04-29-25 Interview - Comedian Dusty Slay

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now, if you're looking for something to do this weekend,
I happen to know that Friday night there's a very
funny comedian coming to the Paramount. And his name is
Dusty Sligh and he joins us now from a rather
cool looking office. Who's that just over your shoulder in
that in that picture right there? Dusty?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
All right, Oh, this is Steve Martin. A lot of
people think that's Jeffrey Epstein. They think I would have
Jeffrey Epstein.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
On my wall. For some reason, Steve Martin I.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Was going a little bit like bad picture of George W.
Bush from when he was younger. I was a little
bit confused, Yeah are you big Steve Martin? A weird
to Yeah, what are you big? Steve Martin fan?

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yeah? I like Steve Martin a lot.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
And somebody gave me this sign though, and I just
thought it was a cool It's like a road sign,
but uh, it's spray paint and I think it's cool.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
And I got this these horses at a at a
yard sale. I'm into that.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
I don't want my I want my studio to look
kind of weird cool.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Well, that's funny that you say that, because I have
a little side project where we do a web show
and we are actually building our entire set based on
items from thrift stores. We feel really passionate about giving
new life to ugly things that other people said they
didn't want anymore, so we are bringing them all into art.
So I have a great deal of appreciation for that.
Tell me a little bit about where you grew up. Oh,

(01:26):
I'm sorry, tell me a little bit about where you
grew up.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Well, I grew up in Opa like Alabama. This shirt, hey,
I got a little stain on it. That was it
wasn't showing it. But it's Opal like Alabama. It's a
great place. I grew up in a trailer park, you know,
and I had a lot of fun. Not sure why
they call it a park.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
You know, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
There was no rides in there, and we had like
a water slot, you know, no water slides. We had
like a slipping slot, you know, an old tarp with
some dish detergent on it.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Well, my life was good.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
I liked growing up in the trailer park. My dad
also lived on a farm, so I liked that too.
I got a double dose of the country life. And
then I moved to Charleston, South Carolina for ten years,
where I waited tables and was an alcoholic and now
I live in Nashville for the last ten years sober,

(02:24):
but well relatively sober.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
I don't drink. And then I have kids.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
So you've gone from alcoholic server to relatively famous comedian
in pretty short order in the grand scheme of things.
I mean, when did you decide you wanted to go
into comedy.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Well, I was doing comedy in Charleston, you know, just
messing around, just kind of something to do while we
were drinking, and I started to get good at comedy.
And then I quit drinking and I got really good,
and then I was like, oh, I can do this.
Maybe I can do this for a living. And uh,

(03:01):
and that's what I've been doing.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
I realized I have a red light over here.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
I couldn't figure out why my arm was red and
why my I'm so red.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
But there's a light over here. That makes more sense now.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
I thought you were just tanning while we were doing
the interview. I wasn't gonna bust your chops or anything
about it. And everybody has their own INTERVIEWIY regime.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yeah, I don't have a window in here, but I
got you know, I got a plant, so I'm a
plant light going.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Uh, let me ask you when you just because you
brought this up. I probably wouldn't have asked this question,
but you just brought it up. You you were a drinker,
You were an alcoholic by your own admission, and then
you decided to quit drinking while you were doing comedy.
Was there ever any fear that it was the booze
that was making you funny and you were going to
struggle being sober? Because I've talked to multiple artists who

(03:45):
have had a really tough time with that transition.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Well, I, you know, was not a professional comic at
the time, and I wasn't really worried about it because
I was like, I'm pretty sure I'm having a good
on but I'm pretty sure alcohol is wrecking my life.
I'm having a blast, but I don't think this is
going well.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
And I was like, I need to stop doing this.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
So I was willing to give up comedy and whatever else,
you know, just to you know, survive and live.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
A good life.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
And it just so happened that when I quit, I
did think about quitting comedy. I was like, I don't
know maybe because all my jokes were about drinking. They
were all about being overweight and being an alcoholic. And
then I quit drinking and I lost weight really fast,
so I was like, well, none of this makes sense,
so maybe I'll just quit comedy. But you know, I

(04:45):
was still running an open mic, and then I just
started to notice that I was able to write jokes
a lot faster, and they were better jokes.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
And I was like, oh, maybe my whole life is
just going to be better now.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Amazing how that turns out sometimes, doesn't it. Where do
you get where do you get your inspiration for your humor?

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Well, I like to say, for the record, though I
still support people drinking if people can handle.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
It, yeah, and have fun doing it.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
I support it because I wish I could drink, but
I don't wish it enough to do.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
It again, because I know it affected my life negatively.
But I don't know where I get inspiration from for
jokes from.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
I mean, I you know, I just write down things
all the time that I think are funny, and sometimes
or actually a lot of times, I write something down
and I'm not able to really make it funny for
the audience yet, But I keep it written down, and
then somehow I'll come up with a whole hour of comedy,
and then i'll record that hour, and then when I'm like,

(05:45):
all right, what do I do next, I'll pull up
old notebooks and I'll see where I wrote that joke,
and I'll go, oh, let me try that now, and
then then I'll be able to make it funny.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
Somehow.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
You're very low key on stage, like you're you're the
at You're the opposite of a manic comic. And I
think it's it's like catches you off guard as a
member of the audience a little bit. And is that
is that on purpose or is that just an extension
of your natural personality.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, I think it's just just me, you know. I
mean I think that I change a little bit on stage.
It's not intentional, but I think something happens to me,
you know, walk out on stage, I have the microphone,
Like I am a little different, but you know, I'm
still a little fidgety.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
I'm fidgetty now, I'm fidgetty on stage.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
I just think there's something about like talking, it like
gets me going in a way.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
But I'm still low energy.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
So I feel like it has to go somewhere, So
it goes to my hands, and I touch a lot
of things, and I touch my glasses and my hat.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
So you you are, I mean, you're you're comedy being
poor in the trailer park. You've you've embraced this kind
of redneck Alabama sort of persona. And I used to
work with Larry the Cable Guy many years ago, but
I was surprised to find out he's actually from Nebraska

(07:09):
and not at all rednack, you know, just like it
was shocking to me. Is this who you are on
and off stage, same dude?

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Well, yeah, I mean Larry the Cable Guy told me
that he grew up on a pig farm in Nebraska.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
So I'm like, not southern, but may he's still redneck. Yeah,
I mean, you know, I grew up in a trailer park.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
I mean I moved you know, we moved away when
I was fifteen. And I'm forty two now, you know,
so that was a long time ago. But yeah, I
mean I was gardening early. I have had a lot
of radio calls today, and in between radio calls, I'm gardening,
you know, And I was building some flower pots, you know,
and I still build like a redneck in a way.

(07:52):
I don't measure anything. I just I eye it out.
I marked it with my fingernail and then I cut it.
Nothing that I build is straight, but it holds up.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
It looks okay.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
I wouldn't want to go into a business where I
built for other people, but I build my own stuff
all the time, and I get into it. I'm like,
you know, I'm like artsy redneck, you know, like I
you know, I definitely grew up, you know the way
I grew up.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
But I don't know. I think I caught an.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
Artsy gene somewhere in the family line, you know what
I mean. And I'm like, you know, I'm into.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
You're naissance redneck.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Yeah, I'm into movies and music and you know, I like,
you know, I like cheese and you know, culture things.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
You know.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
When I when I drank, I like to go to
some nice bars, and you know, of course the redneck
side always came out. Eventually I would go in and
have a glass of wine. But it's later when I'm
doing shots of bourbon that I'm getting kicked out of
the bar and losing it on people.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
Well, I mean, you did say bourbon and not southern comfort.
So I'm docking you a couple redneck points just for
that right there. But I won't document.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
I will tell you that I don't even know what.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, I'd never got too into what the liquors were, right,
I just knew there was a there was brown liquor,
and then there was like tequila, and there was vodka,
and I liked them all. But I never really knew
the difference in bourbons and whiskeys and Southern comfy. I
just knew that it's brown liquor and I'm into it.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Southern comfort tastes like cough syrups, So if you don't
remember a distinct liquor tasting like cough syrup, you may
have avoided it successfully, unlike me, who I got some
Southern comfort stories that I'm not proud of, to be
perfectly honest.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
Oh yeah, yeah, not my best work.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
There used to be a bar on James Island, South Carolina,
called the Oasis, which sounds very nice, but it's on
an island and it says oasis. But it was like
a really crumby bar and everybody you could still smoke
cigarettes inside, and they would have on like Wednesdays, they
would have buy one get two free bourbons, and so

(10:12):
we would do triple bourbon with a little splash of coke,
and that's what we would drive.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
Don't you look back on that and just wonder how
you're still alive? Honestly, you know, you look back. I
look back at I call it my lost twenties, right,
my lost decade.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Right.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
I look back, and there was multiple times where, if
not for the grace of God, things could have gone
completely differently. And I am so grateful that number one,
camera phones weren't a thing when I went through that,
and number two that for some reason, I made it
out on the other side okay and unscathed and with
some brain cells intact. So let me ask you one

(10:47):
more question about because your style and you're from Alabama,
do you play better to crowds in certain parts of
the country than others? Like where do they get you?

Speaker 3 (11:00):
I don't know, you know, it's it just depends, you know.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
I think my comedy, like from from hour to hour,
depending on what I'm working on, changes a little bit.
But you know, I do really well in the Southeast,
I do really well in the Midwest, but I also
do really well in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington, and
I think that Oregon in Washington State is a bit redneck.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
Outside of those cities too.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
And a lot most of the people in Seattle and
Portland look like you, long hair, trucker hat, t shirt on.
So you're one of them. You're just like a transplanted
one of them from far away. Dusty is going to
be this weekend at the Paramount. You can get tickets.
There are still some left. I just looked. I also
on the blog today, I put his longer stand up,

(11:51):
a film, whatever you want to call it. It's fantastic.
I watched it this morning. I absolutely loved it. So Dusty,
I think you're gonna Have you been to Denver before?

Speaker 3 (12:00):
Oh many times. I love Denver. I love Colorado altogether.
I've driven around a lot of Colorado. It's great. I
love it well.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
I think we have great crowds for comedy and they're
gonna love you this weekend at the Paramount. So I
appreciate you making time for me today.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
Yeah, I appreciate you having me here. This is great.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
All right, Dusty, thank you so much for your time today.

Speaker 3 (12:18):
Man, thank you.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
All right.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
That is Dusty Slay. Go see him. At the Paramount
Theater this weekend, and h yeah, that's Friday Night. He's
got one show Friday night at seven pm, and there
are some good, good seats available