Ken Marino and David Wain on Living Their Rock ‘n’ Roll ‘Fantasy’ in Middle Aged Dad Jam Band
Ken Marino and David Wain have, in a sense, been bandmates for decades. They became fast friends at New York University and started a comedy troupe there that became The State, which got its own eponymous MTV series in the early nineties. They’ve collaborated closely many times over the years since, perhaps most memorably in the cult-classic Wet Hot American Summer, one of several features Wain has directed; Marino is a consistent comic presence onscreen, known for his roles on Party Down, Childrens Hospital and The Other Two, among many others.
But over the past two years, they’ve taken their friendship and creative collaboration to a new level: being in an actual band together. The Middle Aged Dad Jam Band — a covers band with Marino as frontman, Wain on drums, and various of their friends, co-workers and family members filling out vocals and instrumentals — emerged in the waning days of the pandemic and has amassed a following both on YouTube and live. Their covers, which, as Marino puts it, run the gamut “from Schoolhouse Rock to Kiss,” often feature their famous and very funny friends, like Kristen Bell (who recently duetted with Marino on “Islands in the Stream,” which has been viewed nearly 2 million times on YouTube), Thomas Lennon, “Weird Al” Yankovic and Paul Rudd.
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The MADJB, which has toured over the past two years, is currently heading out on a new slate of shows, including a performance at Comic Relief in New York City Dec. 9 and a gig at Irving Plaza Dec. 10, as well as a night at the Lodge Room in Los Angeles and a New Year’s Eve show (the latter two will be livestreamed). Ahead of their run of shows, Marino and Wain spoke to Billboard about finding their own version of rock stardom – and Wain, ever the drummer looking to keep his hands busy, performed a magic trick too.
How long has music been part of your friendship?
Marino: I mean, since we met. We met in college, and when we were doing The State, anytime we’d do a show, the show was riddled with music cues that we would all talk about and put in the show.
Wain: We were in the dorm with [singer-songwriter and composer] Craig Wedren, who I grew up with, and were sort of in his orbit of a lot of stuff he was doing. But we weren’t really like music partners, or even going deep and talking about music until we did [MADJB].
When The State was on MTV, were you guys crossing paths a lot with musicians, or more just feeling adjacent to it?
Wain: We were definitely like the oddball, black sheep of a music cable network. At the time, MTV was mostly music videos, so our show, by directive from the network, was very music heavy, and our whole soundtrack was just stealing from the videos.
Marino: But we were never hanging out with the top MTV stars. We were so outside looking in.
Wain: We in fact once did a sketch spoofing that — like, what if MTV is like, Slash is just hanging around, the rock stars are just in the hallways. But that’s not what it was like.
When did you decide to officially form a band together?
Wain: Like so many things we’ve done, it wasn’t really like, “This is the plan.” I had a garage that was big enough to have a drum set and friends over, finally, as the pandemic was waning, and I just started inviting whoever over, like, “Hey, let’s jam, whatever.” And then eventually these jams became more frequent, and we started being like, “Hey, let’s actually plan [to] learn this song and this song for the jam.” And then it sort of felt like, suddenly, we’re in it. We would joke like, “Come on, we’re late for band practice!”
Marino: David actually was in a band in high school and has always played drums, and has always wanted to scratch that itch through the years. And so he would always find some way to play drums…
Wain: Like by shoehorning it into any sketch or movie or whatever…
Marino: But like Dave said, it was this organic thing — everybody would come, and everyone was invited to sing, and over the course of many weeks, I sort of became the person who was singing the most.
Were you both in bands at some point earlier in your lives?
Wain: I was the manager of Craig Wedren’s high school covers band when I was in like, sixth, seventh grade. I wore a hat and sunglasses and I’m like, “I’m the manager,” and that was basically all I did.
Marino: A little extra fun information about that: When Dave made up a poster about Craig’s band, he put his face and his name bigger than the band’s name himself.
Wain: That band was called The Immoral Minority. But then Craig moved on to the bigger high school band at one point, so then I was in a band called Batman and Robin. We did win the battle of the bands twice. It’s not, it’s not….
Marino: [Faux modestly] It’s not a big deal, it’s just, you come and you compete, and that’s fine, and that’s… that’s the the gift.
Wain: In college, I did play with a band in the dorm. I was never that good at the drums, but I loved it, and I would do it whenever I got a chance. And then in my 20s, I was in this band called Liquid Kitty, which was a trio with me and two ladies. And then I really went quiet for awhile.
Marino: What about Rocking Knights of Summer?
Wain: Oh, right, when I was 19, I formed a band for the purpose of touring summer camps, and we did that for a summer, which was awesome.
Marino: I grew up wanting to be an actor from a very young age, so I was doing a lot of musical theater, and I liked singing. When I met my wife, many years later, we became very invested in karaoke, to the point where a lot of the people who came to our wedding bought us a big karaoke machine with thousands of songs, and we built a karaoke room in our house when we had kids, and I soundproofed it so people could come over and sing — we had a little baby monitor in the karaoke room.
For me, that was just a great way to brush up on all the songs that I remember from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. And I kind of stopped listening to current music after that. Even when we were doing The State I wasn’t listening to, like, the stuff that you guys were listening to.
Wain: Well, I still, I think of ’90s as new still. That’s like the recent new s–t.
Marino: For me, it’s just this little fantasy of getting to be a frontman in a band singing all these songs that just are deep, way deep back in my head from growing up.
Wain: It does feel like middle-aged dad rock ‘n’ roll fantasy camp, you know?
If covers bands get a bad rap, it’s when they sound like bad karaoke. But part of what makes you guys impressive is that, both in the vocals and instrumentals, you sound pretty professional.
Wain: I’ve worked quite hard on my drumming in the last couple of years. As we started jamming, a couple people dropped by the garage who are actual serious musicians. And then the rest of us in the band were like, oh shit, we gotta try to keep up with that.
Marino: The keyboardist, Jon Spurney, and Jordan Katz, the trumpet player, Allie Stamler, my niece who plays violin. And then Craig Wedren started coming by and helping us with all things vocal and harmony…
Wain: I definitely learned so much about how little I knew about playing drums doing this. One of my great joys is just starting the journey of actually trying to understand the drums in a way that I never did in the first 30 years of playing.
Marino: We try to honor the song, but also make sure that it’s truly from us. There are certain artists I listened to back in the day, and I’ve listened to [their songs] so many times that it’s just in there. And then when you drive around in your car and you’re singing to that artist, you always sort of sing it slightly differently, or you put a little extra stuff on it, and that’s what I’ve done over the years.
Wain: One of the things I love about your singing is exactly that — you’re somehow channeling the thing that makes Billy Joel’s voice special, and also putting yourself in it simultaneously, which is very cool.
Marino: Thank you, David.
Where do your own musical tastes tend to lean?
Wain: The ’80s is when I most paid attention to and cared deeply about lots of music. I still love things from all times, from today, but I just haven’t put the time and investment in learning as much about more current artists. But as a kid, I loved and played in bands that played a lot of like ’80s alt — like the Replacements, and I was in an R.E.M cover band. I was in a Smiths cover band in high school.
Marino: I grew up on Long Island, so of course Billy Joel was a big thing. I enjoyed Bruce Springsteen and Elton John, singer-songwriter kind of guys. And then I went to college with a guy from New Orleans, and I really got into music from New Orleans — the Neville Brothers, Dr. John, Walter “Wolfman” Washington — and I like R&B stuff, Motown, Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding and Sam Cooke, stuff like that.
Even your guests are quite accomplished. Do you think there’s some connection between people who have great comedic or improv skill and those who have musical talent, too?
Wain: I think they’re definitely complementary. I feel like every actor I know, almost, is also a musician in some form, or wants to be, or could be. It feels very overlappy.
Marino: I just think there are a lot of people who were theater kids or grew up singing. And then you come to this town, and there’s not a big demand for that – so you don’t get to do it, but it’s an itch you want to scratch. We’ve been lucky enough to work in this town and work with really talented people who we’ve become friends with. So when we throw out, “Hey, you want to come by and sing some songs this weekend?” a lot of them are like, “Hell yeah!”
Wain: There’s a certain high of playing in a rock show with your friends on stage for an audience that is different than anything else that you could do.
Marino: It’s unique. The rush you get from doing a sketch show in front of people is really cool and fun — hearing the laughter and riding the waves and stuff — but a band playing together and really trying to make the music sound good, and doing it live in front of an audience, is a whole other sort of rush. At our [MADJB] shows, we do little comedy bits between the songs, and I think that’s initially what people were coming to see, but then they’re pleasantly surprised by the fact that we’re taking the music so seriously and really kind of committing to it.
Do particular songs the band has done stand out as challenges you’re proud of having mastered?
Wain: I mean, “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant” was definitely one that for a while we were just like, “There’s no way we could ever tackle that.” It’s just so much. But we’re like, let’s just try little by little, and we got that one into shape.
Marino: I thought “Islands in the Stream” with Kristen was gonna be super simple – and I went over to Spurney’s, and he’s like, “It’s very complex harmonizing —the song is pretty because of all the harmony.” So that one was overwhelming to me. We got it to where we wanted it to be, though. And it took us doing that for me go, “Oh, right, now I know how to do it properly.” Now when I hear the song, all I hear is the harmony.
Wain: Learning The Police’s “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” was, needless to say, challenging. I ended up doing my own slightly simpler version of it. The original recording involves more than one drum track, but I did the David Wain slightly dumbed-down version.
You’ve performed “Magic To Do” from the musical Pippin, and there’s been a running joke in your videos since about playing more Pippin. So, as a musical theater nerd I have to ask: are you going to play more Pippin?
Wain: I mean, I think it’s literally our least viewed video of all of them. But uh….
Marino: If I had anything to say about it, yes, we would do more. But, yeah, it’s not the most popular.
Wain: Our YouTube stats, apparently, is that [our audience is] like 95% men, which might answer the Pippin question. But I also I think we should do something from Hamilton. Who knows. We could do [The Who’s] Tommy…
What can audiences expect from this next run of shows?
Wain: If you’ve seen us before, we’ve added a ton of new songs since then, there’s quite a bit of new material. But it’s all covers. I do think the band’s getting better and better, and I love all the music that we’re doing. I’m super excited.
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