Comedian, actor, writer and Worcester-native H. Jon Benjamin is known for leading roles in Archer and Bob’s Burgers, appearances in Family Guy, American Dad, Master of None, and (of course) his role as a can of vegetables in the movie Wet Hot American Summer.
Benjamin joined Jim Braude and Margery Eagan on Boston Public Radio to chat about a brand-new venture: His foray into jazz music, without a single piano lesson. Well, I Should Have...Learned How To Play Piano is a collaboration between Benjamin and professional jazz musicians Scott Kreitzer, David Finck, and Jonathan Peretz, and features tracks including I Can’t Play Piano, Pt 1.
Click on the audio link to hear the full interview, and read part of the conversation below (edited for length).
JIM: Oy oy oy oy oy oy oy. Jon Benjamin, welcome and I guess… congratulations on the album.
JON: Thank you, I’ve never gotten seven oys.
JIM: Until I listened to this album, I assumed the notion that you should have learned how to play was a joke. But you have no idea how to play the piano, is that correct?
JON: I don’t. No, I don’t, and it takes a long time, and I never really started as a kid, so I had to sort of pick it up.
JIM: You don’t play the piano, and you don’t like jazz… so why make the album?
JON: I’m starting to like jazz a little bit now, so that’s something. It got me into it. But yeah, I think the point was not really to know how to play piano, so I brought that to the table really well.
JIM: What was the point?
JON: Well, that was the point, to not be able to play. So I think I achieved that.
MARGERY: Were the jazz musicians in on this, or not? Jim said I was naive to think that they were not in on this. What’s the story?
JON: Jim was sort of half-right, it was a combination of both. I told them, prior, what the whole conceit was, but they’re jazz musicians, so some of them, I think, were very high. No—just the demeanor, I think they didn’t really pay attention to what it was, so a couple of them, one in particular, the sax player, was not interested at all when he got there, in my concept. Then I explained, again, I said we had spoke and he knew what it was and he kind of just decided not to remember. And then he was a little bit hard to work with for about an hour.
That's what came out of me. It was purely organic.
MARGERY: The saxophone player is giving this dramatic riff, and he’s beautiful and he’s great, and then all of a sudden, Jon, you bang on those keys, and it’s a painful thing.
JON: That’s what came out of me. It was purely organic.
JIM: Is this group of yours… are you going to do live performances, or is this a one-and-done kind of thing?
JON: Based on, like I said, the sax player's attitude, I don’t think we’ll be speaking again. It will be hard to recreate the songs...I don’t know how to play, so I’ve got to literally learn how to play to be able to not play my songs.
MARGERY: Are you inspired at all to perhaps learn a few scales?
JON: I actually did start playing piano, I started to take lessons, because my next album, I hope I’ll be able to play. I don’t know how long it’s going to take to develop a talent to play jazz piano, but I’m guessing 15 years.
JIM: You’ll call us, when you’re ready with that thing?
JON: If you guys still have a show, I promise to come on and pitch my second album.
JIM: The concept, it’s not so much the album that I think is brilliant, the brilliant thing, to me —even though the album is great— is that your basic premise is, you identify something you can’t do, and then you do it. What else can’t you do that you’re going to be doing in the near future? What’s next?
JON: In album form?
JIM: In any form, I mean, you don’t look terribly fit from what I’ve seen, should you do an aerobics video, what about that?
JON: That’s not a bad idea. I’m not very limber, so I could stand still… to music.
MARGERY: With a special outfit?
JON: Yeah, like a one-piece.
JIM: From afar, you seem to be Bob Belcher. Is that a fair comparison, or is it not?
JON: I think so. Yeah. I feel like I’m just a slightly better-off Bob Belcher.
MARGERY: So how did you get to be doing this?
JON: When I started doing comedy in Cambridge, I met a comedian named Jonathan Katz. He hired me to do his show, which was an animated show on Comedy Central called Dr Katz, where he was a therapist and I played his son… so it just started there, and then the same company that made that —that was their first show they have ever produced—went on to make four or five others. I’ve worked with the editor of Dr Katz, he’s now the creator of Bob’s Burgers.
JIM: Jonathan Katz is also a local guy, he’s from Newton, Mass. Yesterday I emailed Jonathan and asked him if he had a question we should ask for Jon Benjamin. Here’s the question he sent: Who is a more loving dad, your actual father, or Jonathan Katz? What’s the answer?
JON: My real dad may be not necessarily loving, but he gave me a lot of money.
JIM: So did Jonathan Katz.
JON: Yeah, so did Jonathan. I would have to literally crunch the numbers, I feel like it’s about even.
To hear Jon Benjamin’s full interview with Boston Public Radio, click on the audio link above.
