NEW YORK — Local man Peter Spearman was shocked when he discovered the frontman of his all-time favorite band Chaos Dissidents was doing low level stand up comedy around the city, equally disgusted sources confirmed.
“Chaos Dissidents were these coke-fueled maniacs playing a mix between thrash and screamo that nobody else was doing back in 1999. I still have four copies of their split 7” with Low Voltage that I planned on being buried with,” said Spearman. “So I’m watching the Yankees game at the bar and out of nowhere an open mic starts. I’m already pissed they turned off the game, but then the host brought up the first performer who was none other than Chaos Dissidents frontman Chris Deehan. I realized that the person I once thought was the definition of cool is now doing terrible jokes about how hard it is to date in New York. I don’t know where I go from here, I feel sick, like my insides are rotting and my mouth has tasted like battery acid for days now.”
Deehan, the once popular musician, says stand up has been a creative outlet since his last band broke up in 2012.
“I love being a performer, but the problem with being in a band is that you have so many mouths to feed. With stand up it’s just me up there bearing my heart and soul,” said Deehan after a set where his closing joke was about how he thinks his scrotum is lopsided. “I’ve been doing this pretty frequently for 10 years now and I will meet fans of my music. They always ask me questions about stand up like ‘Why are you doing this?’ ‘Is the band getting back together so you can stop doing comedy?’ and ‘Do you need me to Venmo you some money?’ Which is nice, but the band isn’t getting together anytime soon. Our guitar player teaches clowning now, and he’s so busy with that we could never get him to tour.”
Scene historian Sami Houston says the pipeline of ex-band dudes to stand up comedy has slowed down in recent years.
“This was definitely more prevalent during the alternative comedy boom of the early aughts, but now we see a lot of band guys starting pointless podcasts. These people have transitioned from degrading their legacies in dimly lit bars to degrading their legacies on social media,” said Houston. “This is the new reality we live in. The flip side of the coin are the band guys who go into hiding because of disturbing accusations. But honestly, every outcome is terrible and it’s best not to engage.”
At press time, Deehan announced on the official Chaos Dissidents Instagram page that he needs 15 people to buy tickets to his next comedy show in order for him to be allowed to perform.