To an American the comedian and actor Noel Fielding seems about as British as a person can get. I mean, his name is Noel. He looks like he should be on the cover of NME, but he’s also got that British politeness down to an almost inspirational degree. He’s probably more charming than anybody you’ve ever met in the real world. The most British thing about him, though, is that he grew up loving America. “America’s always fascinating when you’re a kid in England,” he told me during a deeper conversation about his current American tour and his love for this massive country (and its friendly neighbor to the north.) In his own words, here’s what the co-creator of The Mighty Boosh loves the most about America, not including its comedy, which, c’mon, is a gimme.
1. The Positivity
“I really like the positivity. Britain is very cynical. People are like ‘you can’t do that’ and when you do they go ‘but it won’t last.’ It’s sort of our default setting, we take the piss out of everything. And that’s great, and it’s good for comedy as well, but it gets quite tiring. There’s something about I like in America where it’s quite positive about stuff. And quite infectious, the attitude. And it’s not just that you’re good at sports or good at a lot of other things, you sort of have that approach to everything, that everything’s possible, that there’s a sort of weird energy that you have that’s really infection. And you do get stuff done because you believe that you can. I think in England stuff gets shot down quite quickly because people can be a little cynical. Although I do love that about England as well. [America] is very sort of glass half full as opposed to glass half empty. It’s quite childlike, actually, and I like that. Australians have it as well. There’s a sort of childlikeness—’yeah, we can do this! We can make this happen!’ And then it does happen. That’s the thing, unless you believe it, sometimes things don’t happen. In America things do happen. Quite aspirational, I think. I like that. You can get a little bogged down in the cynicism if you’re too sarcastic or think things aren’t going to work.”
2. Really good vintage shops
“I love shopping, I love clothes, I love second hand clothes. Whenever I come here I literally go and buy another seven suitcases before leaving the country. You have too much good stuff there. You have like seven good vintage stores in every place I go to.”
3.The food
“You have a lot of food, a lot of options, a lot of good healthy food. You have a lot of good vegan food in America. That’s the thing, you have really good vegan food and a lot of choice.”
4. The extremeness of the weather
“I’m in Toronto right now and it’s fucking freezing. When I went to LA in January we were literally driving in a convertible and it was like 70. Van Halen was playing in the car, I was on the way to a podcast, and the guy had the top down in the car with Van Halen on, and it was like 70 degrees in January. I was like, ‘I’m living the dream, I’m moving to America, I’ve got the sunglasses on, David Lee Roth singing, what more could you ask for?’”
5. The culture
“The culture is so… I like all your animation. I love Walt Disney, Toy Story stuff, Adventure Time, I love all those kinds of things. You’re sort of all the pioneers in those kinds of things, really—film, animation, music, comedy—the culture’s really strong. It’s a fascinating place. America’s always fascinating when you’re a kid in England. It’s where a lot of the things you like are from. It has a cool thing about it. My favorite artists are American—Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, John Lurie, Tom Waits. A lot of the stuff that I really like, Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa, most of my favorite people are American. Jim Jarmusch. You’ve got a lot of good people. And the music—when I was growing up I was obsessed with the band Kiss. They’re like the American dream. We’ve got the Beatles, but you’ve got the Kiss. Like a ramped-up, hyped up kind of Beatles. Everything’s bigger, bolder, brasher.”
Noel Fielding’s North American tour continues with five shows at the Fonda Theater in Los Angeles this week.
Garrett Martin edits Paste’s comedy and games sections.