Nice Peter
May 9, 2014
"I was going to be a history teacher. I went to school to major in education and history. It didn't work out but it's fun to be able to learn about people. And I feel like we're tricking kids into learning about Russian history without them knowing about it."
– Nice Peter
Nice Peter: I'm on the
beach on this big film set. Please tell me if it's too windy. I'm trying to
find a sheltered spot.
GM: What's the film?
NP: That's the
thing is I don't know if I'm allowed to put it in print.
GM: I'll say you're on a film set
at the beach. So Nice Peter, you sound nice.
NP: I try.
GM: Is that how you got the name?
NP: The name actually used to be
a little bit more ironic. I used to play a little bit of a bawdy, kind of
raunchy, humour musical comedy set. And my name is Peter. One day an MC at a
hip-hop open mic called me Pete Nice, and then that changed to Nice Pete, and
then Nice Peter kinda stuck.
GM: You never used Shukoff? Or is
it pronounced Shoo-koff?
NP: Exactly for that reason.
GM: But your parents might want
some recognition.
NP: I think they like to keep it
private.
GM: Take me back to when you got
started. The videos are incredible both in terms of numbers of viewers and the
production value. But how did it all start?
NP: I was a songwriter for a long
time and a comedian. I was doing both. I met a guy named Lloyd on a porch in
Chicago about twelve years ago and he hired me to join his touring improv
troupe. So I learned a lot in that. We performed in a lot of less than ideal
venues. I learned abilities to make a good show out of not much. And then I
started to do my own music thing, touring all over the midwest. Same kind of
idea. And then I started touring England. And that was great. And then I
eventually kind of hit a wall and I moved out to Los Angeles and was trying to
do the classic become a standup comedian, become a musician, get a manager, all
that kind of stuff, go on auditions. I was failing pretty miserably. And then
Lloyd again sent me this notice that a production start-up was looking for
writers. And I got hired to be a songwriter. I got hired to write ten songs for
about a hundred bucks a pop. I think I was the 25th employee at this very, very
small company. And now that company is this giant entertainment enterprise that
just got sold to Disney for half-a-billion dollars or whatnot.
GM: That sounds like old Tin Pan
Alley, churning out songs.
NP: Yeah. It was quite a journey,
man. At the start it was all of us just doing everything. I would write a song,
I would record the song myself, and I'd come into the office and fucking
vacuum. It was just all of us really in the trenches together trying to make
something. It was a lot of people who kind of failed in the conventional – I don't
want to say 'failed', but just kind of hit blocks or walls – in the
conventional entertainment business that it was easier for us to just do
everything ourselves and do it on a smaller scale.
GM: What would happen to the
songs? Would other people record them?
NP: No, that was my gig.
Literally I got hired to write, produce, record, sing, make music for songs. So
I was like this one-man little factory of music, which is not really a good
skill set to have in the classic entertainment business because you just have
to work with more people. But it worked out perfectly for YouTube, for me to be
able to turn around a whole song in two days, or whatever. And then the company
would make a music video for it but then after about four of those, they
encouraged me to start making my own videos for them and start experimenting
with different formats. I started making songs and I started building an
audience. I made this song about this family that makes daily videos about
their life and they played it on their daily vlog that they make and they have
about 200,000-300,000 people watching them every day. So I made this song about
them that was pretty touching and all of a sudden there were hundreds of
thousands of people checking me out for the first time. And it just started to
grow from there. I realized that people watching YouTube videos are all real
people and you can kind of connect to them. It's like one big concert but the
whole world can watch at the same time. It's kinda weird. That's what it feels
like making YouTube videos sometimes.
GM: What was the company you
worked for?
NP: It's called Maker
Studios. And I joined in when it was just a really, really tiny company doing
things a new and different way. It allowed me a lot of freedom to experiment
with different theories and ideas. I started writing different songs and
started gaining some popularity that way but then I tried out this Epic Rap
Battles of History concept and that just performed better than anything else I
had ever done. I think I was old enough and had made enough mistakes to realize
I should put a lot of attention into this. So we did.
GM: Just before that when you
were touring the States and the UK, were you just alone? What did that look
like? What were you doing?
NP: Yeah, it was just me.
I'd get up and I would do about an hour to an hour-and-a-half of material. I'd
say half of that was planned and half of it was just improvised about the
moment and about the audience and about the venue. I'd show up in a town and
I'd do some research about the town and I'd put together a couple stories and
ideas and sing songs about that actual moment. I think that's what really
connected with people, was that 'Oh, I think he's making this up right now!'
'Yeah, he's singing about your hat!' It was, I think, a different experience
for people.
GM: So they were improvised
songs.
NP: Yeah. Almost all the
time. I'd say about half the show.
GM: And were you doing standup
between the songs? Was half of it music?
NP: No, the whole thing was
music. I would do pre-written songs that were kinda funny, sometimes kinda
racy, and then just improvise songs and little bits and jokes with the
audience. But no standup.
GM: Were you performing with
other people? Other British comics?
NP: No, just me. I had a
band for a while. A three-piece band that did the same thing but a lot of times
it was just me and my manager, Ed.
GM: Did you have a following at
that time?
NP: A little bit, yeah. Not
a huge one, but enough of one, especially when I went over to the UK. I'd say a
couple hundred people if I really dug in. But it took a lot of work. Getting
ready for a live show and travelling and all that took a lot of work. When I
started focussing all those hours on just making one video that anyone could
see anywhere, it was a new direction for my life.
GM: But you miss the direct
interaction with fans.
NP: I did, and that's why
I'm doing this tour. This isn't a tour really to do anything but just connect
with the people who watch my videos and need them. I'm going to do a
meet-n-greet pretty much after every show just to meet as many people as I can.
Just say hi. I'm really grateful to be able to do what I do and I want to thank
the people that helped me get there.
GM: Are the shows you're doing on
tour now similar to the shows you did back in the UK?
NP: Yeah, it’s similar as
far as the spirit and vibe of it. Probably a little less swear words than I
used to use. I'm not sure what to expect with the age demographic but I think
it's going to be a mixed bag of people. I just want to make it accessible to
everybody, I guess.
GM: You can't do the battles.
NP: Oh, yeah. I'm going to
do the battles on stage, yeah. The way I'm going to do that is – Lloyd's not
coming with me; he's working on some other projects over the summer – we get an
audience volunteer and they come up and they choose what battle they want to do
and they play one character and I play the other. Usually they know the words
better than I do.
GM: So the fans are so rabid that
they know all the lyrics?
NP: I wouldn't even say it's
rabid; I think they're just passionate about these videos. I want them to be
able to experience performing them up there with me. I think it's fun for
everybody.
GM: How did you come up with the idea
for the first rap battle of history? What was the inspiration?
NP: That was Lloyd again,
honestly. I was a little recording studio in an apartment and I was just
looking for new ideas. He was working on a stage show that used an improvised
rap battle between two celebrities. And I thought that was pretty cool. And I
asked the audience. Audiences have been pretty collaborative along the whole
way. I made a little vlog just talking to my camera, talking to the people that
I had just recently realized were real, and I said, 'Hey, we're thinking of
making this video. We need a suggestion of two different people from history.'
And they came back with John Lennon versus Bill O'Reilly and that kind of set
the tone. It was like, Okay, it can be anybody. For any reason. Someone who has
some kind of ideological beef and we'll settle it.
GM: That's an underlying extra
laugh is just seeing who's pitted against who.
NP: Right. And that's 100%
from the audience, man. Honestly. I did not think of Bill O'Reilly versus John
Lennon nor did I think of Adolph Hitler versus Darth Vader. That was the third
party of the audience coming up with that.
GM: Have they come up with all of
them?
NP: I'd say they've come up
with about 75% of them. Well, they kind of come up with all of them. Some of
them are more just like this character is really popular right now, who should
we put him up against? We might sometimes lean into more history than the whole
audience might but we try to keep it pretty real and organic as much as we can.
GM: How long does it take to do
each one?
NP: Anywhere between two
weeks to a month of focus and another month of research and reading and
talking. A while. We're usually working right up to the last minute, right up
to when we upload them.
GM: Was there a regular schedule
for the uploads?
NP: Yes, every two weeks for
the rest of the summer. From now until the end of July, I think. We uploaded
our first one of this set of six on May 5. So it'll be every two weeks from
there.
GM: How many have you made in
total?
NP: We just made our 40th.
GM: It must be such a blast
coming up with the lyrics and researching it.
NP: Yeah, the learning part
is really fun. Honestly. You know, I was going to be a history teacher. I went
to school to major in education and history. It didn't work out but it's fun to
be able to learn about people. And I feel like we're tricking kids into
learning about Russian history without them knowing about it.
GM: There's lots of swearing and
you're pretty ruthless, too.
NP: You have to be.
GM: It would be pretty hard to
get on network TV.
NP: I think we embrace the
fact we're not on network TV. Also, that's the way we talk and that's the way
our fans talk. We just decided that if it's appropriate for the character then
it works. We've got one coming up with Weird Al Yankovic playing Isaac Newton.
Just because of his fans and his personality, we kept that one very clean.
There's a lot of science education in it, there's a calculus equation. There's
that constant thing, we hope, that if we can get ten kids somewhere excited
about calculus for the first time, that's a score.
GM: I was thinking about your
ruthless ones with Stephen Hawking and Freddie Mercury. They're pretty funny.
NP: Thank you. Yeah, you
gotta be a little edgy, you know? It helps things spread.
GM: So at the show on tour, there
are going to be these rap battles with somebody from the audience. But are
there also just songs of yours? Because I know you have albums out.
NP: Yeah, just songs of
mine. It's going to be me on a guitar and a drummer. I'd say it's going to be
50% songs I've written, 25% rap battles, and 25% just making up songs with the
audience and just being in the moment.
GM: It's pretty great when you
think about you're encompassing all that you love: comedy, music, and
history.
NP: Yes, sir. That's the
idea. And meeting people. Sometimes that's half of it, also, afterwards where I
just stand around and say hi to folks.
GM: When did you realize you
could make money at it from YouTube?
NP: I got hired with the
intention of making money. YouTube just opened up, being possible to earn
revenue. I learned about it really fast. I learned about what kind of numbers
and quotas had to be hit to make some sort of sustainable living and I just
kind of dove in.
GM: Do you have any favourites
that you've done?
NP: I'd say the Dr. Seuss vs
William Shakespeare, Beethoven vs Justin Bieber was a lot of fun. The Russians
battle was a real proud moment for us, I think. It was five different
characters played by just two of us. We really went through 20th Century
Russian history from start to finish. It's pretty cool to be able to put that
into a piece, a 2.5-minute viral video.
GM: Who were the five Russians?
NP: Rasputin, Stalin, Lenin,
Gorbachev, and Putin. And they all kept one-upping each other.
GM: Are you a big fan of rap?
NP: Yeah, oh yeah. We got to
work with Snoop on a rap battle and that was amazing. We get to work with a guy
from Jurassic 5 coming up. Our engineer used to work with the Wu-Tang Clan. I
am a big fan of rap. I had a couple of albums that I memorized start to finish.
GM: But you can't play the guitar
and rap.
NP: Sure, you can. It's not
easy. I was a guitar player first and I had to learn how to rap. I'm still
learning quite a bit. Every new character's gotta have a slightly different
[pitch?] so I've got to learn new ways to do stuff, I guess.
GM: Which ones can we look
forward to seeing? Or are they always a big reveal when they come out.
NP: I mean, it's a big reveal but
we've got George Washington coming out against William Wallace, two
revolutionaries who fought the British. We've got Weird Al playing Isaac Newton
and the opponent is a surprise still. We just did Rick Grimes versus Walter
White, two television heroes. We've got a big grand finale with a lot of
different characters. But we try to keep it a little bit of a surprise. I'll
give away the William Wallace versus George Washington.
GM: How long will the series go?
NP: We're in the middle of our
third season. We're definitely in for a fourth season next year and it's going
to be a matter of seeing whether it's still great. We do it because we really
love it and we're lucky enough to make a living at it, also. But if we still
really love it, we'll keep doing it. Maybe we'll work on something else. Hard
to say. We gotta take it day by day. We're still working on the video for next
week. We're on this set all day then we're going to home and edit till one in
the morning. It's still pretty real. We really do get our hands on every piece
of the process. I'm doing press in the morning and some surfer scene in the
afternoon and then editing at night. And then getting ready for the tour. At
some point I gotta practice, I guess.
GM: Is there a set number of
episodes each season?
NP: We're really figuring it out.
I think we're one of the first YouTube-based productions to even do a season.
It was just all very new. To say something is a show on YouTube I think is a
relatively new idea. And then to have that show be broken into seasons, we
don't know how it's supposed to work so we decided to call it a season.
GM: Make it up as you go along.
Just like your songs.
NP: It's a great thing. It's the
greatest thing about doing what we do – even at Maker, which is now a big
company – but no one really tells us what we can or can't do, no one's given us
a problem on language or censored us or censored our sense of humour. It's
really just between us and the audience. If they don't like it, they'll tell us
and we'll listen. But there's no gate-keepers.
GM: I'm a little confused. These
videos are made through Maker Studios?
NP: Yeah, it's a partnership.
When I first started with them, it was a revolutionary kind of way of working,
where we kinda go in 50-50 on work and revenue. Like, Let's partner up and do
this, like we were doing it together. It's a very different approach to doing
things, I think. We do a lot of stuff ourselves but that's good because we get
a lot of freedom. We trade independence for a lot of self-effort. And I like it
that way. I think that's what held me back in the mainstream entertainment
business. It's an asset when you're doing it for YouTube. You're able to do a
lot of things yourself.
GM: How long will your tour show
be?
NP: I think it's going to be
about an hour to an hour-and-a-half of music. We have an opening band that's in
front of us from England. So they'll open it up, get the energy going. Then
I'll play for an hour. And then, like I said, I'll probably stay for another
hour-and-a-half to two hours afterwards just saying hello to people.
GM: Is your opening band a
straight music group or are they comedic?
NP: They're a music group. It's
two brothers. They're called the Jackpot Golden Boys. They're really nice guys.
I've been playing with them since I was in England for the very first time. I
think I met them then. I was just kind of lost and didn't know what I was doing
and they were there. I was not a big deal and they were awesome to me so now
that I have the opportunity to share a stage with them, it's really special.
It's just going to be a cool crew. It's five of us on the road. It's my
manager, who I've known for ten years, lives in England and just been one of my
best friends; Dante, who writes songs with me and helps with the Rap Battles
and is on set every time we film, he's going to be on drums; and then these two
brothers that I've known for years. It's very close to how it is in our
business, too. It's a close circle of friends just working together.
GM: Have you ever performed live
with Lloyd?
NP: I have. And we've talked
about doing a Rap Battles tour also, maybe down the line. He's amazing. We used
to perform comedy together for years. He's a great performer. This was just
something to do, just kind of a personal journey before I come back and get
back to work on the Rap Battles in August.
GM: That thing can go on for as
long as you want because there's no shortage of characters from history, real
or fictional.
NP: Yeah. That's the fun thing is
that when something pops in the news, that could be a rap battle. There's a lot
of science going on right now. Science is coming back and that inspired us to
bring Isaac Newton into the fold. It's like something could happen in modern
times that brings back a character from history.
GM: Did Weird Al approach you
guys because he was a fan, or did you reach out to him?
NP: We met at a YouTube comedy
event and he was such a wonderful man. Obviously that's kind of always been a dream
of ours to do a rap battle with somebody like Weird Al. And I think it just
came up and I grew the guts to send him an email and ask him and invite him to
do it and he said yes. He's got a new album coming out. These videos reach a
lot of people. Something about them. I've never questioned it; I've just tried
to keep doing it. The one we put up on Monday is at 7.5 million views already
and what is it, Friday? They move fast and they reach young people. Hopefully
it's mutually beneficial that people find out Al's got a new album coming and
we get a great piece of content. Everybody wins.
GM: Do you remember the first
video that started getting big numbers of viewers? I'd imagine you were
probably excited at 5,000 views at one time.
NP: It was actually a song. The
first video that I really hit with on my own was a song that I wrote called
Superman Socks. It's kind of a funny song about a video I did with another
comedian and it hit the front page of YouTube and I got a million views in a
couple of days. I remember definitely, like, 'Oh wow, this is a million people!
You know how to do this now. If you did it this time, you can do it again.' And
then I took that kind of energy and that focus and started putting it into the
Rap Battles.
GM: And never looked back.
NP: Never looked back. I try to
make something I really like and we make each other laugh. And if it works for
us, hopefully it'll work for other people. If they like it, great; if they
don't, they can move onto the next thing. But so far a lot of people like it.
GM: Is there a video component to
your live show?
NP: Right now there isn't. I've
tried to keep it as minimal and real as possible. I spend so much time in front
of the computer, and I think my audience does, too. We all gotta get out and move
our bodies a little bit. And this'll be a chance to do that. There's plenty of
time to watch videos. So we'll see. I used to do these things called picture
songs where I would scour the internet for funny pictures and then just
improvise a song about them. That was another early viral success I had. Those
got up to seven or eight million views, too. But I forget myself sometimes.
It's weird when 5 million views is low. It's a weird perspective. That's
because the Rap Battles have done such absurd numbers. I put out some other
videos that are more personal and if they get 100,000 views, I'm very happy. If
they get 10,000 views, I'm happy. That's still 10,000 people you're connecting
with. It's pretty cool. The internet's pretty cool, man. It's a really cool way
to make music and make art. I like to think of this as this kind of artistic
middle class. They don't become super rich or super famous; they just connect
to a group of people that sustain them and their art and they thrive in it. I
think that's what's happening to the internet. It's pretty cool.
GM: Were you trained in music?
NP: No. I just practiced a lot. I
was a sucker for attention and music was a good way to get it and share it with
people.
GM: Were you ever in bands?
NP: No. No, I took piano lessons.
I was an Irish dancer. I was 8-years-old dancing in a kilt at my elementary
school, prancing around in a skirt in front of a bunch of third-graders. You
don't really have any stage fright any more. I think that was a big asset for
me.
GM: How old are you?
NP: I'm 34 years old. When I
turned 30, I remember I was not homeless but I didn't really have an apartment,
I didn't have a job, I was thinking about valet parking cars. It's been an
interesting few years. I didn't give up and then sure enough it eventually cracked
open. I'm really grateful for it. I think that's the main point of the tour is
I want to give back to the [fans?] that kept me going all those years. That
energy of performing for people, singing, seeing those smiles, and having that
moment, it's something I really miss. And I'm eager to get it back.
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