Rising comedian James Kennedy knows a thing or two about comedy; most importantly, how hard it is.
“Comedy is a lot harder to build time in then a lot of people think,“ says Kennedy, busy preparing for his 45-minute headlining set at Lafflines next week.
“To give an example,” he continues, “Louis C.K. is the biggest comedian on the planet, and he puts out one new hour of material every year.”
He pauses to let the math sink in.
“That’s the best guy and his best friends, who are also the best comedians in the world, helping him write his material, and he can only come up with five new minutes a month. And that’s the fastest that anybody’s doing it! You get a joke idea, you build it up and cut all the fat off, and you’re like, ‘Well, I’ve got 45 new seconds of jokes. Now I can write my next one,’” he laughs.
The 2014 winner of both Patrick Maliha’s People’s Champ of Comedy and the Vancouver Yuk-off, Kennedy’s relatable, kinetic sets – riffing on everything from Instagram raps to the “cock market” – have taken him from “one-to-watch” to touring headliner in just two years. He’s opened for the likes of Silicon Valley star TJ Miller and gone on the road with local legend Ivan Decker. He’s also one of the fastest artists to be signed to Yuk Yuk’s in Western Canada. But don’t bother to Google him – the comedian (who goes by @JimmyKComedy on Twitter) shuns the web, leaving you to stare alternately at the home page for James Kennedy Elementary School in Langley, or the YouTube stream for Jimmy Kimmel Live.
It’s a strange decision in the post-Russell Peters years, where a comedian can become a global sensation on the strength of their web content, but Kennedy seems pretty chill about it. Kind of like how he eventually got around to comedy.
Growing up a hip hop fan in PoCo, Kennedy was no stranger to performing, hitting stages in high school with the rap group Any Open Mic. He then alternated between being in bands and DJing, going so far as to tour across Canada with one group.
It wasn’t until a conversation with an old friend, who remembered a joke Kennedy had written in broadcasting school, that the next phase was sparked.
“The transition from music to comedy is actually a pretty nice one,” says Kennedy. “Now I go on tour and it’s the same tour I would do when I was in a band, except now it’s just me and one other person, and we get our own beds.”
Meanwhile, he compares the work ethic required for another passion – skateboarding – to how he approaches comedy, working odd jobs during the day so he can do comedy at night. For the past year he and a friend have hosted a weekly comedy night every Tuesday at the Kings Head Inn in Kits – a location he chose for a very particular reason.
“There was a really successful standup show in Vancouver about a decade ago called the Urban Well,” Kennedy explains, “and it’s like half a block from where the Kings Head is.”
Hosted by Brent Butt, the Well became known for attracting big name drop-ins like Robin Williams and Zach Galifianakis.
“That show was always so successful, and they say it was good in the summertime because it was close to the beach, so I said I’m going to find a place to do a show that’s as close to where the Urban Well used to be, and that’s the Kings Head.”
By charging a five-dollar loud-mouth deterrent at the door and hand-picking the lineup from Vancouver’s overflowing comedy pool, Vancouver’s notoriously tough audiences seem to have met their match. And the gig gives Kennedy a chance to study comedy in all its forms.
“Just watching comedy is so important,” he advises. “You see different writing styles, different ways that people do things that inspire you in different ways – some have really short tight jokes or someone like Dino Archie, from LA, he’s a great storyteller.”
“You always want to be getting funnier, getting better,” he says passionately. “That’s the only thing you can really worry about. I’m starting to get there now where I can almost live off of comedy – where I book enough gigs and I’m starting to headline clubs – but you always have to be thinking I want to get as funny as possible, because it’s a lottery. You never know…”
• Catch James Kennedy performing Sept. 18-19 at Lafflines (530 Columbia, New Westminster). Tickets start at $18; LaffLines.com
