When I heard Monk in person in 1955, he was playing with a quartet in a small club. The place was full of musicians, but there was no public at all.
I still enjoy performing, whether it's in front of two people or 2,000 people, but it's not fun once you leave the big show.
I played at Room 5 a lot, which is probably the smallest capacity venue in Los Angeles. I begged my friends to come see me.
Of course, I love the arenas; there's a great deal of energy and excitement playing those kind of shows. But there's something that's very intimate and very special about a small venue, where you really feel like you're almost getting to know everyone in the audience.
It's nice to be in a smaller room. I like the big arenas as well, but at my core, I'm a live performer, so it's nice to be able to feel the warmth of everybody in the room.
There was a lot more music than the size of the place would indicate.
In those days a concert was a personal experience. I wanted to be as close as possible to the audience, and of course big stadiums didn't enable you to do that. It wasn't my style.
We always play clubs. It's not something that I feel above. Those are my favorite shows because they're intimate, they're tight, their sweaty, they're hot. You're close to the people. Those are my favorites.
We opened a theater in 2006 called Loft Ensemble in Sherman Oaks. And we write our own plays and do goofy characters and pack a whopping 20 people per night to watch our work.
We deliberately chose a small theatre so that the show was still intimate and the audience would become a part of the show.
It's fun to be in a small club and to be able to look somebody right in the eye and watch them just freak. Then it's fun to be in front of thousands of people and watch a couple of hundred freaking out of their minds.
First paying gig, I got 20 bucks. I played at some really weird venue. I don't remember the venue; I just remember it was the last stop on the A train. It was, like, the Far Rockaways, Queens, and it was an audience of, like, three people.
I just played at a club in L.A. called the Baked Potato. It fits like 90 people. It's like playing somewhere in a basement in, like, Indiana or somewhere where all your friends show up. It's really fun and there's a very different energy to that than to play to 50,000 at a Tokyo baseball stadium.
There's a club called Headliners in Chiswick where I do a lot of my warmups for tours. For me it's a nice 'big-small' room: it's a 300 seater, which feels small but you can still get big laughs.
I played shows in front of like 25, 50 people, and it's a lot harder to do your thing in front of a crowd that's small.
I love the intimacy of venues like the House of Blues. When everyone is packed in and so close to you, it makes you play differently. It's so much more fun to play because there's so much more high energy in a place like that.
I'd still prefer to do five nights at a club than one night at Allstate Arena.
I love being in a small club where everybody has a good seat, and we don't look like ants. And you can feel the audience, which makes it kind of magical, and I miss that. I guess I have the best of both worlds.
I definitely prefer intimate crowds. I mean, those are always the best shows, like, a small venue. Packed to the gills. Hot, sweaty. Those are always the fun shows.
I went to Canada and played in this tiny bar where the windows were steaming up and everybody was so animated and singing along right there at the foot of the stage, looking up, and I got my mojo back .
I love to play smaller crowds with the Rhythm Kings.
I wrestled Tyler Breeze one time when there was, like, 20 people at the show.
I previously played King Tut's in Glasgow, which is one of my favourite gigs. It's really intimate.
I don't particularly want to be playing in front of five people again. The reason I practised so hard was to get out of that.
One of the advantages of playing in a club is that even with bass and drums, the atmosphere remains intimate with the audience.
