Kevin Casey White on His Journey from Class Clown to Classy Comedian

Eight minutes before the start of our Zoom interview, I receive a message from Kevin Casey White, the type of text one can expect from many modern comedians: “Hey, I’m recording a podcast, and it’s running a little bit long—cool if we do 7:15?”

White and I haven’t spoken in nearly 20 years, so I don’t mind waiting a few extra minutes. I can’t remember the first time we met. He was always there, bouncing off the walls of our St. Louis County high school’s common area, trying so hard to make someone, anyone, laugh. We ended up in the same friend circle, trying to impress some Hot Topic-loving girls in the grade ahead of us. White was the epitome of the class clown trope, or if ADHD was a person. He could be impulsive and loud, and was always ready to interrupt any teacher’s lesson. But the guy made us laugh; at his core, that’s all he’s ever tried to do.

We knew each other when we were teenagers and had similar interests in music and comedy, leaning toward the punk and indie sides of both. I was a very anxious, shy kid, never wanting to be the center of attention. I much preferred to fade into the background, writing and doodling in the margins of my notebook during class, just waiting out the clock until it was time to go home and listen to Radiohead’s Kid A on repeat. I was fighting off depression, but I still had the energy to be a pompous jerk to anyone who mentioned being a fan of something I liked because I felt like “they didn’t like it for the right reasons” or they didn’t understand it on the deep level that I obviously did. Sheesh. 

Anytime we were in public, White would come in hot like fireworks on the Fourth of July, and I was like a dog cowering under the couch because I couldn’t handle the constant barrage of explosions. I wished I could be very small or completely invisible in those moments. It was so easy to get overwhelmed and often led to me yelling at him for acting like an idiot before storming off. He could be completely embarrassing if we were at the mall or the movies, but again, the dude did make me laugh.

Over the years, we lost touch, but White’s promotional posts for comedy shows would occasionally pop up on my social feeds, and every time, all I could think was, Of course Kevin is doing comedy. It makes perfect sense. There’s nothing else that dude should be doing.

“Real quick before we get started,” White says. “Look at us! Aren’t we cool, huh?” The once spikey-haired teen, now a grown-ass adult, says it in a slightly deadpan tone as if he’s trying to play down the reason why we’re here talking again, but I know he genuinely means it. “Didn’t we come a long way from [high school name redacted]? High school us would be like, ‘Yeah, cool. We turned into cool adults.’” And he’s absolutely right. It is really fucking cool to be sitting on a call with a high school chum to talk about his comedy career and his first comedy special, Harangue. 

White started his career doing open mics at a Funny Bone Comedy Club in St. Louis after we graduated high school in 2004. After struggling to find the support he needed as an up-and-coming talent, White looked to emulate some of what was happening in comedy scenes on the coast. “Every [comedy] show in St. Louis would leave the game on, and you’d be performing next to the bar, and it was awful,” White says. “And I was like, No, it needs to be in a separate room. It needs to have a cool punk rock feel, and it has to feel underground and hip.”

Inspired by shows like Invite Them Up in New York and Comedy Death-Ray—which would eventually become Comedy Bang! Bang!—in LA, he started co-producing the live comedy/sketch/variety show Punch Drunk Comedy in 2009. Disappointed in the lack of local talent doing interesting and exciting stuff, White started connecting with Chicago comedians to bring them down for Punch Drunk shows. The night was successful, lasting long after White moved to The Windy City in 2011.

While in Chicago, White worked on a new show, Arguments & Grievances, a live performance in which comedians debated outlandish topics. “Moving to Chicago was kind of like my college experience, where you have a mattress on the floor, and you live, eat, sleep, and do comedy,” White explains. “It’s very experimental. It’s like a mesh of improv and stand-up, and you’re just trying stuff because there’s no industry.” The show received high praise in the Chicago Reader and Chicago Tribune, and its live recordings were later released as a podcast, which led to some touring and live festival dates. “Chicago’s such a comedy town,” says White, “It’s baked in. I was there for five years, and that was a really amazing place to cut my teeth.”

In 2016, after seeing a friend post about a room for rent opening up in Bushwick, Brooklyn, White took it as a sign that he needed to pack up his life and move on yet again. However, moving to New York meant starting over again, and White struggled with the instability and uncertainty in his new environment. A toxic office job only worsened things, keeping him from performing for an entire year as he got stuck as a cog in the capitalist machine. 

However, that time away from the stage proved to be the hiatus White needed to remind him of what he loved about doing stand-up. “I was bitten by the bug again,” says White. “I started performing as much as I could and getting my feet wet. This time, I was performing in a way where I wasn’t so worried about what other people were doing. I felt like I lost it once, so I could appreciate it this time. And then COVID hit and New York went into full lockdown.”

White and some friends started a backyard comedy show called Wacky Shack behind a bodega that began to pick up steam within the New York comedy scene almost immediately. The show gave White a new sense of purpose and belonging. “Overnight, we became a popular little Brooklyn, indie darling kind of comedy show,” White recalls. “When you have a hit show, [comedians] come to you. I got to meet everybody on my home turf, and it was much more comfortable for me. I started making up for lost time. Now I’m with my peers, and it feels like I belong here.” 

One of these peers pointed out to White how much the entertainment industry has changed. Gone are the days when spots on a late night show could get you a sitcom deal or help you become a household name. White knew he needed to take action if he was ever going to finish a comedy special. He took out a scrap of paper, wrote in all caps, double underlined, “KEVIN CASEY WHITE IS RECORDING AN ALBUM THIS YEAR,” and hung it next to his door. White perfected his act and then hit the road for some live dates to record Harangue. But it turned out he could throw most of those jokes right out the window.

Photo courtesy of Kevin Casey White

While he spends much of his time working with the crowd, I wouldn’t label White’s methods as “crowd work.” “For me, I like when a comedian is a good writer,” says White, “but I don’t like it when they’re not a good performer. I think you need both sides. I can watch a Netflix special if I want to see comedy. If I’m going to go see a live show, I want to see them spin plates, you know what I mean? I want to see them walking the tightrope. I want a little bit of danger in it. And at the same time, I don’t want anybody to leave and go, Well, that guy’s a fucking asshole.” 

Watching Harangue flashed me back to when Kevin was younger and overwhelming, but it also reminded me of the parts I love most about him. Not only is he funny, but he is also kind to the audience; he gives them a certain level of respect, and his delivery is warm and sweet in its way. “When I was new and didn’t know how to use my voice, I fumbled a lot,” continues White. “You’re mean because you’re feeling insecure, defensive, and not confident that you’re going to be able to pull it off. Now, I’m at a point where we can all have fun. It’s all about intention.”

Harangue has something that few comedy specials do: a compelling arc. It starts with an empty chair in the front row, something that first appears to throw White off his game for half a second, it almost taunts him, but over the course of the show, it organically reveals a complete story in three acts. It’s an unexpected series of events White never would have been able to predict, almost cosmically. It is pure kismet. 

It was hard to be around Kevin when we were teens, but we were just stupid kids unsure of the future and where we should go from there. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but Kevin did. Our paths diverged two decades ago just as he started performing, and my road took a few detours before I found that writing was my true purpose, but our paths have crossed once more as two dudes in their late 30s who just love to make people laugh. I’m proud of what Kevin Casey White has done in the world of comedy, but don’t expect me to be able to sit in on his act in a club. It’s too personal.

Harangue is available to stream through 800 Pound Gorilla. White’s podcast, Close Calls with Lizzy Cassidy and Kevin Casey White, is available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Jack Probst is a writer and record collector from St. Louis. He appreciates the works of James Murphy, Wes Anderson and Super Mario. Send any and all complaints to @jackdprobst on Twitter. He enjoys writing paragraphs about himself in his spare time.