Kyle Mooney was doing a silly bit with his two-year-old daughter recently, a natural thing for him both as a professional sketch comedian and as a dad<\/i> \u2014 when she suddenly stopped him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I was being a lion,\u201d he says, \u201cand she was like, \u2018No, don\u2019t be Funny Daddy. Be Real Daddy.\u2019 Which hurt,\u201d he deadpans. \u201cIt\u2019s like: I\u2019m being a clown again. And she could see right through it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201creal\u201d Kyle Mooney, the recording artist known as \u201cKyle M\u201d on a new album he wrote and performed, is also a bit \u2014 a Kaufman-esque character purporting to be the authentic<\/i> Kyle, the sincere songster bearing his heart on songs about his blue car, being bullied in middle school and the ills of our \u201cdigital society.\u201d<\/p>\n
The album is called \u201cThe Real Me,\u201d and the whole thing is a charade \u2014 and very<\/i> Kyle Mooney.<\/p>\n
Mooney, 41, stayed committed to the bit in an interview the other day over hot dogs and beers at Walt\u2019s Bar in Eagle Rock near his home. With his long curly hair and an open button-up blue shirt with black stripes, he was perfectly himself for the entire hour \u2014 sweet, a little bashful, not performative or yukking it up \u2014 but when I mentioned that he clearly finds the sound of breathing into or clumsily handling a microphone to be funny, he took a beat and looked at me askew.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe album is not comedy,\u201d he said, straight-faced. \u201cSo, you know, leaving the microphone sounds in there… that was just something I didn\u2019t really realize. And that is also just me maybe being new to the recording experience \u2014 like, it was just actually recorded in my bedroom, which I feel like a lot of people might not even know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former SNL comedian Kyle Mooney insists his new musical persona \u201cKyle M\u201d and album \u201cThe Real Me\u201d aren\u2019t comedy, despite the obvious comedic setup.<\/p>\n
(Christina House\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n
He took the \u201creal\u201d Kyle\u2019s songs out on the road this summer, a tour which culminates at the Lodge Room Wednesday. In the stage show he also does a few of his best-known characters \u2014 including Todd, a San Diegan dude who hosts the show \u201cInside SoCal,\u201d and Chris, a pop-punk rocker who wears all black and, according to Mooney, \u201cconsiders himself to be a badass.\u201d And on this final hometown date, he\u2019ll reunite with his old sketch group, Good Neighbor.<\/p>\n
What makes the \u201cKyle M\u201d stunt just a little confusing is: Mooney really is<\/i> sweet, sincere and earnest IRL.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s so spot on in how he sort of makes fun of awkward people,\u201d says Vanessa Bayer, Mooney\u2019s friend and fellow \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d alum, \u201cbut he\u2019s not really making fun of them. He\u2019s really kind of doing a tribute to them. He just understands how humans are in such an exact and hilarious way \u2014 and just the way that he\u2019s so earnest about everything is what makes me really laugh. Especially as Kyle M.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ever since he was making early internet videos, Mooney has specialized in a variation on that awkward kid at your school in the late 1990s \u2014 or maybe it was you<\/i> \u2014 the one who goes up to a stranger and mumbles a half-baked attempt at sounding cool and smart, or the one who swaggers and sings off-key on a cringey, self-serious rock song he wrote. His characters don\u2019t quite know what to do with their hands or where to focus their eyes; they make what they consider to be rad music videos with their buddies at the skate park or in their mom\u2019s kitchen.<\/p>\n
He brought a lot of these characters with him to \u201cSNL,\u201d and he recently played a spin-off \u2014 a stoner who works at a video rental store \u2014 in the A24 comedy-horror film \u201cY2K,\u201d which Mooney co-wrote and directed.<\/p>\n
They are all \u201cstill a version of me,\u201d Mooney says. \u201cI feel like if a person can relate to it, it\u2019s probably because they are some version of that. And, yeah, it\u2019s exaggerated, but I do and say awkward things all of the time. Fortunately I was able to sort of hone in on portraying, like, \u2018What is this thing that I\u2019m experiencing in real life, and how can I sort of exploit this or utilize this?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
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