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MetalLife.com Interview With Blake Anderson (Workaholics)
By: Terry Bunch
Date: Apr 11, 2011

1. Metal Life Magazine: Tell us about this new show WORKAHOLICS, what's is all about?

Blake Anderson: "Workaholics is about these three guys fresh out of college in their first serious job. They live together, they work together. It's that time of your life when you're supposed to be responsible, but you don't want to quit that drinking lifestyle. It's kind of the adventures they get into showing up hungover to work and such."

2. Metal Life Magazine: (laughs) Yeah, you should never stop doing that.

Blake Anderson: "Yes, it's life right? You know ,you can't stop ever drinking, you have to remain hungover (laughs)."

3. Metal Life Magazine: Is the writing on the show a collaborative effort between the three of you?

Blake Anderson: "Yeah, absolutely. We all go in every day and sit in the writers' room and through around ideas. We basically talk about stories from our lives and we try to incorporate those into the show. We also got three other writers and a show runner guy that kinda guides us so we don't have to tell each other that our ideas are stupid. He will do it for us so we don't hate each other. ".

4. Metal Life Magazine: So you guys had worked together before on some previous projects. Did that help with working on this project?

Blake Anderson: "Oh yeah, absolutely. For about four or five years, we were doing an internet comedy called 'Mail Order Comedy.' We had a few videos we did. Doing them for, you know, no money, just doing it because its what we love to do and luckily some people at Comedy Central saw our videos online and that's kinda how we got the deal. Since we've been together for so long, it helps us on set because we have a shorthand with each other and we're best friends so its cool."

5. Metal Life Magazine: Working with friends is pretty cool.

Blake Anderson: "Oh man, it makes life so much easier. Even though I am pretty sure we'll start to hate each other. We see each other way too much (laughs). You know, you have those weird years with your friends where you're like 'Hey you know that guy... fuck him" and they're like 'I thought he was your best friend' 'Yeah well fuck him this year.' But then you come back even better friends than ever."

6. Metal Life Magazine: I hear you there. So is writing for TV different that writing for the internet?

Blake Anderson: "It is in a lot of cases, but with us, we got pretty lucky like, with the internet, you can say and do whatever you want, you know. You're your own filter. But you know, you can't do and say things on TV, but Comedy Central was actually really cool to us. They, like, just encouraged us to do what we do best. They told us to just keep the dick jokes coming. So we did. And I did just say that. Dick Jokes Coming. (laughs) That is an awesome pun. "

7. Metal Life Magazine: 'Dick Jokes Coming' will have to be the interview tag line.

Blake Anderson: "There we go"

8. Metal Life Magazine: So what has been the most difficult part of working on the show so far?

Blake Anderson: "Definitely waking up early to shoot. That was tough. I like ot stay up really late and just, you know, be drunk and listen to music in my room. When you have a 5,6,7 o'clock call time every morning, its rough. It really is rough, but they provide you with breakfast, so that's always something to look forward to."

9. Metal Life Magazine: So speaking of music, one of the publicity photos shows a BLEEDING THROUGH poster up in your cubicle. What that by your choice or is that just something a prop person put up?

Blake Anderson: "Well, I talked to the prop guy cause I have a lot of music posters up in my room but there's so much clearance stuff you have to go through. I kind of game them my musical taste and they hooked me up with as much good music posters as we could. If you look in my room, in one shot, we definitely have a MOTORHEAD poster up. I was so proud of that. I almost told Kyle, our director, 'can we just get a single for the intro for the show every week?'That was probably my favorite bit of the season."

10. Metal Life Magazine: You guys were down at SXSW festival promoting Workaholics. What was your favorite experience there?

Blake Anderson: "Oh man, I mean the festival was just unreal man. Live music is so cool, I got to see so many cool bands. We got to hang out with the lead singer dude from OFF. That was awesome. I got to see DOWN play, there were just fucking facemelters. I stumbled into that show in the front of the other bar and I was like 'holy shit', cause it's Phil from PANTERA. That was just like a dream. Like I walked into a dream/nightmare. Yeah, it was really cool. Go to SXSW next year if you can. It is unreal."

11. Metal Life Magazine: So we really liked episode 1. We thought that is was pretty cool. What can we expect from the next few episodes?

Blake Anderson: "Honestly, so much crazy shit goes down on our show and I think all the episodes are really funny so if you liked the first episode, make sure you stayed tuned because we got like really random stuff happening. We got some childhood heroes, we got references to wizards. It gets crazy. It gets really crazy."

12. Metal Life Magazine: Do you have any recurring themes throughout the show?

Blake Anderson: "Definitely dick jokes and beer. Those are some of the reoccurring ones for sure. Not getting laid is a pretty recurring theme in the show AND in life. I am not afraid to admit that. Its tough. its tough out there. "

13. Metal Life Magazine: So one of the things Metal Life Magazine focuses on is to make sure people understand that just because you listen to metal, you're not just a stereotype. We want to show that music is a part of life, but so are video games, comic books, watching TV, etc. What are some of the things you like doing when you're not filming WORKAHOLICS?

Blake Anderson: "Yeah, I think that's totally true. I mean metal fans are definitely a cool breed of people. Like, there are things that I like that I feel are pretty metal, but I was not afraid to admit I was a Magic the Gathering player and that's because magic was fucking metal at the time. You were having epic wars with magical beasts, you know? I like to definitely engage in role playing video games, I like watching movies and TV. When I am not doing comedy, I like to watch comedy. Its one of the things I love and I love music. I love seeing rock shows and everything. Those are like really the things that kinda drive me. And drinking beer. I honestly love to drink beer. It's so fun."

14. Metal Life Magazine: What's your beer of choice?

Blake Anderson: "Oh man, there's nothing better than a cold Tecate on a hot day. I love me some Tecate."

15. Metal Life Magazine: Who would you say is your favorite band right now?

Blake Anderson: "My favorite band at this moment in time? That is fucking tough. I will say this, we were just moving our rooms around and I found my old WHITE ZOMBIE CD and I totally forgot how much I love that band. I wish they would come back and do a reunion tour. Their first album is unbelievable. It is so cool. It gets wild. "

16. Metal Life Magazine: Are you guys working on any other projects besides WORKAHOLICS right now?

Blake Anderson: "We're definitely trying to write a movie script. That's kinda our next goal. We want to go hopefully from TV to movies. That would be really awesome, but other than that, you know, we're just seeing how the show does. We're seeing if we get any offers to go on other people's shows, start to work with other people. I would really love to do some animation stuff. I have some ideas in the hopper. Adult Swim is always doing really cool shit and I'd love to work with some people over there."

17. Metal Life Magazine: Yeah, we've talked with some people over there. They are really cool.

Blake Anderson: "Yeah, they definitely have some metal represented over there, that's for sure. Metalocalypse, come on, best cartoon ever. Mermaider, love it.

18. Metal Life Magazine: Yeah, Brendon Small is a pretty cool guy.

Blake Anderson: "Yeah, I haven't gotten the chance to meet him. I met some Adult Swim dudes and I mentioned how big a fan I was of that show. Actually on Twitter, people are constantly saying that I look like 'Murderface' from the show and I'm like taking that as the highest form of compliment I've ever gotten. Brutal, I'll take it.

19. Metal Life Magazine: So we wanted to clear up something about the name WORKAHOLICS. We noticed poking around the internet that a lot of people aren't getting the joke with the show's name. Is it actually a combination of work and alcoholics?

Blake Anderson: "Absolutely, that's definitely what we were going for but its kinda weird. It didn't work out so now it has a double meaning. Since we are not workaholics at all. We actually just go there for the paycheck so, it became quite a thoughtful name.

20. Metal Life Magazine: Well, that's what we had for questions. We wanted to thank you for your time, good luck with the show and hopefully we can catch a show together sometime.

Blake Anderson: "That would be awesome. Maybe hit up a pit do some headbanging. Awesome dude, nice talking to you.

Find out more about WORKAHOLICS here.