Matt Fernandez is well-known in the Tampa Bay area, and he’s already done a lot of interesting things in his comedy career. But on Saturday night he’ll do something he’s never done before.
Fernandez is filming his first special on Aug. 4 at The Attic, with Johnny B. (from 102.5 FM The Bone) as his opening act. CL talked with Fernandez about what it takes to put a special together, what he plans to do with it, and the literary classic that inspired the cover art.
We wrote about you when you opened for Dave Chappelle. We also wrote about you when you won our Best of the Bay Comedian of the Year award, and we recently interviewed you. Now we’re writing about your first live recording. Are you really interesting enough to justify all this attention?
I wish you guys would leave me alone. It feels like every few months someone from Creative Loafing jumps out of the bushes and just starts interviewing me. It makes it hard to maintain personal relationships because I suspect everyone of being a Creative Loafing writer.
Why record now? What brought on the decision and how did you pick the time and place?
The material is where I want it and I’m making enough money from my day job to finance it. So if not now, when? I met with a few a different venues and The Attic seemed like the best place for me.
Also, they make beer there.
Obviously, this takes a lot more effort than just showing up and getting on stage. Walk us through the logistics of putting this together. How long was the planning stage, what are the moving parts and what were some unexpected issues you had to address?
I’ve had it in mind to film a special for a couple years now, but the nuts-and-bolts planning really started early this year. Finding the venue and organizing the material was easy enough. Finding an artist to do the cover/promo art was fun because I got offers from a lot of people and got to peruse a lot of really great art to find what I was looking for.
The only real issue I ran into was when Facebook declared that my poster for the show was too violent and sensational to run with my ad.
A project like this can’t be cheap. We won’t ask how much you spent, but how many bar gigs would you have to do to pay for the whole thing?
That’s paradoxical. The number of bar shows I’d have to do would probably make me quit comedy, or possibly quit life. A guy can only take so many people playing darts during his performance. You think John Mayer has to put up with this shit?
What’s the plan for the recording once it’s done? Are you planning to make DVDs or download cards and sell it as merchandise at shows? Are you going to pitch it to streaming services? Any leads so far?
I’m actually exploring streaming services right now. I don’t want to give anything away, but it looks like it’ll be available for streaming on a certain site named after a certain rainforest.
(Editor’s note: He doesn’t mean the Tongass National Rainforest in Alaska, although “Tongass” sounds like a great name for a site that streams comedy specials).
I might have some physical DVDs made for people who still live in 2002.
Sometimes comedians use a recording as a chance to let some older stuff go and start fresh with new jokes going forward. Are you retiring any material, and does that put more pressure on you as a performer?
I’m not going to immediately trash it, but it will be phased out to make room for new material. I just realized that sounds like I’m firing my old jokes.
The cover art for the project is kind of weird. Not bad weird, but weird weird. It’s definitely not a guy with a mic, or a smiling headshot. How did you come up with the idea for it, do you have a title yet and what the hell is going on there?
The premise for the art came from Of Mice and Men and kind of expanded from there. The title of the special is Why Does Everyone Hate My Mirror? I haven’t announced that until now, so you’re welcome. The basic idea being that when you show people for what they really are, they usually don’t like it. People like to control the outward perception of themselves.
What has the feedback been like from friends and family as you get closer to showtime?
It’s been very positive and supportive, which I guess is kind of what you’d expect from family and friends. The real questions is, what do my enemies think of it?
This article appears in Aug 2-9, 2018.
