Jeff Foxworthy, one of the most well known comedians ever to grace the stage and creator of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, is bringing the laughs to Austin this weekend for RedFest at Circuit of the Americas.
He will be joined by fellow comedians Larry the Cable Guy and Rodney Carrington, along with a stellar lineup of Country and Southern Rock artists such as Tim McGraw, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Big & Rich.
The three-day celebration will also feature All-American fun such as hunting and fishing activities, a chili cook off, Natty Light tall boys, BBQ and much more.
We had the opportunity to speak with Foxworthy, who filled us in on some details about RedFest, Larry the Cable Guy's penchant for fart jokes, mustaches, hipsters, rednecks and more.
_____
Do512: Welcome back to Texas, Jeff. Why did you chose Austin for RedFest? Do you have any famous friends you visit when you're around central Texas?
JF: I've met Willie, Willie's fun. You look at him, and go "there's no way I'm going to be that cool at that age." My buddy Ron White is from down around there, and I've got family from down around there. In fact, I was telling my daughters, both who have never been to Austin, I say "You just kind of got to walk through downtown. You've just never been to a city like this."
To me, that kind of made it the perfect place for this. And then we were thinking of where to do this, someone mentioned the Circuit of the Americas track and I went out there and looked at it and thought, "Oh my God this is perfect." It was almost like a Lego land where you could just make it whatever way you wanted, but it had the space to give all these villages room to set up games.
You can bring your family for the weekend, entertain your kids whether it's riding go karts or climbing rock walls or jumping on trampolines. There's so much bizarre stuff, there's knife and tomahawk throwing. Which should probably be illegal.
Do512: How did you come up with the idea of RedFest?
JF: We wanted to do something different. I'm an outdoor nut. If I'm not working, I'm on a tractor on my farm, hunting, fishing or climbing a mountain. So I said, 'Why don't we just make a festival for everything people like outdoors?' Give people something to do all day long, and give them great comedy and music all night. That's kind of how this whole thing got born.
Another cool thing about RedFest is that it's on Memorial Day, and I thought that we need to say thank you to the military who put their lives on the line and have given their time so that we could enjoy things like RedFest.
The Boot Campaign is headquartered right there in Austin, and these guys go out and do so much for veterans who struggle from post traumatic stress or are having a hard time getting a job or getting their medical requirements filled.
That was kind of the first thing we did, partnering with them. We're going to bring all these people out there but let's make them aware of you and see if we could give a thank you to the people in the armed services. We gave away like 6,000 tickets to active service people. We're like, "Here, it's free. Just come out and have fun for a weekend."
Do512: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Florida Georgia Line and Tim McGraw are some pretty crazy music headliners. Are there any bands that you're excited to see the most?
JF: I kind of like everybody. It's been a long time since I've seen Skynyrd and my kids have never heard "Freebird" live. If you're a redneck, you have that blood flowing through your veins. That's almost on the bucket list, to hear "Freebird" live.
Do512: Austin is known to be a hip destination similar to Portland and Seattle, and the hipster beard phenomenon can be seen throughout the town. As a man having one of the most famous mustaches of all time, do you think hipsters are ruining beards, mustaches and facial hair in general?
JF: No, it can survive it. It's kind of like a yo-yo in that it's very cycle-like. You know, they'll come around and be hip, which I think that's what makes mine a little famous is that even when it wasn't hip, I still had it. It's kind of like Dale Earnhardt, it was just always a part of the deal. In fact I was looking at mine the other day and thought, "Dag gonnit', it used to be salt and pepper and now there's a lot more salt than pepper in it now."
I said to my girls that I needed to shave the mustache off. And they said, "Are you kidding, no! You can't. That's what makes you you." I don't even know if I have a lip under there anymore. I've had it since I was 18, so this is going on like almost 40 years of this. My wife has never seen me without it and we've been together 30 years. If most people wanted to be incognito, they put on a fake beard or mustache. If I wanted to I'd just shave mine off.
Do512: You've been a game show and sketch show host, written numerous books and have one of the most popular stand-up careers in the past century. Is there anything in particular that you've enjoyed the most, and is there anything you want to do that you haven't yet?
JF: You know what I haven't done, I would love for someone to offer me a serious part in something. I don't know if I could even pull it off, but I would like to be the cowboy that rides off and someone shoots him off the horse in the middle of town. Just a serious role. It wouldn't have to be a big one.
I'm very lucky in that I've gotten to do a lot of things. But if you ever put a gun to my head and said, "You can only do one," I'd think it would be stand-up. I think it's the coolest job in the world.
The Blue Collar Comedy Tour was one of the most fun things I've ever done because the only negative about doing stand-up is that you're on the road by yourself. When you're on the road with comics we just crack each other up every night going, "Can you believe they're paying us to do this? They're crazy."
Do512: You're known as being a great family man, and your act is great for a variety of ages. Other acts in the Blue Collar Comedy group aren't too PG. How do you put up with Ron White and Larry the Cable Guy over the years? Do you ever get on them about being too crude?
JF: Nah, as a comedian I appreciate every kind of comedy. You decide for yourself what you're going to do, and when Ron's not with us, I mean (laughter), Ron would have truckers going, "Hey, hey, hey, there's mechanics in here."
But it was kind of one of those things where it was blue collar, that was my rule. If we were going to do the show, we weren't going to do an X-rated show. It had a wide audience and in fairness to the audience you just can't do that. I would kind of hold the reigns on them.
Now, Larry has like 5-year-old humor. We used to have a bet. We had a stopwatch from the stage manager and when we did Blue Collar we would all put money in a hat and bet how long it took Larry to say poop or fart in his act. I don't think he ever made it to 5 minutes. We literally would start a stop watch and he would go, "My stomach's so sore I could probably poop through a screen door and not touch a wire."
Do512: Last question, because we have to bring it up: "You might be a redneck" is one of the biggest catch phrases in the past couple of decades. Did you know it would become that big?
JF: It kind of became a formula joke. I always wore cowboy boots and drove a truck, and talked like this. So everywhere I would go in comedy people would say, "Foxworthy, you ain't nothing but a redneck from Georgia." I was playing in Detroit, Michigan one night and they were kidding me about being a redneck. And the club we were playing in was attached to a bowling alley that had valet parking. And I'm like, woah, if you don't think you have rednecks in Michigan, look out the window. People are valet parking at a bowling alley.
And so I went back to the room, wrote some things down and it just kind of took off. The funny thing is, that was 1986 and I started doing the page-a-day calendars in 1990, and here I am in 2014 still doing them. And I'm thinking, "There can't be 365 more of these. There's no way." And there is. It's like a bottomless pit. The fun thing is that I found out it wasn't the made up ones that were the best ones to tell. It was the true ones.
_____
Don't miss Jeff Foxworthy at RedFest this weekend
at Circuit of the Americas. You can find the festival schedule and
enter to win free tickets on Do512. More more info visit
redfest.com.
