Jeremy Essig
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Jeremy Essig | |
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| Born | December 11, 1977 |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Wake Forest University |
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Jeremy Essig
Jeremy George Essig (December 11, 1977) is an American record label owner, audio engineer, stand-up comedian, musician, and journalist. He is the owner of the record label, Rhizome Comedy. He is also a fictional character killed by zombies in Jonathan Maberry’s novel Fall of Night.[1]
Early Life
Essig was raised in Zanesville, Ohio, where he began playing in bands at the age of 15. He graduated from Bishop Rosecrans Catholic High School in 1996, and from Wake Forest University in 2000.
Personal Life
Essig has been married once, to Jessica Coghill; they divorced in 2010. He has spent much of his adult life in St. Louis, Missouri. In 2019, Essig moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, where he currently lives with his dogs, Grieco, Lucy, and Salem.
Career
Comedy
Essig's comedy has been referred to as "intelligent cynicism”[2]. He performed his first stand-up set at an open mic at the Jokers Comedy Café in Dayton, Ohio on June 28, 2000. Positive feedback from a comedy event producer led to him being invited back and discovering an unplanned career path in comedy.[3]
From 2002 through 2018, Essig was a full-time road comic, travelling and performing on stages across the United States. In 2004, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he became a fixture on the scene. During this time, he released two stand-up albums, 2005’s Transient and 2007’s Monque. In 2009, he began touring with Brian Posehn and would continue doing so for the next decade.[4]
In June 2012, Essig met KDHX marketing director Chris Ward. Based on their common interests of music, video games, and comic books, Essig created “Loser: A Live-Action Shame Show."[5]. After performing for a year locally, Essig and Ward took the show on the road for a seven-day, seven-city tour, which they blogged about for the River Front Times.
In September 2012, Essig moved to New York City from St. Louis[6] in search of more comedic opportunity, eventually returning to St. Louis again in 2013.
Upon his return to St. Louis, Essig continued to develop the idea of "Loser: A Live-Action Shame Show", eventually changing its name to "Vinyl Intervention". A pilot for Vinyl Intervention was recorded in the Summer of 2013 at Blueberry Hill's Duck Room with St. Louis-based Coolfire Studios and guest host Steven Drozd of The Flaming Lips.
One of Essig's stand-up acts once started a riot at The Mall of America after making a short joke about president at the time, George W. Bush.[1] He was interviewed about this event and the path of his career 20 years later, saying "If you had told me in college, here’s what the next twenty years are gonna be, I’d’ve said, well, that just sounds insane. It sounds fun, but it sounds insane".[1]
Jeremy Essig retired from doing stand-up in July 2021, performing his final show at Goodnights Comedy Club in Raleigh, North Carolina. His last two comedy albums released were Exile on Hitt Street (2012) and Whatever (2017).
Production
Looking for a life away from the road as a touring comic, Essig began to focus on audio-visual production. In November 2017, he opened his first recording studio, Listless Sound. It was a professional full-service recording studio based in St. Louis[7] where Essig worked as an audio consultant and engineer.
In the spring of 2023, after leaving Helium, Essig founded a new Raleigh-based audio-visual production company and comedy label, Rhizome Art and Rhizome Comedy. He is currently the Executive Director.[7] Rhizome Comedy is a "new evolution in artist-centric production".
Music
In 1992, at the age of 15, Essig began playing in various bands. By 1995, he became the bass player for Box of Rocks, while also providing some vocals and guitar. Box of Rocks released their debut album, "Good Grief", which was digitally re-mastered and released in May 2020, as "Crossroad Standing". At Wake Forest, he joined the Flaming Moes, a campus band named after a Homer Simpson cocktail.
Essig eventually took a step back from his music to focus on his comedy career, but continued to write songs and find ways to bring the two worlds together. For a time, Essig was known to have his guitar available during a comedy show, and allow audience members to come onstage and play while he delivered his set.[8]
After meeting lead singer Jason Robinson at one of his Loser shows, Essig joined St. Louis rock band Shark Dad, where he played guitar, wrote songs and provided backup vocals. The band released Almost, Pink in 2017 and The Pink Motel in 2018. Finding himself with a number of songs that felt too personal to hand off, Essig formed his own band, Let’s Not, in 2018[4]. Their releases include Glimmer (2018), Sidewhip (2018) and Manic (2019).
Essig appears briefly in a Superchunk video, where he can be seen holding the Husker Du album “Land Speed Record”.
Journalism
Essig enrolled in the Journalism program at University of Missouri in 2009. He became a statehouse reporter in Jefferson City, covering state and national politics for the Columbia Missourian and Missouri Digital News, and eventually becoming associate editor for both papers.
Essig went on to write for the Columbus Business Times and landed a freelance gig as a music writer/reviewer for Eleven magazine and the Riverfront Times.
Other
In the winters of 2018-2019 Essig taught a course on podcasting at Webster University. [9]
Essig has been involved with several podcasts, including “Where'd You Fuc* Up?” (changed to “Where’d You [Bless] Up?”), an interview-style conversation co-hosted with comic Tina Dybal, where guests share a misstep that impacted their lives somehow. [9]
Discography
Selected Comedy Albums Produced
| Year | Artist | Album | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Sean Patton | "Scuttlebutt" | Producer |
| 2019 | Erica Rhodes | "Sad Lemon" | Producer |
| 2020 | Andrew Orvedahl | "Alexa, Play Creed" | Producer |
| 2020 | Benji Brown | "Sat Down Somewhere" | Producer |
| 2021 | Jared Freid | "Socially Distanced, Of Course" | Producer |
| 2021 | Mary Santora | "Hillbilly Boujee" | Producer |
| 2021 | Shane Gillis | "Live in Austin" | Producer |
| 2021 | Andy Haynes | "Coward of Gramercy" | Producer |
| 2021 | Sean Patton | "King Scorpio" | Producer |
| 2022 | Jade Catta-Preta | "Jaded" | Producer |
| 2022 | Ali Siddiq | "The Domino Effect" | Producer |
| 2022 | Doogie Horner | "Dad Max" | Producer |
| 2023 | Ryan Conner | "Live from DC" | Producer |
| 2023 | Chris Porter | "There's No Money in Babies" | Producer |
| 2023 | Erica Rhodes | "Ladybug" | Producer |
| 2023 | Jeff Dye | "How I See It" | Producer |
List of Stand-Up Comedy Albums
| Year | Title | Label | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Transient | Listless Industry Records | Comic |
| 2007 | Monque | Rooftop Records | Comic |
| 2012 | Exile on Hitt Street | Comic | |
| 2017 | Whatever | On Time Records | Comic |
List of Music Albums
| Year | Artist | Album | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | Box of Rocks | "Good Grief" | Bass, Vocals |
| 2017 | Shark Dad | "Almost, Pink" | Guitar, Vocals |
| 2018 | Let's Not | "Glimmer" | Guitar, Keys, Vocals, Producer |
| 2018 | Shark Dad | "Pink Motel" | Guitar, Piano, Keys, Vocals, Producer |
| 2018 | Let's Not | "Sidewhip EP" | Guitar, Piano, Vocals, Producer |
| 2019 | Let's Not | "Manic" | Guitar, Piano, Keys, Vocals,
Bass, Strings, Drum Programming, Producer |
| 2019 | Pls Pls Me | "Pls You" (Single) | Guitar, Engineer |
| 2020 | The Defeated County | "Chemicals and Science" | Guitar, Piano, Keys, Vocals, Strings, Producer |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Hamilton, Angela. "COMEDIAN JEREMY ESSIG ON HOW TO START A WEEKLONG RIOT AT THE MALL OF AMERICA". True Stories Project. Archived from the original on June 6, 2023. Retrieved June 6, 2023.
- ↑ Allan, Mark D. (November 26, 2008). "It's intelligent cynicism". Nuvo. Archived from the original on June 5, 2023. Retrieved June 5, 2023.
- ↑ Johnson, Kevin C. (March 2, 2017). "Jeremy Essig Balances Comedy with his True Love: Music". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Archived from the original on March 2, 2017. Retrieved June 6, 2023.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Schaeffer, Christian (April 25, 2018). "Comedian Jeremy Essig's New Band, Let's Not, Is No Laughing Matter". Riverfront Times. Archived from the original on September 26, 2022. Retrieved June 5, 2023.
- ↑ Riden, Chad (June 22, 2014). "Jeremy Essig's LOSER: A Live Action Game (Shame) Show @ SPiFFY SQUiRREL Comedy Show (The East Room)". Nashville Stand-Up. Archived from the original on June 5, 2023. Retrieved June 5, 2023.
- ↑ McMahon, Bob (September 4, 2013). "St. Louis Comedian Jeremy Essig is Moving On Up to New York". Riverfront Times. Archived from the original on July 20, 2016. Retrieved June 5, 2023.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 "About Rhizome Art". Rhizome Art. Archived from the original on June 5, 2023. Retrieved June 7, 2023.
- ↑ Wilson, P.F (March 18, 2015). "Comedy That Rocks". City Beat. Archived from the original on September 25, 2022. Retrieved June 6, 2023.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Crone, Thomas (June 27, 2018). "When This St. Louis Podcast Tells Tales of Failure, Hilarity Ensues". Riverfront Times. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved June 6, 2023.
External links
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