Reggie Watts Shares His Favorite Guests & What It's Really Like On The Late Late Show - Exclusive
Looper recently talked with Reggie Watts about his new app WATTSAPP, available now for iPhone and in September for Android. We exclusively announced his most recent piece of programming, a "Droneversation" with Thundercat. We also took some time to talk with Watts about being bandleader on The Late Late Show with James Corden.
We all have a good idea of James Corden the Host, or more generally James Corden the Character. But what's the real James Corden like? "He's just a less animated version of himself," says Watts. "He's playing a hyperbolic version of himself, high energy and very dramatic in his reactions and so forth, but when you talk to him just regularly, he is really chill. He's a pretty laid back kind of a guy, a big conversationalist, and very opinionated and loves to chat. He's a pretty mellow dude."
Watts has a couple guests he can name as favorites. "I like anytime Kacey Musgraves is on the show. That's always amazing." He also singles out Ben Schwartz in particular as a regular highlight. "When Ben Schwartz is on the show, it's always just hilarious. He's just one of my favorite humans on the planet, he's so funny, and when he's on the show, he just kind of takes it over and it's just a pleasure to watch."
How does Watts stay so busy while leading a late night band? Turns out that it's not a huge investment of time on his part. "The show doesn't take that much out of my schedule," he explains. During a normal week, Watts is "only working for maybe a maximum of two hours, four days a week." This gives him plenty of spare time to make new music, perform, and otherwise disorient people. It also gives him time to develop programming for WATTSAPP.
Reggie Watts can't keep track of everything he does
"Reggie's Question" is a regular Late Late segment in which Watts asks an often absurd question of a guest. One such question was directed at Keegan-Michael Key: "What are your favorite lyrics from any song?" Key repeated some lyrics at Watts and asked if they sounded familiar, to which Watts replied in the negative. Key pointed out that it was the theme to Key & Peele — which Watts wrote.
Watts froze up with a combination of shock and a bit of shame, so we had to ask if his reaction was real. The answer? "Probably, most likely, yeah." Of course, given the way Watts makes music, it makes sense that he'd forget it. "When I made that theme song, I made it in like five minutes. It was just a bunch of gibberish, so I don't necessarily remember what I said. It's essentially one of those situations where I was hearing it back and going like, 'Oh, that sounds familiar,' but I wasn't totally sure."
It's nearly impossible for Watts to keep track of everything he's made. "I just kind of keep putting it out there, cranking it out there, but they always come back." He doesn't even think about a lot of his old work until people on Twitter throw it in his mentions. This endless back catalog inspired a feature on WATTSAPP: "We have a playlist that we're constantly updating every week that pulls from the bulk of videos that exist online that I've made."