How David Koechner Went from Small Town to SNL Stardom

Actor and comedian David Kekner joins the We're Out of Time podcast. I knew when I was 13 years old, I'm going to be on Saturday Live because I decided when I was 13. Is it such power to decision? Did I tell anybody? No, because I'm from a small town. You don't tell small town people their dreams to small town people. Oftentimes don't have dreams. When she was born, my fifth kid, I thought, you know what? I'm going to make sure I'm never out of work. So I started doing stand up. I've done improvisation all my life and sketch. And I've always always done live. I had turned 60 and I was on a TV show. I was doing well, they got canceled. So now I've got nothing and divorced. And thank God I had stand up. Now, also what I did, I got two DUIs in six months. Guess what? I got work. You know why? I created it 14 years earlier. I've never been out of work. Thank you for listening to the We're Out of Time podcast with Richard Tate. If you haven't already, please follow the podcast, Rate and Review. And if you're getting value out of We're Out of Time, share it with someone else you know. If someone has a problem with substance use disorder, please call one call placement. That's 888-831-1581. And if we can't help you, we'll make a referral to someone who can. Please. We're out of time. David. Yes, sir. Nice to have you here. How do you see your last name, Koffner? OK, that's how you should. Now, let's go through it. It's K-O-E-C-H-N-E-R. I say Keckler, which is incorrect. It's a German name. The Germans say Kuschner. It should be at the very least Kochner or Kochner. I'm from a small town in Central Missouri of 2000 people. You walk through the Catholic cemetery, you're going to see at least 60, 70 Catholic families. Schmidt, Kutenkot, Kinnieb, Kirkenmaier. OK, so what's the disconnect? Who forgets how to say your last name? At what point do you go? How do we let's go with Keckler? Nowhere in the English language does the O-E make the short e sound. But apparently my family does Keckler. That's wrong. That's why no one can say it. You know, I've been in show business for 30 years, right? So it's Kock, it's Keckler. It should be Kockner at the very least. Koehler toilets, we all know that one, right? So the problem was when I got into show business, I sat at live with my first big break. So that was 1995. At that point, I could have changed it up to a coachner, right? Huh? And then all my I'm at 36 first cousins on my dad's side. I didn't have the temerity to change it. If you wanted to work, you could have changed it to Ramirez. What I should have done was change it. My mother's last name was Downey. Wow. David Downey put a junior on there. God, that is so cool. Thank you for coming today, because I got to tell you my my favorite guests and I've had a lot of guests and I love them all. OK, that's not true. I love this thing. Rigorous honesty. Well, I mean, look, there's a couple of people whose things never running. OK, right. But I think that that's my fault, not theirs. That's very kind of you. Well, it's also very true. But the cool thing is, is that my favorite people are comedians. Really? It's the best time I've had Nick Thune. Yep. I've had Jay Moore. Yeah. And I've had Jimmy Shin. So. Have you worked with Ricky Gervais? No, I know. Really? God, damn it. Right. God, I love him. He's brilliant. So you did the corral thing. I did the office. What's the office? That's a TV show. I know, baby. Everybody loved it. Yes. But I don't watch TV. Neither do I. So of the office, right? It was on nine seasons. Uh huh. I've watched three episodes and I'm not an elitist. I have five kids. Right. So my time, look, you know, I like to watch. I'm intellectually curious, just like you. Right? If it doesn't feed me, then I don't care. I'll search for an hour for a documentary that I really like. Really? Yes. Rather than going on this bad movie, this bad movie, you know, whatever. So I don't I watch the news a lot less, less now, right? Because it's just like, come on, if I don't whatever, I'm not. I'll stop there because if I go into it, we'll talk revolution. But so now I haven't seen it. I host so I do stand up a lot now. And I'm glad I didn't week into that if you want to. I get. OK. I'll say this. So my oldest is 14. So my youngest daughter is the age of your oldest daughter. Correct? Unless you have more kids you haven't told me about. I thought I'm aware of. They would have found you through an ancestry. Anyway, so when she was born, my fifth kid, I thought, you know what? I'm going to make sure I'm never out of work. So I started doing stand up and I called my agent. I said, I'm going to start doing stand up the next day. She had 11 gigs for me. Now, the first one was three months out. Wow. So I just started putting together a small act. Now, remember, I've done improvisation all my life and sketch. And I've always always done live, no matter where I am, whether if I was on TV or whatever, I'd still be doing live shows somewhere in town all the time. So there's no fear quotient there at all. The difference between stand up and doing sketch or improv is you and I are in a scene, right? Right. So now I'm doing stand up. I'm in the scene with the audience. That's it. But they don't get to talk. So I put together a show slowly. You build your minutes, right? Do you have an hour? And then you have it. And thank God, because coming out of the pandemic, I had turned 60. And I was on a TV show that was doing well. They got canceled because of the pandemic. So now I've got nothing and divorced and thank God I had stand up. Now, also what I did, I got two DUIs in six months. So now I'm just out there. But guess what? I got work. You know, I I created it 14 years earlier. I've never been out of work. I've never collected an unemployment check in my life. I started working with my dad when I was seven years old in a manufacturing facility in Tipton, Missouri. I know how to work. Did I like it? No. But I mean, I'll never not have work. Well, you like what you're doing now. Oh, yes. Right. It's not work if you love it. But not not doing that when I was seven years old, working with my dad in a metal fabrication shop, right? Oh, you didn't like that? That wasn't a good time. You'd rather be a playing baseball. He didn't he didn't show you a good time. You know, in the end, yeah. Probably probably the biggest. Uh, thing led to my success, right? Probably the best thing or one of the best things I've heard anybody say came from Jimmy Shin's dad. OK. Let me see if I can remember. Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Yes. Weak men create hard times. And so it begins. Did I get it right? Yes, you did. I've heard this now. His dad had loaned him that advice loan because it's something we all had to have. It's like a book that his dad, you know, didn't come up with that quote. His dad did embed that quote in his mind. I've heard this quote and it's so true. Well, it's probably some ancient. Oh, yeah. And it is confusion. Yeah. In its origin, it seems. It seems. Yeah, because it's true, though. Is it true? So listen, I love to have a good time and I can't talk about drug addiction and fentanyl and death nonstop. Right. But we got to get it into it. OK. How long you sober? Since Thanksgiving Day this last year. Right. Yes. So you're going to have a year. How many rehabs you've been to three? How many have worked? None for me. For you. Yeah. Well, you weren't ready. Oh, I was always ready. I wasn't capable. What rehabs you go to? I want to in to in Arizona. One here that's now closed. But yeah. OK. Now, does yours do a 12 step? We make it mandatory for the affordable center that I've got. It takes HMOs and everything. Because they don't typically have the money to pop for therapists and that kind of stuff. But it's optional for the people at Carrera because Carrera is where celebrities go and where the wealthy go and you know, it's just it's one hundred and sixty five bucks a month. Right. So a lot of these people have big lives. Right. They ain't going to. Well, it's just OK. I hear you in my experience. Yeah. That's the only thing that works. That and and to be this. And abuse. Yes. Disulfrium. Right. I'm on it. I have to be. So my my sponsor told me, Dave. You're a hardcore alcoholic. I'm kind of like, oh, is there some of the I'm a deeper ship. So it's harder for me to get my serenity. And he's right. And I tell you what, it works and you can, you know, can you can cheat if you want to. But I call my friend of 40 years every day. Either I send him a video or we do it on FaceTime or I take my pill. Now, you take this pill long enough. You can't you can't if you take it, if you stop taking it today and I drink tomorrow, it'd be the same effect. You'd violently throw up, right? So I don't know how long it would take to get it out of my system by now. I'm guessing a month. I won't tell you. Oh, you do know. Oh, you know. OK, it doesn't matter. My friend will never allow me to not be talking to him that long, you know. So which is good. And I have no resistance to it. The beauty of it is that, you know, in a we say we haven't found something that takes away the desire for alcohol as of yet. Well, we have the desires there. I can't do it. So I never think about it. Well, as you know, that's true. Yes. At some point, you could stop taking it. I actually can't because my buddy who I love would go, I'm coming to see you. So I do want to say one thing because you're right. I love a yes. OK. I've probably been to well over a thousand meetings easily. OK. But. It's not the only thing that agreed. Yeah, there are some people that are so sick and they're getting sicker now all the time. And I think a lot of that is the social media. I think a lot of that is the pandemic and other things that I won't get into. But I'm not sober today. I don't think without the foundation I got in a agreed by you know, I had three guys last month or two months ago, I don't remember. And all three of these guys at Carrera all own soccer teams. Wow. Not in the same league. Sure. Sure. OK. But they all own soccer teams. Highly successful. Highly successful. These guys are not going to a they're not. And so then it's about, you know, some people in the A would say, well, come on. Oh, OK. I had an old timers. Yeah, you got the old timer will say that, right? Yeah. OK. And I'm like, no, because these are people that deserve it to they. Yes. Right. And plus, you know, a lot of these wealthy people when they when they get sober, create so much good in the world. I've seen it so many times, you know, it just it's great. It's great. So tell me how long you've been trying to get sober. Oh, probably 20 years. OK. At least. Yeah. I drank for 50. Would you drink? But beer. What? Yeah, beer in the end. No, no, no, no, no, no. Please. What? Really? Beer? Yeah. Yeah. So you were pissing all day long? Sure. I'm just all night. Why don't you just take shots? Because I like that nice fuzzy. Here we go. Here we go. It's trains pulling out, but it ain't moving too fast. If I wanted them as a train to move faster, I'll wait till after 11 when I'm really drunk and I'll go call somebody who might bring me something by the wall. God damn it. I guess we're going to go all night. Really? So you do the blow too? Of course. Now, everything's laced with fentanyl. All of it. Can you imagine? I've got five kids, dude. I'm terrified. How old are your kids? Charlie is 26, Margo is 23, Sergeant and Audrey are 19 and Eva's 14. You've had the talk with them, the fentanyl talk. This ring right here. Where you at? Let's see the right. OK. That's a guitar. OK, my buddy was a guitar player. And he couldn't beat narcotics, right? It's his deal in the end. After he'd been through everything was his was pills, right? And so he'd crush him and snort him. And I flew him out for his birthday one year, cut three years ago. And because I was doing a show in North Carolina and we're sitting there and I bought it when I was sober at the time, because I, you know, how sobriety goes as a thank God you got good sponsors, Dave relapsed part of it. So I've been relapsed. I guess I've been sober for 10 years in constant relapse. I guess that would be the funny way. So funny. And the alcoholic would understand that. I was sober for 25 years. No, I wasn't. Billman. I was attempting. Anyway, my buddy was, I could tell, like, I bought him a nice steak for his birthday and a nice steakhouse money. And I'm seeing he's not eating. I said to him, get another drink, because it was some kind of thing smoked under glass where those places. Oh, that's cool. And I went, I want to watch this, right? That's what I'm an alcoholic will do. It was like, I want to watch you drink because I can't do it. Because then I can remember, I don't want to do that anymore. Because once you have your first drink, the lies begin. Correct? You start lying. Wearing your second. Yes. For me, it was somewhere in the second drink, typically in the last two thirds. Yeah. Anyway, he said, I'm coming off pills. So he was trying again to be sober. And he said, man, I don't know. Sometimes he was in Texas. He was sometimes I feel like some of this that I get laced because he said, I've woken up hours later and I don't know where I was. In a different room. I said, wow, a month later. He was gone. So his ash, some of his ashes are here. This is a cremation ring. So my kids know that. And trust me, I'm one of those dads. I'm all over them. If they said if you could do that, tell your dad one thing, what would it be? They probably say, leave me alone. Let me ask you a question. Yes. OK. You're sober now less than a year. Correct. Which means your children of various ages have seen you at your worst. How are they emotionally? Because of that experience. I've read a lot about this, too. You've seen it and I know that I've caused them a lot of pain. But gosh, darn it. I mean, they're pretty darn good. I was also I rage all this anger that came from your child. That's there. They have it in spurts. I have it and whatever. And so if anything, I'm a cautionary tale to them that they see in their home, right, and they want the best for me. And we have a really open, honest relationship. But emotionally, I would say it near as I can tell. They're very regulated. Did you ask them? Oh, we talked to. We talked about this. I mean, but I mean, that specific question. The question is, hey. Kids are hardwired to love their parents. Right. OK. I know that my drinking had some effect on you. Can you tell me what that was and what's still here? I'm interested. I've never asked them that specific question. What I have done is say, I owe you apologies. If you if you need an apology from me for anything, ask me and they have. And I don't defend it. I say, I know what you're talking about. I apologize for that. And then you have to do the steps to make amends. That's the part, right? Yeah, you've got to do the amends. Yeah. And they haven't kept coming back. I mean, it's there's. I would say our house, as far as I can tell, is pretty honest. Do you have a good relationship with all your kids? Yes. Here's the thing I love. I'll tell people, you know, I'm an alcoholic and they are divorced, divorced and they go, do you take a divorce? Or divorce, divorced and they go, do you talk to your kids? Talk, they're they're they cling to my heart every second, every morning. I text them every morning and every night. Now, they might be sick of it because a lot of times they don't respond. Are you kidding? But guess what? After three days, they go, dad, what's going on? So there is a comfort they have in knowing dad's thinking about me, right? But just suffice to say, I've got a good, honest, true and loving relationship with all of my kids. Are your kids proud of you? Yeah, yeah. Yes, they are. To the extent, I mean, all we can say is most days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When was the last time you did cocaine? There would have been probably some time in that summer of last year. OK, listen, check this out. OK, I hope you never relapse. Oh, no, I thank you for saying that. I hope you never do. Yeah, I wish you nothing but the best. You are. You are the salt of the earth. OK, you cannot do cocaine anymore because you're going to die. Agreed. No, no, dude, you're going to die. Yeah. OK, because you don't have the tolerance for it. A, you're going to do you're going to do it like it's cocaine. All of it, all of it, because that's how we do it, right? And you are snorting it, right? Of course. OK, you're going to die because you don't have the tolerance for it. And it's even if it's not a lethal dose to you, it will be right. You can't do it. I agree. Well, the likelihood of that is it's never gone. You're trying to get sober for 30 years. Yes. But it will only come after I'm drinking. And I just want to tell you something, OK, because this coming off means spirited and heavy handed. Oh, no, no, no. It's you've got to be tough. Right. Well, we've got to have an honest conversation. But it's not like I didn't lose 25 years to drug addiction. OK, I've only got 21 years in recovery. What do I have, 21 or 22? March was 22. Well, congratulations. OK, thanks. I wish. I wish. You know, yeah. Anyway, you say what was your big break? The moment you knew that you were going to be able to do this thing. Well, there's two parts to it. Number one, my big break was Saturday Night Live in 1995. But I'll tell you this and it's strange and it's not arrogant. And I'm not I'm not a narcissist and I'm not a person that is full of I knew when I was 13 years old, I'm going to be on Saturday Live because I decided when I was 13, it's such power to decision. Did I tell anybody? No, because I'm from a small town. You don't tell small town people their dreams to small town people. Often, oftentimes don't have dreams. So what are they going to do? They get on yours, right? Even after I came back to that town, they'd still try to get on me actively. I didn't say anything bad to anybody, but they'd try to find something bad that they remembered from my childhood and intersusit to me when I'm 30, 40 years old. Like, why? What? I didn't score enough points at a basketball game in eighth grade. Do I give a shit? That's what you have on me. OK, like that. OK. So when I got SNL, I knew I was going to get it. So OK, great. Now, here's the other thing. You must constantly still always have the next goal, right? All I wanted after that was the respect of my peers, which I have. But that's kind of a very. You know, shotgun gold, it's not it's not a sniper. So you have to have the next specific goal. Then I just wanted to work. It was that I wanted to work. If you look at my resume, I've never not worked. Two hundred and twenty five credits. Proud of it. Great. That's a body of work. Fantastic. Still don't have exactly what I need, which is enough sustenance for my my piggies, right, to keep raising these kids, make sure they get what they want. And that I have something for my retirement. Now, look, I'm very fortunate and I have I make enough. But I've got a lot of people that I support in my life, you know. So that's how we get our self esteem. Who? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you're like me, that's how you get yourself steep. Yeah. Yeah. One hundred. Helping others being of service. Yeah. Constant. I've got a I've got a tin platter, not a silver platter. Would you care for something off my tin platter? Yeah, I'll let a lot of rest there, but it'll be fine. Oh, you the rest won't touch your lips. But yeah, I love providing. I do. It's the reason I get up. I want to get back to that guy who died on my buddy. Yes, your buddy. Have kids. No. Wife. No. OK, well, now we know why he's dead. Well, OK. Well, also, he was a gorgeous man and women just ran to him without his pursuit is almost like a a penance, aren't aren't so were like. He needed to go. No, he didn't. He was my best friend. I know what you mean. You know, it's so bad. It's so horrible, isn't it? That I don't know how to even take it in. Yeah, there I've lost a couple of good ones. And when you do, the grieving never ends and it's OK. Tell me about another guy that you lost to a drug overdose. Oh, that's just the one. The other one, it was to cancer. He's older and there it goes. I don't have multiples. Tell me. Give me the most horrific story you've ever gone through while drinking and using. Oh, like something I did while I was doing that. Yeah, I'm very fortunate. Well, I got two D.Y.S. And that's the that's the most horrible thing that's ever happened to me. I've never. Well, we did go to jail overnight. Yeah, the first one was overnight. Second one wasn't even overnight. Second one wasn't a D.Y. You mother. You just you go. You have me the second one. The guy goes. I'll just say this. The arresting officer told the judge. This is the nicest man I've ever arrested. OK. Not resistant. Did everything they asked. They never gave me a breathalyzer. I had driven for two and a half hours. I was three miles from my hotel. They should have said, we're going to take you home. They did a field sobriety test. I passed as far as I could tell. The thing I didn't tell them was this. So I drank on the plane and I drank because I spoke to my ex-wife, right? That's called a trigger. And so I'd had that and I'd been six months sober again. So then I was off the pill. I wasn't taking the regular on the rag on the Riz. What pill? Dissolphurin, the Anibis. So drove two and a half hours. I know I I dare say if I'd had my last drink right before I drove and I didn't, then I would be sober. But the guy says to me, takes me downtown. Do you want to take a breathalyzer? I'm like, why are you asking me? He says, well, I don't think you had to drive in this state for two years. And the consequence of not taking this a briety test, the breathalyzer is you can't drive in this state for two years. I'm like, well, it sounds to me like he's telling me refused the breathalyzer. Correct? Now, you're a lawyer, refusing a lawyer, refusing a breathalyzer is an automatic DWI. That's right. Well, what the tell me that part of the math? Right. I should have blown. I'm going to get a goddamn DUI anyway. Well, let me get it earned. Right. Anyway, that's right. We'll never know. I know. But anyway, blah, blah, blah. So that's the worst. That's my worst story. I don't have I never hurt anyone. Right. I guess the worst thing it continues with I'm drinking or not. I talk too much. That's my horror story. Now I I forgot to ask you. Yes. You're in the comedy clubs all the time. Uh-huh. There's got to be a lot of drug abuse there. Always. Always. Yeah. What's going on there? I'm sober. It doesn't trigger you. Oh, no. I you don't have that choice. The choice isn't yours, whether or not you can drink. Because if I drink, I'll violently throw up. It really you it blocks the enzyme that processes alcohol. Right. So if I drink and I've never tested it, I'd violently throw up the closest I've gotten is once for a two week period. This is five years ago, six years ago, when I first attempted to take the pill on a regular basis. I stopped, which is what planning and scheming, which is what an alcoholic does. That's right. I'd already moved out of my house. And so I quit drinking. I quit taking the pill, then waited a week to see if I could take it. I was able to drink one pint of an IPA. I was OK. But within 20 minutes, I threw up. Not violently like you would. That's after just two weeks. Right. Now, I've been taking this pill regularly for over six months, seven months, right? So it would take that long to get out of my system. So it's not available. You don't wake up and think about stealing a car. That's the same thing. I don't wake up and I do. It takes away the scheming and it takes away the bargaining because you can't. That's right. It's gone. It's not available to you. That's right. I don't care where I am. People can drink in front of me. I don't care. What I'll do is I notice this, which we all notice. I can tell someone's had one drink. You're like, wow, why would you do that? You're not as good a person as you were when you're sober. But you think you are, don't you? So the one thing I would tell my 10 year old self is this, David, don't don't don't ever drink. It'll take you and it did. Now, the sad part is several times when I've had these things late at life, late at night, early morning. I had a revelation or two. I believe I would have had them anyway. George Harrison had said that he's had revelations while he's in a altered state of mind. Right. So sadly, I have two. But I hope I could have gotten their straight edge. Number two, what advice would I give to a young performer? If you're asking for advice, you're asking permission. I never asked advice one time in my career. Now, I might ask, should I do this or should I do that after I did it? But for the long term thing of how do I do this? If you're asking me how to do it, you're asking the wrong person. You should be asking yourself because that's the only person has the answer you need. Now, having said that, I'll give you two pieces of advice. Read the book Outliers from Malcolm Gladwell. Basically, the 10,000 hours theory. How do I become an expert, a master at the thing I want to do? If you can't read that book, then off, you're not ready to do anything. Go do what you do, but you're not to do anything. You're not going to. I shouldn't tell you what to do. You can read the book yourself. Find out now. Number two, listen to On Writing by Stephen King, the audiobook, because he narrates his own audiobook and it's delicious. You say, well, I'm not a writer. Well, yes, you are because you write in the mind of yourself. Creativity, basically, that's what he's addressing. The 10,000 hour principle. That's what you gave these guys. Well, I guess I guess the first I guess the journey starts with the first step. You've done 10,000 hours easily. I don't have I don't have a therapist working for me that doesn't have at least 10,000 hours of treatment experience. Most have 20 and some have 30. You don't you don't. Takes time to be a master. It takes time to be a master. Yeah. And you should love it. If you love something, you have no problem doing 10,000 hours. Usually it's what I would do anyway. That's right. Yeah. Lisa. All right, man. I want the rant. I want the rant. I'll give you a rant. I want the rant. So something that just pisses you off, OK, or aggravates you. And the example that I always give are the bicyclists with the shorts that get in your way and don't move out. And they're like, you, this is my road to. OK, I hate that. All right. Getting cut off or some of the person I hate the most is that person that merges late to happen this morning on my way here. Right. You you're not getting in the late. There's a line. Get in line. Get in line or get our develop a goddamn machine that puts you where you want it to be because you don't cut in front. You don't get a cut in late. Oh, you forgot they get off of the next exit. And come back and get in line. Get in line. You don't get a cut. The line is a line for a reason. We're all in the goddamn line. I don't want to be in line. That's don't get in line. Start your own goddamn line. You think you're the goddamn king? No one's king. We're all equals here. And your job is to make sure everyone gets an equal chance in life. In life, everybody gets a chance. Open the goddamn door. Invite everybody in. I'm sorry for cutting you off. I apologize. I didn't know you felt that way. I thought I wasn't holding you up. I did try to cut in, but I wasn't holding you up. Yes, you did. You got one core in front of me. Oh, OK. That's true. All right. OK. Nothing exists as it seems. Where can people find you? Instagram, David Kekner, K O E C H N E R. Same for all of the other social platforms that I had destroyed this country. Where are you? Where are you playing next? I don't know when this is going to go up, but I do have a website, David Kekner.com. So all those dates are I'm doing 50 this year, maybe 50 dates. Really 50 50s, 50 cities. Yeah, that are fantastic. Yeah, and I'm doing five movies. Dude, I got to earn. When are you when are you coming? When you do in the comedy store? Because I'm never going back to the improv. Oh, you don't you don't. If you do a date there, you're doing 15 minutes. Nobody gets their own show unless they built it for this audience specifically. So I typically don't do things in town because I'm on the road. So if I've got a night off, I'm not going out. Oh, that's great. Yeah. And in town, there are going to be 10 or 20 comics playing that night. So everyone's doing 12 to 10 minutes. And I don't invite people to come out to just see two over 10 minutes. I like I like. I wish I could go to the comedy store again. You can. I'd give anything to go. Forgive them. No, that was the. I know. Do you know the comedy store? I saw Sam Kinnison and it was the best show I've ever seen. I've got he's the greatest. He'd give you a rent. He's the it's God. I'd give it Sam. All right. Hey, gang. Dave Kekner from a show business. See you next Tuesday. And some of you are. See you next Tuesday.