Sharp-tongued comedian Adam Carolla and on-air personality have lately been known as a wildly successful podcaster and celebrity rehab adviser (respectively) but the two found fame as co-hosts of the radio-show-turned ’90s MTV staple.
Pinsky, of course, is still hosting the radio version, among other projects, so when the two began hanging out again via Carolla’s podcast, they hatched the idea for a national tour that would revive the stage version of “Loveline” — complete with audience participation.
Neither host comes without controversy. The plain-spoken, decidedly Libertarian Carolla has been knocked for his politics and pro-male stance, and Pinksy has been criticized by comedians and media watchers for both his practices and results. But their straight man-comedian chemistry remains intact, as anyone who’s heard one of Carolla’s recent podcasts can attest.
We caught up with Carolla and Pinsky separately over the phone in the last few weeks to talk about the reunion tour — which visits Denver’s on Saturday, March 2 — their controversial reputations and what they know about each other that nobody else does.
Why did you decide to bring back this lineup of “Loveline” now — and why as a national tour?
Adam Carolla: Drew and I used to go out and do these tours years ago and we basically just went around the country. So I guess it’s kind of like getting the band back together. We did college campuses almost exclusively at the time. It was a good ten years ago and we both really enjoyed working with each other and doing our thing, so to speak, just being on stage together. Then we started doing a podcast together and kind of reunited a little bit, so at a certain point somebody who wanted to make money said, “Why don’t you guys go out together?” And since I like traveling and hanging out and sharing stage time with Drew, it seemed enjoyable. For the way I’m wired, it’s just much more enjoyable than going out there and doing a 90-minute stand-up show because I like the improvisational part of it so much. It became enticing to me, like, “Oh, this doesn’t feel like work!” Getting on a plane and going and doing a 90-minute stand-up show kind of feels like work. Not hard work, but work nonetheless.
Would you also compare it to getting the band back together?
Dr. Drew: That’s exactly what it is. (Adam) asked me on board his podcast network and I really enjoyed that, just the whole long form of being able to take the interview wherever you want it to go. I find that very exciting. I’ve done this (touring) myself around the country for years and we did it in the late ’90s together, so we thought, “Let’s try it again.” The atmosphere isn’t different dynamically. It’s the same phenomenon, it’s just the content is different and people are worrying about different things these days. It hit me between the eyes the other day when I was talking to a 22-year-old with four kids and I was thinking how we didn’t so much deal with that back in the day. These traumatic childhoods people are having, destroying families, the lack of education — people are not sure how to conduct a life and are getting into trouble with their relationships. It’s really more about survival in the world.
Can you describe your chemistry when you work together? Why do you think it worked for so long on the radio and MTV?
AC: We’ve got a good shorthand and done so many reps together that it’s hard to duplicate that unless you have 10,000 hours of time in the cockpit sitting next to your co-pilot. It’s just hard to get that over a weekend in the simulator. So, that’s why when we get together people are like, “Oh man, this is great!” And sometimes we kind of forget that when you take two guys that have sat next to each other for 11 years every night and put them together, yeah, there’s GONNA be something there– even if one’s funny and one’s a good straight guy. Truthfully, people say it about me and Jimmy (Kimmel, Carolla’s former co-host of “The Man Show”) too.
To extend the metaphor: do you also feel like this is the best lineup of this reunited band?
DD: Actually, I always I thought of “Loveline” as sort of parent-child kind of a conflict, an id/superego struggle. Fundamentally that’s how it’s setup, but the dynamic is so different because we’re both people that are trying to do two different jobs. We’re both very interested in people and life and society and how things are functioning. In our podcast we get into politics and all kinds of things we never used to get into on “Loveline.” But fundamentally we have two different priorities. I’m talking about health and he’s interested in entertaining people and being funny, but he’s interested in doing it in a way that people learn something, and that’s where we come back together again. So he tells stories or talks in metaphor.
Adam definitely seems to enjoy his metaphors.
DD: It’s like giving your dog a pill, but if you wrap it in turkey or Gaines-Burgers or peanut butter, they take it every time. Adam is the peanut butter and I’m the pill. He’s the Gaines-Burgers.
I guess that would make the audience the dog.
DD: Ha! Well, you know what I mean.
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I’m still curious why you think your lineup of “Loveline” was the most popular. The show has had a lot of permutations of hosts over the years.
AC: I’m funnier than everybody. That’s No. 1. Look, we could talk around it all we want, but I’m a lot funnier than (former co-host) Riki Rachtman was. That’s why me and Dr. Drew was better than me and Riki Rachtman with Dr. Drew. There’s not some magical chemical introduced when we work together, I just happen to be funnier than all the other people on radio they thought about hooking him up with. I always sound like a douche bag because people are like, “What the secret?” They wanna know what the formula is, and I’m going to sound like a douche bag, but here goes: Lebron James, what’s the secret? “It’s because I’m taller than you! I’ve got a higher vertical dunk than you and I can make the shot.” So if you hook me up with Dr. Drew I’m going to be funnier than Dr. Drew. But that’s the whole thing — Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen were both very good and they were very good alone and great together.
Who’s who in this scenario?
AC: Part of being good for Scottie Pippen is recognizing who he’s with and what they do. I recognized that when I worked with Jimmy (Kimmel), I was Scottie Pippen. I was good at feeding him the ball a lot of the time and sitting bank and watching him dunk. And I don’t mean that in a bad way, but he’s the lead guy. And when I work with Dr. Drew, I get to be Jordan. Or I get to be Karl Malone and he’s John Stockton. He gets to be some short white guy.
(For Dr. Drew:) What do you say to people who criticize the show as pseudo-science or more entertainment than actual helpful advice? Some of the folks on your , and comedian against you on one of his albums.
DD: I am mystified. I don’t know why. I must represent something that’s upsetting to (Stanhope) and I don’t know what it is because I harbor none of that poison. He perceives me to be something I’m not. It’s disturbing because it’s so vituperous.
Adam, do you see where any of these critics of Dr. Drew are coming from?
AC: Most criticisms of people are people you don’t really know that well, because once they become a human being, once you see Dr. Drew with his family and you see that he did “Loveline for 10 years for free, you start to realize what kind of human being he is and that he’s genuinely concerned about helping other human beings. It’s hard to tear him a new asshole. But listen, there’s people who do the whole like, “Doctors and big pharmaceutical is making money off of sick people!” Do you think these people care?! Well, they just cured your AIDS, so shut the fuck up. “Do you know how much money they made?” Yeah, you had a death sentences and now you’re playing beach volleyball. “They’re only in it for the money!” Sure, but it doesn’t deny the fact that you’re living. You think Dr. Phil or Deepak Chopra work for free? These people make a lot of money. So does Boeing! So does Upjohn! Shut the fuck up, I don’t know what your point is. Dr. Drew makes money and helps a certain amount of people with addiction. It’s like, “Is that OK or does he have to work for free?”
Dr. Drew, what’s something you’ve learned about Adam over the years that nobody else knows?
It would be Pollyanna to say that he’s a very sensitive soul, but perhaps the thing that I see or what other people aren’t clear on with him is that he has a clarity of vision about people and circumstances — even down to what’s right and what’s wrong — that is exquisite. And that can be frustrating because you want to be intellectual and debate it and build your case, but he’s interestingly right about that. He has a clarity of thought about it and sort of an insight that really is unique. He’s an exquisite observer and something about his perceptual system… he perceives things differently than the rest of us, that the rest of us are too busy or distracted or unfocused to notice.
Don’t you think that’s part of being a comedian? That’s basically his job.
Absolutely not. It’s the fact that he came from absolute depravity. He had a horrible childhood. He was poor. He had to sit for hours and hours and occupy himself and he was miserable. He didn’t have quality relationships and didn’t have a family to call upon. He’d just sit and think and analyze. He basically barely has a pulse, and I mean that literally. He’s parasympathetically in overdrive, so he sort of filled his mind with observations about people and things and circumstances and he got quite astute. He’d never had an education when I first started working with him. He basically couldn’t read. He couldn’t read a cue card. And that’s what motivated him to study linguistics and metaphor and philosophy.
Adam, what’s something about Dr. Drew that nobody else knows?
AC: With Dr. Drew, what you see is what you get 99 percent of the time. People say, “What is he really like?” And if you listen Drew, you see Drew, then you know Drew. That’s who he is. There’s no other side.
Really? Everybody’s got another side, especially on-air personalities.
The only thing I would tell you about Drew in terms of the other side is that he’s much easier on humanity than he is on himself or his kids. He’s got a lot more of me in him than he’ll admit. People say he’s compassionate, that he doesn’t judge. That’s a lie. He can’t stand it when people are lazy. He wants people to get their shit together. He’s not nearly as vocal about it as I am, or as tough about it, but he’s basically a Libertarian. He’s like, “Look, people, you’ve gotta get your crap together, feed your kids, pay your bills and as far as the government, you get YOUR crap together and go to work like everyone else.” And Drew is one of the hardest working guys on the planet, maybe second only to Jimmy Kimmel. They don’t expect you to work as hard as they do. If Drew’s thing is going to work 75-80 hours a week, you can work 15 hours a week. He lives Hollywood so it’s hard to express those feelings. He’s very much into Thomas Jefferson. A lot of people over-think it and analyze it too much, but that’s just who he is.
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John Wenzel is an A&E reporter and comedy critic for . Follow him and .
