Part
9 of 15
What comics did Bill look up to and respect?
I always get asked this, I feel like I never have the right answers for anybody. Well, you brought up Richard Pryor. In the young days, the young years, definitely Richard Pryor was huge. In the very young years Woody Allen was huge. I think he kind of burned out on Woody, as time went on, especially around the Stardust Memories period when Woody started getting more artsy. It was
this era everybody was with Lenny Bruce, not so much for the material, but just for who he was and what he stood for. Although definitely, Bill is not setting out to try to be Lenny Bruce.
Because I get asked that question so many times, I think I'm going to put together a pie chart entitled, "Bill's influences,", You take three dashes of W.C. Fields, five dashes of Jimi Hendrix -- and this is the thing too, Bill's influences weren't just all comics. A lot of his influences were his friends, the people that he hung out with, including me, and a lot of other comedian friends like Ron Shock, Jimmy Pineapple, Riley Barber. All of these influenced Bill deeply. A lot of the material Bill did was actually taken, I always felt, from conversations that he had with friends. But, Bill put a little twist on it and then presented it to the public. Bill put it in the correct nutshell and I cannot believe that he zipped it up and threw it out to the public. No, I don't think Bill was an island. I don't think
|
|
"When the history books are all said and done, you know, Lenny's not really going to be remembered as a comic and I don't really think Bill Hicks will be either.
" |
|
that Bill Hicks the world got to see would have been the Bill Hicks if he hadn't been exposed to all his friends and family.
People often compared Bill with Lenny Bruce. How did Bill feel about that comparison and how did he feel about Lenny Bruce's comedy?
Okay, once again, beat me to the punch. I don't ever remember Bill being big on Lenny Bruce. I think one of the cool things is, in San Francisco, John Magnison, who produced a lot of Lenny Bruce stuff, approached Bill after the show and said, "You know, I hear all the time, like, hey, you gotta go see this guy, he's the new Lenny Bruce." Yeah, he hears that about various people all the time and he always goes and sees them and is always disappointed, but when he went and saw Bill, he was just blown away. When the history books are all said and done, you know, Lenny's not really going to be remembered as a comic and I don't really think Bill Hicks will be either."
