Matt Rife: The Self-Bet That Built an Empire on touring and paranormal

Our next guest has built an audience before the industry even knew what to do with him. He's self produced. He's self distributed. He bet on himself and he won. This guy's sold out Madison Square Garden twice. The youngest comedian ever do it. He broke ticket master, YouTube, Netflix dominance, the internet sensation and New York Times bestselling author. The wild and out white guy, my man, Matt. What is up, Matt? Welcome to the show. Man, that was one of the best interns I've ever had. You could have just left off the last credit, but other than that, what an intro. Yeah. I appreciate that, man. You're getting ready to hit DC, Jacksonville, Cincinnati on this, uh, a stay golden world tour. Back when I was a touring DJ, which was not long ago, I used to hit all these cities and my go to move was to go to the mall. You know, you can really get the vibe on the town when you go to the mall. So I'm curious, what do you do when you're bouncing from city to city? Is there a specific place you like to go? What do you do? Oh man, sleep as much as possible. I try out each hotel bed in each city for as long as I possibly can. I'm exhausted on this tour, dude. I don't get out and do anything. It's so unfortunate. Certain cities who have like a fun, I'm a big museum guy. So if I get time in a town, a city has a really fun, um, like Memorial Park or a museum in town, I'll try to get myself to go do that. Okay. So you like, you like to learn a few things. That's good. That's a very educational. I was surprised when I found out that growing up, you had bad teeth and that you were like skinny like a mic stand that you were very awkward because people see you now and you're just this handsome, chiseled, chin, a pretty eye guy that everybody thinks is a pretty boy. Do you think people misunderstand your origin story that it wasn't always glamour and good looks for you? Yeah, man. It's really nice to not have peaked in high school, you know, and I feel like a lot of people who don't understand me did. It's definitely a great problem to have. I will have rather grown into being a, you know, a person you can actually look in the eyes rather than just stayed a little cretin for the rest of my life. I was so small in high school, dude. I had, I had Ohio teeth. There's a big gap in between. They were teeny tiny. I spent my first tour check, um, opening for, for Ralphie May when I was about, I just turned 19, I believe. Um, I went on this like small theater run with him for a couple of months. I spent every penny of that to get my teeth fixed. And then I still owed like $15,000. I was on a payment plan for like three years for my teeth, terrified to miss a payment and the dentist was just going to show up with some fucking pliers. You mentioned Ralphie May. I have a story for, uh, with him. I was hanging with him one night and speaking of teeth, he had breath mints that were, this was like way before weed was legal and such, but he had these like breath mints that like these strips that you'd put in your mouth and they would freshen your breath, but it also had like a little marijuana in it. That guy liked to have a good time and, and, uh, That sounds like Ralphie, dude. He used to pop these 500 milligram Chiba Choo. I mean, four times a day. It was insane. Granted, he weighed 900 pounds. If so, probably didn't feel any of it. That thing would have put me in a coma dude. At that time, I also didn't smoke weed either. So I was like, I don't get it. Now I'm like, you know what, breaking off a corner. That would have been a totally different tour now. I missed that guy. I really miss Ralphie. He's a funny guy. I know there was a time that when you couldn't wait to get out of Ohio, that small town, get away from all those John Deere tractors and the farm fields, but now you've gotten a taste of that big time. Are there times now where you just kind of want to go back and sit on that John Deere tractor, watch a little bad Santa with your old Paw Paw Steve and get away from the big lights. Oh, of course, man. That's why I moved to Rhode Island dude. I wasn't, I wasn't going to move back to Ohio specifically. I don't miss it that much even though I am a diehard Ohio state fan, but I missed the real world man. Like I lived in LA for 12 years. It's such a bubble in these big cities. Like it's, it's so detached from the real world, which don't get me wrong. It's not a bad thing. Like I love to go back and perform in LA, see my friends in LA, go perform in New York, see my friends in New York, but I missed the real world man. I just wanted, I wanted some land. I wanted some peace. I wanted a sense of normalcy, be back around normal people. I mean, we're in the big cities all year round for tour anyway. So like that's the majority of my life still, but when I'm not working, I just want some, some peace and quiet, you know? Well, go check out his website, matrifeofficial.com. You can grab your tickets to the world tour, the stay golden world tour. This is his biggest tour yet. Massive rooms, select dates with a 360 in round stage. How does that change the vibe when you got people looking at your ass? This is a different setup, this 360 setup. Tell me about this. Someone say it's a better show from that side. I mean, take a poll for sure. Do what I love about these shows is I'm able to make, you know, 18,000 people feel like we're hanging out in a 400 seat comedy club. It's in the rounds the best. Everyone's half the distance. Nobody is a mile away. There's there's really no bad seats. Like I can see every single person who is there, which allows us to kind of feel like we're all just hanging out and I'm hosting a party and hogging the mic. Get your tickets at matrifeofficial.com. I love the promo that you just did. I think yesterday paying homage to the shining and some horror flicks out in the snow chasing your buddy through what looked like a blizzard. I hear that you're into the horror thing and the paranormal thing. Somebody told me that you purchased the Warren House from the Conjuring. You believe in this paranormal stuff? Have you actually seen it with your own two eyes? Absolutely, man. Thank you for watching that, by the way. Yeah, it was a small homage to the shining. We were we were blizzard blizzarded blizzarded blizzarded in at home a couple days ago, and we couldn't go anywhere. So I was like, all right, let's either just do something creative or do we watch heated rivalry when it's just two of us in this house with nowhere to go? Could get risky. So like, you know what? Let's go to the horror route. Film the funny promo because I love horror stuff, dude. I am obsessed with the paranormal. I bought Ed and the Rain Warrens home. And, you know, the fun thing about paranormal investigating is like you can't guarantee anything to ever happen. And a lot of the times you do go to these abandoned buildings and talk to yourself for six hours, like a crazy person hoping something happens. It doesn't. And then you get one thing after like three investigations and nothing, but you're like, that is such undeniable evidence. And it's so exciting. Ed and the Rain Warrens house that is available to rent for people to stay at for the night, which is booked out for a year in advance. I tell people, I can't guarantee anything happens to you there. But if anything is going to happen to you anywhere, if you'd experience anything, it's at that house, man. It's it's absolutely incredible. It's still cozy and homey. It's still the way Ed and the Rain Warren lived in it. So that it has this, um, this sense of warmth, the family in the house. But then you have the actual occult museum, which you can kind of feel the energy and the evil that's in there. It's it's an amazing experience, man. It's something really cool to be a part of. All right. Here's the last question for you. If you were about to be beheaded by like a terrorist organization and they got you tied up and they're about to like cut your head off on live television. And the only way you survive this is you have to invite a comedian to make the audience laugh. This comedian has to kill or you are killed. Who is it and why? Oh, boy. Oh, to save my life. Yeah, you're going to die if he doesn't kill. It's over for you. I'm going to go with Ricky Gervais. Oh, man, he killed at the Golden Globes, man. I really love that. Wasn't a set, but he was great. He's so quick and he's so dry and such a good writer. I like my odds. I really look up to that dude. He's one of my favorite comedians to watch. I also would like to see the set. And you know what? If he doesn't make them laugh and they still cut my head off, I'm glad that's the last thing I saw. That'd be some great ratings, I'm sure. But thanks for coming on with us, Matt. Make sure you're taking care of yourself, getting your rest and get up a few shots on that nerve hoop, my brother. And my man, thank you. And keep banging milfs out there and enjoy this Stay Golden World Tour. Get your tickets, MattRifeOfficial.com. Peace out, brother. Thanks for your time. Thanks, brother. See you soon.