doing the TV show, I didn’t really realize how much I miss the instant gratification of it. You know when you’re doing a TV show, you sit there and argue all day long about what the script should be and how this scene should be shot and what’s for lunch at the cafeteria. And then when you did an episode, it took forever to shoot it, you had to wait seven or eight weeks to find out if anybody watched it and ratings were good and then it was primarily word of mouth to find out if anybody thought it was funny at all. Well, with comedy, (he screams) especially stand up comedy, you know all that in three seconds whether it’s good or bad. It’s like Boom, it’s bad, let’s get on with it. It’s funny or it’s not funny Boom, OK it was funny good! After those few years of doing the TV series I came to realize I like knowing if it’s funny or not in three seconds.

So I think I kind of rediscovered the joy of it again. It’s like stock car racing, sometimes you hit go Boom and hit into the wall and it takes you out of the race, but you’re back next week. And other times you just have to go into the pits because you’ve shredded a tire and need a replacement. Moving back to Atlanta and to the folks down here, well me and my family has just been thriving on it. Let’s put it this way, LA is not one of those places that makes the Top 10 list for some big magazine that is taking a survey of the ten best places to start a family and raise your children. Since we moved back to Atlanta and the South there has not been one 60 second space in our time where we have said to each other,’This was not the right decision.’ Because we love it here in Atlanta.

From the first week we moved back we all said this was the right thing to do. And I’m doing everything I want to do, expect I’m not doing a TV show. But I still love it here. I take my kids to school and I go get them after school every day. I go to the grocery store, I run to Wal Mart. I have everything that I wanted, I wanted a normal life. That was the one thing when I was in LA, there’s some lines with fame that, once you cross them, you can’t ever go back. I guess I was fortunate enough, not saying it would have happened to me, I was never that famous,but when you’re in the entertainment industry and you’re on TV or in movies, boy you can see there’s some places I don’t want to go, out there in LA. You know I read somewhere in a magazine article, someone wrote ‘LA doesn’t want you to be a child, it wants you to grow up’. (He becomes real quite) And that’s true. I mean LA is not showing up at that “Great Places to Raise Youngin’s List”.(he laughs). You know now that we’re back at home in Atlanta and living down here in the South, I feel like I’m back home once again with my audience and with my life. I mean I feel like I did my time. I wasn’t stupid, I got lucky and I made some money and I put it in the bank. So this is what I get to do now. I get to go home.