Behind the Music of 'Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney'

A long time ago, George Carlin told us that there were seven words you can’t say on television. I have heard every single one on television in my lifetime, as TV has changed dramatically since those puritan days of 1972. But a few weeks ago, I heard the words “Mannequin Pussy” spoken on a talk show for the first time. It’s funny, hearing John Mulaney saying the name of Marisa Dabice’s punk band—because there is still a part of his persona that is as distinctly ex-altar boy-coded as his early stand-up specials, despite the fact that he’s been transparent about not only his experiences with substance abuse, but his continued recovery in this half-decade alone. What you see with Mulaney now is what you get: warts, high-profile divorce, self-deprecation, and all. He’s sporadically unconventional yet honors tradition in-between the margins, as does his new show: Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney.

Mulaney, being the guinea pig for Netflix’s live TV pivot, has the freedom that Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, and Seth Meyers never have: He gets to say “Mannequin Pussy” on air when the cameras are rolling, without censor. In a well-cut suit and grinning his camera-ready smile, Mulaney seems to wind up a little when doing so too, really hitting the initialism of “Mannequin Pussy” as he introduces them for their television debut—a platform no one else had yet to offer.

And then Mannequin Pussy gets to come out and perform “I Got Heaven,” screeching lyrics like “What if Jesus himself ate my fucking snatch?” while a choir of nuns sing backup. Remember when Sinead O’Connor caused an international incident for ripping up a picture of the pope at Mulaney’s old office at Saturday Night Live?

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There’s a public access, or maybe even pirate radio aspect to Everybody’s Live, which is ironic, given that Netflix is a half-trillion-dollar company that has fundamentally altered the way we consume TV and movies. Being outside of the network machine, Mulaney and his team can take more liberties with their booking—to not only bring in bands whose names freak out the Standards and Practices people, but to also foster a balance of legacy acts and newcomers alike. And the process is anti-industry. No labels are pushing for album plugs. At the end of the day, Mulaney and his team are picking who they think will make the show great, not who might attract an audience of millions.

Kevin O’Donnell is a major part of that process. He’s known Mulaney since college—something he shares with some of the comedian’s other showbiz collaborators, like Mike Birbiglia and Nick Kroll. He’s spent time in the music journalism world and in the industry for the last 20 years, formerly serving as an editor at Rolling Stone. When Everybody’s Live was first getting off the ground last October, during a proof-of-concept phase where it was ostensibly a one-off but clearly a toe in the water, Mulaney asked O’Donnell if he would come on board and book the show’s musical acts. At that point, it was called John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in LA, and it coincided with the streamer’s yearly Netflix Is a Joke Festival. From the jump, it felt different than other talk shows and variety shows.

Critics loved the weird, “just because” looseness, and Mulaney’s presentation quickly established itself as an outlier with its musical guests, like when he introduced pop-punk heartthrobs Joyce Manor by asking the “teeny bopper” viewers: “You fuckers like loud music?” The band then, without care for talk show conventions, jumped into a song from 2011. Even the guests in the building seemed to sense that a magic was unveiling before them, like when Long Beach native Gabriel Iglesias fanned out over Warren G performing just a few feet from him. “John and I have always talked about music, and shared a lot of music throughout our friendship,” O’Donnell recalls. “So, when this opportunity came up [where] we needed a music booker on the show, it just felt like a natural fit to ask me to do it. And I’m so flattered that he did. It’s been one of the greatest professional experiences of my life.”

It’s still unclear what the format of the show will be going forward. It runs through the end of May, and you’d think Netflix would renew for another “season” based on the positive press it’s received, but none of that has been confirmed yet. For lack of a better word though, this season—or run—has included musical acts like Kim Gordon and Kim Deal, Bartees Strange, Cypress Hill (backed up by the Los Angeles Philharmonic while Joan Baez danced off-screen), Randy Newman, Maggie Rogers, the New Century Chamber Orchestra (a favorite of his toddler son), Jessica Pratt and Destroyer performing a medley, and a one-night-only performance from a reunited METZ. O’Donnell says that all of these choices come from Mulaney. “This is John’s show. He is obsessed with music and a rabid music listener.”

Mulaney gives O’Donnell his wishlist, and O’Donnell tackles the only real constraint the show has: Can you be at the studio in Los Angeles on Wednesday night at this time? The idiosyncratic musical identity of the show is fitting for a guy like Mulaney. He’s always had that blend of old soul and innovator. He’s equal parts stuffy, educated upbringing and a kid rebelling against it. This is somebody who grew up respecting the artform of the talk show, how it fused variety elements with stand-up comedy and musical performance. But Mulaney is also not afraid to go against the grain if it means creating his own template. You can see his vintage design aesthetic, in a leather couch with pin legs and a table with a centerpiece of ceramic grapes, but also in the casual futurism of a drinks robot scooting around the room. He doesn’t sit behind a desk barrier like Fallon or Meyers, preferring a comfortable armchair next to his couch-bound guests as if they’re sharing a living room together.

You get the sense that guys like Conan or Letterman (both guests on Everybody’s Live) might’ve swung for the fences had they had the same seemingly blank-check, anything-goes opportunity as Mulaney. But the Baby J comedian doesn’t have the constraints of network television, so his team can say yes to more. To borrow a line from his own standup, he and his crew are dogs without horses.

So now that Mulaney has reached a point where viewers are starting to use his name as a shorthand for Everybody’s Live, he’s once again going against the established idea of what these shows should and could look like in the streaming era—for both music and TV. “John had a real vision for what he wanted music to be on the show,” O’Donnell says. “One was this idea of, ‘Who are artists that have made really cool, significant contributions to music and pop culture? Who are long overdue their flowers?’”

These is Kim Gordon and Kim Deal playing separately and then performing “Little Trouble Girl” live together for the first time, or introducing someone like John Cale to a generation of viewers who might’ve missed him and his contributions to rock and roll. “Another was this idea of music discovery,” O’Donnell continues. “I think, in an economy where it’s really hard for artists to break through the noise or make money or make a sustainable living, he wanted to shine a light on these up and coming artists that we could have on the show.” And then there’s the stuff that’s just funny, like André De Shields, who is an Oscar shy of an EGOT, performing as Chesterton Cheadle, the supposed inspiration for Chester Cheetah. It’s still a comedy show, of course. So why not? Why not make METZ play in the snow for a Christmas-themed episode that aired in April?

The “why not?” ethos shows especially with bookings like Gordon and Deal, or Destroyer and Jessica Pratt performing together for no reason other than that Mulaney (correctly) thought it’d be really cool. That spirit of collaboration was something Mulaney wanted from the get go. He aimed for singular moments that you could only get on his show. Not only are they getting great artists, but they’re presenting them in ways no one has seen before. O’Donnell says that more of these collaborations are on the way, but can’t talk about who they are quite yet. Alanis Morissette is booked for tonight’s show (May 14), but you’d have to imagine these secret, still-unannounced guests are closer to the moon than that.

I ask O’Donnell who is on Mulaney’s dream list of guests—the artists that, if money and scheduling were no concern, would be on the show next week. I had a pretty good guess as to who would be at the top, and I was right. “Donald Fagan,” he confirms. This is a guy who, after all, has made Steely Dan a central theme in a lot of his work. Others are, if not surprising, indicative of a guy who has a pretty eclectic taste in music. Mulaney contains multitudes, after all. He’s made that quite clear: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Jill Scott, Janet Jackson. “He’s a huge Janet fan,” O’Donnell says. Mulaney’s friend, Talking Heads co-founder, and Sack Lunch Bunch co-star David Byrne has an open invite, too. “David has free reign to come on whenever he wants and do whatever he wants.” Billy Corgan, Lana Del Rey, Willie Nelson. The list goes on.

Mulaney has the freedom to look through his “recently played” mix on Spotify, or rifle through his own record collection, and decide to book the band. Maybe it’s an up-and-coming indie act he likes who’s got a new album out, or maybe it’s the orchestral ensemble he plays for his toddler every morning. There’s a manic quality in the musical selection. It’s reminiscent of the week-to-week schedule he kept on SNL, and it matches the “flying by the seat of its pants” vibe of the show’s weekly structure, where callers go long on boring stories and Mulaney has to cut them for time by asking them what kind of car they drive before abruptly hanging up, or confirming with a producer off-camera that they don’t have time for something they had planned before chuckling and moving on—despite the show airing on a streaming service that doesn’t actually have to worry about time restrictions.

From the outside, it seems like John Mulaney can do whatever he wants with all of this. And for all of his (and the show’s) casual charm, it’s clear that what he wants is to be the best at this—perhaps even better than his fellow SNL alums hacking it on their network talk shows. And, just about every week, he reminds you that Everybody’s Live is the best talk show for music, all while he introduces whatever power collaboration or overlooked gem is waiting to perform nearby.

O’Donnell says it’s nice to hear a longtime friend validate his efforts like that, but also acknowledges that they’re blessed to be on a weekly schedule. Meyers and Fallon don’t have the luxury of time like they do. “They work so hard, they have so much music to book,” he says. “They’re doing four or five nights a week of music. I think John’s show is a little bit different, in that there’s only 12 episodes for this season. I think that has allowed John and I to book these bookings more intentionally and to be a little bit more choosy about who we selected.” There’s an aspect of the show that O’Donnell hasn’t touched on though, and it’s as crucial to the appeal and success of Everybody’s Live as the music, Saymo the drink robot, the guests on the couch, and even Mulaney himself: Richard Kind.

Kind, a beloved character actor often assigned roles that involve neuroses or hypochondria, shines as Mulaney’s first mate on-set. He’ll take field assignments at jam band concerts, or act like Gene Simmons (in civilian clothes) after a supposed head injury. His unmistakable cackle is audible even off-screen. There is a craft to be honed when playing the talk show sidekick role, and Kind has proven to be a master at it. So what’s his take on the music? Who does Richard like? Who would he book? Has he had any say in the process aside from dancing with Joan Baez and a personal finance columnist while Cypress Hill played “Hits from the Bong”?

O’Donnell laughs. “He went to a Train concert recently and he would love to see Train on the show. “It would be kind of cool. Watch this space.”

Brendan Menapace is a writer based in Philadelphia. His work has appeared in Esquire, Stereogum, Vice, SPIN and more. He also has a newsletter called Snakes and Sparklers.

Behind the Music of Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney

The Netflix program is reinventing what the talk show format can look and sound like one musical guest at a time. Here’s how it happened.