Hang time with the hilarious host of The Eric Andre show.
Eric Andre’s pants are missing. No, this is not one of the daring hidden-camera pranks the comedian has become known for on The Eric Andre Show—a bizarre send-up of crappy public access programming that has been steadily gaining fans on the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block since 2012. Rather, Andre seems to have actually misplaced the pants he planned to wear today. (“My favorite pair!” he laments.) He asks the front desk at his N.Y.C. hotel if anyone’s turned in a pair of gray pants. But, much like Mel B of the Spice Girls when Andre quizzed her about Margaret Thatcher’s foreign policy on his show last season, they are stumped. The whereabouts of his pants remain a mystery for the rest of the day.
What’s not a mystery is why Andre, 31, is becoming so popular. You might know him from stints on 2 Broke Girls or Don’t Trust The B—- in Apartment 23, where he appeared alongside former BUST cover gals Kat Dennings and Krysten Ritter, respectively. But Andre’s own show, the third season of which premieres October 2nd, has evolved from a passion project filmed on a shoestring budget in an abandoned Brooklyn bodega to a bona fide hit. This upcoming season boasts some very big names being made very uncomfortable by Andre and his co-host, Broad City’s delightful Hannibal Buress. In real life, though, Andre is cool as can be. He’s bright and inquisitive, asking me as many questions as I ask him (maybe more) and kindly removing a stray piece of lettuce from my hair as we chat over lunch. He even drops BUST’s favorite f-bomb (“feminist!”) to describe himself and his upbringing in Florida, adding, “I was in my mom’s chapter of the National Organization for Women.”
After I’ve processed that admission, we talk for a while about Andre’s first love, music: “I’m buying an upright bass,” he tells me. “That’s what I went to school for, actually.” (Berklee College of Music, to be exact.) Andre says he sold his old bass years ago to help pay for his move to Los Angeles. “When I was a kid, I played piano and drums. I played the tuba in sixth grade. I was always playing music,” he says. “I was always a class clown, too, but I thought stand-up comedy was too nerve-wracking.”
These days, it’s hard to imagine Andre’s nerves are anything less than steely. He’s dropped an entire birthday cake on a stranger on the subway (while wearing a centaur costume, no less), and incurred the wrath of The Incredible Hulk himself, Lou Ferrigno by encouraging a friend to cozy up to the skittish star. But after a grueling 18-hour day of taping, he mostly just wants to chill. I ask him if his plan of action when he gets home from work is to draw a bubble bath and listen to some Drake. “Yeah, or Raffi,” he responds with a laugh. “I collapse. I French kiss a cheesecake. I don’t have a bathtub in my apartment, just a shower. But I would love to take a bath. Ugh, I should probably move out of my place.”
–Bridgette Miller
Boy du jour
PHOTOGRAPHED BY Joel Barhamand
Grooming: Natasha Smee
