Reggie Watts to Blend Music, Comedy and Sincerity at Flathead Performance

It’s been just under a year since the comedian and musician Reggie Watts released his memoir, “Great Falls, MT: Fast Times, Post-Punk Weirdos and a Tale of Coming Home Again,” and looking back on the experience, he’s still firm in his belief that the story of his life can be helpful to those who may not feel quite like they fit in.

It’s indicative of the altruism that underlies how Watts describes his live shows, one of which will take place in Kalispell Sept. 15 at Flathead Valley Community College’s Wachholz College Center. Watts brings an offbeat, sometimes goofy, improvisational style to the stage, as he blends music and comedy into something entirely his own.

“I think of it as a show that contains a lot of unexpected silliness and sincerity, and you know, the show has the audience’s best interest in mind,” Watts said.  

That can mean working off loop pedals and a keyboard to construct songs and parody tracks, pontificating in foreign accents on topics of a metaphysical or seemingly mundane nature, beatboxing into a microphone, singing across a range of styles and tones, working through standup routines and, probably in this case, talking about Montana.

“Definitely when I’m in Montana, I’m super stoked to talk about things I’ve experienced while I was growing up there,” Watts said.

Where Watts performs has an influence on how he performs, and he said he knows that people enjoy hearing from someone with whom who they share common ground. Based in L.A. these days, Watts said that so far he hasn’t been asked too much about “Yellowstone,” but explained that the people he hangs out with “probably don’t even watch the show.” As for the griping about Californians that some Montanans participate in, Watts said that goes all the way back to when he was growing up in Great Falls, but he remembers it being more “jabby, like how we make fun of North Dakotans and North Dakotans make fun of us. I think it was more in that territory.” He identified the source of some of that angst as the idea of people, like Californians, coming in and buying up land, but said in his experience, anywhere he’s ever been, making an effort to be a part of the community goes a long way towards resolving those issues.

“I think that when people think that money is, like, the thing that talks, and they just use that wherever they involve themselves, and if they want to buy land in another place and they’re like, ‘Yeah, I bought it, done deal.’ I think that’s a bad attitude,” he said, “and I think those people should be given a little bit of a hard time, until they figure out, like oh sh–, involve yourself.”

Originally born in Germany in the 1970s, Watts went on to live in Italy and Spain before landing in Great Falls at a young age, owing to his father serving in the U.S. Airforce. While the Electric City is where his heart, and much of his Montana life experience lies, Watts said he’s still familiar with the Flathead and the surrounding area.

“Starting in junior high and through high school, we would go up to Lake Five in West Glacier every summer to visit [my friend’s] grandmother. And so, along the way, we would, invariably go down to Kalispell, and pick up cherries at Flathead Lake and things like that,” Watts said.

Watts was one of nine Black students at Great Falls High School, and his time there included a turn on student council, a stint playing for the football team, quitting the football team, lots of Dungeons & Dragons, and a life-changing series of musical discoveries, including the formation of his first band, Autumn Asylum, which he told Spin magazine had a sound somewhere between the Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Cure.

“I think it’s nice when someone has kind of a unique experience in a certain place and shares that,” Watts said. “It’s helpful to a lot of people, especially younger people, you know, who might feel displaced where they’re at.”

After high school, Watts moved to Seattle to study music, and eventually he became the front man for the Seattle band Maktub. It was the next step in what would become a wide-ranging creative life in the public eye, echoes of which can be found in the array of skills he utilizes as a live performer. By the early 2000s, Watts had recorded multiple albums and was appearing in comedic shorts that landed on early internet platforms and websites like Vimeo and CollegeHumor.

In 2010, a filmed one-hour special of one of Watts’ live performances was picked up and released by Comedy Central. The same year, Watts toured with Conan O’Brien and opened for him during a nationwide tour. By 2012, Watts was the co-star with Scott Aukerman on the IFC series “Comedy Bang! Bang!” From 2015 through 2023, he was the bandleader and announcer for “The Late Late Show with James Corden” and, in 2016, Netflix released his comedy special, “Spatial.” In 2021, Watts deejayed for the 2021 Emmy Awards.

More recently, Watts released a new comedy special “Never Mind,” on the streaming platform Veeps in July, which he described as being about the early promises of the internet, like the potential to democratize information and allow people to become more educated, and how it’s instead become a place for bad behavior and angry feelings.

In August, appeared on an episode of the children’s show, “Yo Gabba GabbaLand!” Later that same month, TV audiences got to see Watts win $32,000 with the comedian Ron Funches during an appearance on the game show, “Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?” Watts said he was also just on “Hollywood Squares,” which CBS is bringing back in January with Drew Barrymore taking on the center square role.

Watts said of late he’s been drawn creatively more toward music, and has been hanging out more with musicians, including his friend Josh Conway, who is both the producer and drummer for the indie pop band “The Marias.”

“They’re an incredible band, and one of my favorite bands right now,” Watts said. “I’ve gotten to see them in Mexico City and Hollywood Forever [Cemetery], and we hang out and jam and it’s just a really cool scene.”

Watts said he’s also looking into starting a podcast that could include some combination of conversations with other people, live performances and live looping, and comedy bits, all of which he envisions “mimicking my randomness.”

“I’ve been kind of making the rounds, talking to people about making stuff, and getting ready for a tour that’s going to be announced for next spring, and that’s about it. And hanging out with my new girlfriend, who’s amazing,” Watts said.

Ahead of his show in Kalispell, Watts is performing on Sept. 14 in Bozeman as part of the Last Best Comedy Fest, and he’s also playing a get-out-the-vote event that same day with the Bozeman-based band The Love Darts.

Reggie Watts performs at the FVCC Wachholz College Center on Sunday, Sept. 15 at 7:30 p.m. For more information go to  https://www.wachholzcollegecenter.org/

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