in 2012. He came out with a bowling jacket, tucked-in plaid shirt, a bottle of beer, and a thick Southern accent. His five minute set of jokes about it still being legal to hide in public was just absurd enough to intrigue me. So a few months later when I saw he was playing the events room of the Grand Stay Inn in Apple Valley, Minnesota—a way-outer exurb of Minneapolis—I went to go see him live.
Beneath these more experimental performances are endlessly silly and expansive sets. He has an innate ability to blend crowd work with written material so seamlessly that it’s sometimes difficult to tell if his written bits have begun or if Scovel is still just up there riffing off the top of his head.
What’s more is that this “90-minute interview” turned into a three-year saga. Neither of us knew, meeting for the first time at the Johnson Street Public House and talking about his inspiration, what unfathomable societal, national, global, and personal events would transpire during the course of me simply trying to articulate what makes Scovel’s stand-up craft so unique.
Scovel admitted that laziness was to blame, but on the other hand he’s so attached to being able to retain the loose feel of his sets that perhaps listening back could chip away at the purity of the product he’s offering night in and night out.