Joe Remembers Jeff Scott from The Comedy Store

I can start releasing shit from my archives, even like past Lance performances. You can hear Jeff Scott laughing in the corner and stuff. Jeff Scott. Which is so sad, yeah. I miss him. I miss him too. I miss him so much. That made me so sad. And it hit me, coming by surprise, because you don't realize you've been... This person has been a part of your life for so long. Because you just seem like you're doing a set at the Comedy Store. Well, I have a different situation because I've been with Jeff since 94. 94, 95 I think he came around. And then we were... I hadn't seen him for so long. And then when I came back to the store in 2014, he was like one of the first people I saw. And he had... He was just always there, man. He was always a sweet guy. Always hugging everybody. And I found out he died. One of the first things I felt like is like, I don't think he would have died if it wasn't for this fucking pandemic. I felt like... I think it hit a lot of us that way too. He was the fucking... He was such a part of the store. He was one of the biggest parts of the store without being a comic. Yeah. Without being a guy who actually got on stage. He was one of the biggest parts of the store. And that felt like 10 months of him having no connection. He was there every night, man. I hugged that guy every time I saw him. He was like a performer without being a performer. Obviously he did the piano, but he had such great comedy instincts having done performing in his past and such. Because you've been to clubs before and they're sound guys. Yeah, they're not really. Yeah, they're not. But this guy, he was like jazz, man. He was a performer. He was a performer. There had been times when I was doing Lance or whatever and he would just turn on a certain song. And it was never disruptive. It was always additive. And to think about not having that when we go back. And for it to happen during all of this too, where you can't even properly process. There was a Zoom room where people could pop in and talk about Jeff and have all these Jeff stories. And I had to hop in there. It was so many people. There's so many great comics, big comics too. Like the Zoom room was like 100 people. Just it was great to at least have that. So it sucked to have something that seismic happen in a vacuum. There was a ritual that I would do. Not a ritual, just like a thing that I would always do. Pull into the parking lot, say hi to everybody, hug all the people I saw and go to the back smoking area. And I'd always find Jeff Scott getting high. Always. I'd get high with him. I'd give him a big hug. And I'd go, how many more people before I go on? And he'd be like, well, Jeff Ross is on stage now. You got like two more people. And then you go, okay. And then I'll go. He was a part of the foundation. He was so important, man. When he was gone, I was like, oh my no. He hurt as much as Brody. It hurt as much as anybody. I agree. And it creeps up on you. You don't realize every set that I've done at the comedy store, he's been a part of. And what I loved about Jeff is he was willing to play. And play is such a big part. Sometimes I stand up, you could be so self-serious and think that you're changing the world. And there is that, but sometimes it's fun to just have fun. And I would get these harebrained ideas of like, oh, here's a music cue. Let's do this. And he would be chomping at the bit because most comics just play up, play off. But if I'm like, I need him to play some piano or I need him to play this song, he kind of lit up because it was like a mini musical or something. Right. Right. And like seeing his spark. Because a lot of times I'll go to a city and I'm like, I have these sound cues and you could see them kind of like roll their eyes or like, it's more work. But Jeff was more than down. And he was embedded in the DNA of the comedy store. He was there for how long? 20 years, 25 years? More. Yeah, I think he was 26 years when he died. And he's the unofficial archivist of the comedy store because that place is notorious for no cameras, no filming. But sometimes he would have his flip cam from where He also remember everything. Yeah. He had an amazing memory. But he has this amazing catalog of magical moments at that place that now I think the store is working with the family and stuff to try to retrieve, especially in a pandemic. If you notice like the comedy stores, Instagram, what's unfortunate is that I love that place. You love that place. It's such a magic, but it's this black box. No one knows the magic that happened there. Well, we know and we know the fans know the people that there was a lot of people that would go there. Get that, get that band. Should I get it off? Get that top band too. You got another band taking all the clothes off. They had two bands on. I understand the double band thing. He is the people that would go there a lot. They knew that was one of the beautiful things is like, I ran into this dude before everything locked down and he was talking to me about a very specific bit. And he was like, I just love how that bit has changed. You know, you started out this way. Yeah. And then I could see that you saw that there was like a problem with it that way. And then you snuck it in the back door in another way. And then it started to pop. I love those fans. Yeah. The hardcore ones who like can see the process. Guys who love jazz or don't play any musical instruments. Most people aren't like that. Yeah. But I've noticed there's two store fans. There's two audiences. There's the physical audience. The people who go there in LA and like that guy can see the nuance. And then there's the online audience. You don't realize how big the store is just sort of culturally and throughout the country. They can't go to the store every day. So they don't know. And it's almost like the online version is their version of the store. Catch new episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience for free only on Spotify. Watch back catalog JRE videos on Spotify, including clips, easily, seamlessly switch between video and audio experience. On Spotify, you can listen to the JRE in the background while using other apps and can download episodes to save on data costs all for free. Spotify is absolutely free. You don't have to have a premium account to watch new JRE episodes. You just need to search for the JRE on your Spotify app. Go to Spotify now to get this full episode of the Joe Rogan Experience.