Once upon a time in Hollywood — Nardwuar style
Nardwuar the Human Serviette poses for a selfie with a fan after his Video Vault show in Los Angeles in November 2015. Photos by Steve Kennedy.
On a Friday night not so long ago at the Fonda Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, none other than UBC’s own Nardwuar the Human Serviette (BA’90) dazzled a few hundred adoring fans with Video Vault, his spoken word show that features clips from his widely viewed videos. His Hollywood appearance was just one stop in a multi-city tour that included New York City, San Francisco, and San Diego.
Arguably one of UBC’s most famous alumni, with a following of more than 3.5 million subscribers on YouTube alone, and a star on Granville Street from the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame, Nardwuar is renowned for his DIY style of journalism, which comes through best in the interviews he’s conducted with music stars. His claim to fame is his ability to dive deep into the research and surface little-known details with an ease that often disarms and confounds his subjects. Australian rapper The Kid Laroi’s astonished reaction to a detail that Nardwuar uncovered illustrates this best: “I wouldn’t even know how to find that information, and I’m me!”
Prominent MSNBC pundit, Trump critic, and Seattle native Ari Melber called Nardwuar a “quirky Canadian savant” during a glowing profile of him on his daily show. And Slate magazine, in publicizing the Video Vault shows, cited him as the “greatest interviewer of our generation.”
I was at the Hollywood show and can tell you how it all went down. Full disclosure — I’ve been a long-time friend of Nardwuar, going back to his beginnings at CiTR, UBC’s campus radio station, in the late 1980s. Yes, we’re both that old.
But (I daresay) old Vancouverites can still turn heads. Upon entering the Fonda Theatre situated on the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame, a star on the sidewalk caught my eye: it was for Yvonne DeCarlo, a famous Vancouverite and actress from many years past, probably best known for her role as Lily on the 1960s CBS TV series The Munsters. It seemed very fitting.
While there were a few old timers like me inside the theatre, the audience was primarily made up of enthusiasts seemingly well under the age of 30. Some were dressed in Nardwuar’s signature tartan, complete with tartan cap. I talked to a few of them about his appeal. Mainly it came down to his authenticity, his ability to draw unique answers from his interviewees, and a disarming style that shows the humanity of whoever he’s interviewing. But above all, they said, his encouragement to not be afraid to be different has been his most endearing trait.
Nardwuar kicked off the show by recounting a story about winning a high school running race against all odds, which inspired him to persevere in life to achieve his goals. From there he talked about his beginnings at CiTR, where his show persists to this day. He chronicled how he first gained attention interviewing punk and alternative rockers, the likes of which include Henry Rollins, Sonic Youth, and Kurt Cobain, while also demonstrating his uncanny ability to befriend rising stars — think Katy Perry, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, and Lady Gaga during their ascent — most of whom are Nardwuar fans themselves. A very recent example is his almost hour-long interview with Academy Award nominee Timothée Chalamet — although the actor is hardly a rising star at this point.
In the early 2000s, Nardwuar’s relationships with rap artists propelled him to new heights, starting with classic early interviews he did with Snoop Dogg and Pharrell Williams, both of which resulted in lasting friendships. In the case of Pharrell, he hired Nardwuar to work for one of his companies and helped set up an interview between him and Jay-Z. With Snoop, it’s been an ongoing lovefest resulting in 12 interviews over the years. The most recent took place last summer. And then there’s Drake, who grew up watching Nardwuar during his occasional segments on MuchMusic and became a fan. When he was subsequently interviewed by Nardwuar, the rapper remarked that it was “the best interview” he had ever done in his entire life.
At the show, Nardwuar shared a hilarious sampling of a few of these interviews, along with even more hilarious examples of fans using innocuous interview sound bites in TikTok memes. As Nardwuar said, it’s others who are driving his notoriety these days. Some stars have helped too, like American rapper Lil Uzi Vert who sampled a bit from his 2018 interview with Nardwuar at the end of his song Futsal Shuffle 2020. Citing the view that it actually takes most people 10 years to become an overnight sensation, Nardwuar confided that, in his case, it took 30!
The UBC alum also reflected on past opportunities that he didn’t quite cinch. One telling example, which he showed on screen, is a letter he received more than 20 years ago from the producers of The Late Show with David Letterman, who, in returning his demo reel, shared that they felt he wasn’t “right for our show.”
The Video Vault show also had some emotional moments, including a touching tribute to Nardwuar’s mom, Olga Ruskin. An inspiration herself, with her own local cable TV show on Vancouver history, she’s given Nardwuar great advice over the years, including the insight that your neighbour can be just as interesting as a celebrity. Everyone has a fascinating story to tell — it’s just a matter of drawing it out of them.
Nardwuar also recounted two major health scares that he’s experienced — a cerebral hemorrhage in 1999 that led to seizures and temporary paralysis, and a stroke in 2015 that required surgery to close a hole in his heart. Fortunately, and perhaps reflective of his irrepressible spirit, the UBC alum bounced back from these health challenges, and he credits his recovery to the love and support he received from family, friends, and fans.
When his presentation ended, Nardwuar took to the floor for Q&As with the audience and also made time to take plenty of selfies with grateful fans. His show left many of us with a sense of glee and optimism — perhaps the most important contribution an artist can make in these times.
