Fereydun, that's my dad's name. My grandmother, my dad's mom, when she was pregnant, she was dating a man from Persia, a Persian gentleman. It wasn't his child, but he was still very supportive and said, 'Hey, this is a great name,' and so it stuck. So that's what she named him.
Fred Armisen
My mom is from Venezuela, and my dad is German and Japanese, and we lived in Brazil when I was a kid for a couple of years, and then I grew up on Long Island. I think all the traveling and all the nationalities put that stuff in my head. I was just around it a lot.
I see everything as a positive that can only help me.
When people say that L.A. doesn't have a culture, I think it really does: a very old culture, and very specific. There's streets named after entertainers, and statues of entertainers, and it's great. Entertainment is still art, even if it makes billions of dollars. So it's like a city built on entertainment, and art in a way.
I feel bad for everyone I've gone out with.
Every day, I wanna work on being a better person, not just to others but to myself.
Before 'SNL,' I would do stand-up, opening for Jeff Tweedy. It was worse than bombing in that people were dead silent.
All of my memories are now on hard drives. I'll change phones or I'll change my laptop, and all my photos stay.
When 'Pale Fire' came out, that album was a big friend of mine. I've just always purely been a fan of El Perro del Mar.
El Perro del Mar sort of accompanied my time at 'SNL.' To concentrate and focus, I would play the bass to one of her songs from her third album.
When I first started going to Portland, people told me about Stumptown. They were like 'Oh, it's the best coffee,' and I thought, 'How good could it really be?' I'm like, 'Sure, great, uh... I'd love to see it.' But then when I went, it truly, I am not kidding, is the best coffee I have ever had.
Music documentaries are tricky because of 'Spinal Tap.' That movie has stood the test of time.
The bands that were big in '77, like the Clash and the Sex Pistols and Talking Heads, I got into them in the early '80s. And it changed my life. It got into my DNA.
I would never play a character that wasn't true. It's not a moral thing; it's just that it's more convincing if it's a little bit like me.
I love 'Saturday Night Live,' and I really feel like people who have left before me have always stayed with the show. They never really quite left, which is nice. Everyone kind of stays close.
I came away from 'Saturday Night Live' feeling very well represented. I felt, and I still feel like, they let me do so much stuff that I wanted to do. Stuff that I almost didn't even know what it was.
I loooved Sleater-Kinney like a crazy person.
Surround yourself with people you like and respect; surround yourself with people you just want to be around and keep making things.
Over the years, El Perro del Mar became this artist that, every record that came out, I just loved it.
I travel a lot. I'll go back and forth, you know, West Coast-East Coast, but it's separated by segments. So it's not a daily thing.
I'm drawn to punk. I'm drawn to samba a bit. I don't think there's a type of music I'm not drawn to. Lykke Li I really like. Holy Sons I still can't get enough of.
As far as value goes, obviously it's nicer to be in an environment where you feel comfortable. But it's also clear that it's probably not the most realistic thing.
I think Ian MacKaye is everything that I always wanted to be.
Art should not be an easy thing.
Discomfort is the way to go if you want to make something you feel is worthwhile.
I would really like to do a movie. Schedule-wise I don't know when exactly, but I think it would be great to do a Portlandia movie. Some of my favorite television shows have done it and they've been great. Like Monty Python. I think it would be great.
When I used to see Rick Moranis do something, to me that was immediately funny. Or George Carlin or Martin Lawrence.
I will always, no matter what, be a punk more than anything.
If something seems like a little venue, don't treat it like that. Do it all. If you're sort of wondering why you're doing something at some location, just do it - any size theater, production, or whatever. It's all helpful.
That's one of the great things about Los Angeles, that people just play music, and it's all very welcoming and welcomed.
We almost called the 'Portlandia' show 'Stumptown.' That was the original name.
The Long Island experience is so strange. You're a satellite around the city, so the presence of the city is always looming.
I take any project on a month or two at a time. Meaning, I don't think too far ahead.
I can't relax. I'm not happy unless I'm working on stuff. 'SNL' is always a huge workload, as enjoyable as it is.
The day of parts of the country hating each other, or rivalries like that... I feel like that's dead.
I was actually late to the punk movement because I was too young.
I'm obsessed with my 20s. I buy things that I wanted in my 20s. It's weird; it's a weird thing that I didn't grow out of.
I want it all... fast. I want to be married, I want to live together... and then somewhere around a year or two years, I get freaked out. I freak out emotionally and then I actually feel like 'Oh my God, who's this stranger in my house?'
I've met Tony Danza. He was really nice. And he looks... I feel like he hasn't aged. He looks exactly the same. He's just Tony Danza. He's exactly the same as he's always been.
Everywhere I go, somebody says something to me. It's really nice.
My father came from Germany. My mom came from Venezuela. My father's culturally German, but his father was Japanese. I was raised in New York and spent two years in Rio. My parents met at the University of Southern Mississippi, and they had me there, and then we moved to New York. I'm not very familiar with Mississippi.
When you're being mean to someone, you can feel the audience just get cold.
I really loved touring with my band, but it felt like we would spend a lot of time playing in empty rooms - empty clubs. We had some good successes, but it's so physically hard to load up a van and drive all day.
Hopefully there will be a day when all comedy is all robots.
Talking Heads were a big influence on my comedy. For David Byrne, every album had to be different. With 'Portlandia,' every season has to be different. You gotta reinvent the look, all of it.
As a kid, 'The Monkees' was such a cool show. I had such a thrill saying, 'OMG, I was in a sketch with one of the Monkees.'
My favorite album is 'Ram' by Paul and Linda McCartney.
I love my bandmates, and they're my friends, and even though we had fun and got to tour and I got to play the drums a lot, which I'll always appreciate, we had a really rough time. We toured and tried to get people to come to our shows and put out records, and we really struggled.
There are bands that I am friends with, who will invite me up on stage. Like Les Savy Fav, who have had me on stage, and I have played on their record. There are a couple of bands like that. Yo La Tengo has invited me to play with them.
I have an inability to relax. I try to make every day a work day. I get pleasure from work... I try to think of sketch ideas, stand-up pieces. I am incapable of leisure and leisure time.
