10 minute read
Leonard.............An Interview with David Leibe Hart
By Zach Leonard
You probably know him from Tim and Eric: Awesome Show, Great Job! as the otherworldly puppeteer who appears in many short sketches, but David Liebe Hart has a lot of other projects going on - from performing as a street musician to selling paintings and sketches of images his fans request, he’s got a lot on his plate. When his new album, Astronaut, was coming out last month, I got a chance to interview him prior to the release about both his life and music. It lasted for a while - between rants about his hardships, relationships that didn’t pan out, and even a brief history lesson on many of the alien species he sings about in songs both for TEAS:GJ!, David Liebe Hart never ran out of things to say. NF: Hey David, this is Zach Leonard. I’m calling about the interview we arranged.
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DLH: Yes! It’s going to have to run a little bit short because I just got back from the dentist to get some teeth pulled and my mouth is all numbed up.
(Nevertheless, the entire interview lasted over an hour. Here are some of the highlights from this long, long conversation...)
DLH: It’s just so expensive living in Los Angeles. And everything just goes up higher and higher and higher. What hurts me is the companies I was loyal to and worked hard for were not loyal back to me. I helped James Quall get on TE and I helped him out with all kinds of food and clothes and things when he became homeless, and when I see him now, he doesn’t even speak to me.
NF: That’s got to be rough.
DLH: And women are the same way. Women say they’re going to show up on dates, and they don’t. I do Christmas decorations for stores - went down on my prices when the companies were going on hard times and need signs to sell Christmas decorations, then they went to my competitor, let me sit around, and didn’t have the heart to tell they weren’t interested in me anymore and left me waiting. I have the same problem with women I’ve invested in when dating. They find someone else and they don’t have the heart to tell me face to face… they just give me the cold shoulder which I feel is pretty mean.
NF: Did that lead to the song off the new album “Love and Gratitude”?
DLH: Yes yes, yes yes. It’s the way people are plastic in California - afraid of being honest. There was a woman I dated at the Christian Science Church and another at the Lutheran church, and when they met someone that they were more interested in, they should have just told me face to face, “there’s nothing, not gonna be anything else between us. I found someone else, I’m not interested in being with you.” Instead they didn’t have the heart to tell me and wanted me to guess by giving me the cold shoulder.
David went on to explain these relationship woes in detail, emphasizing his opinion on this “Californian attitude” and talking about other people who have wronged him. Through it all, he always mentioned trying to forgive people because for him, it’s just the “Christian way that [he] has to follow.”
“It’s just the way people are here in California. They have a saying in Christian Science: ‘Honesty is spiritual policy,’ and there are many more sayings in the bible about this, so I don’t get why Californians are so afraid of the word ‘honesty.’ And companies - I went to three car companies just waiting around, wasting time over and over again at these companies who weren’t serious about hiring me. It cost me a lot of money for gas and money for transportation… AKRON was the worst car dealer in Santa Monica, and the cleaners on the corner of Santa Monica and Westwood Boulevard and cleaners on the other side of the Sherman Williams paint store were both very disrespectful - had me come back four times, the manager was there all the time, and then the assistant said, ‘Well, he doesn’t want to hire you, he doesn’t want to hire you,’ and instead of him being man enough to tell me he had to hide behind his employees which I felt was very cowardly. It’s hard to find people who are honest.”
NF: Well it seems like you have some very strong opinions about Los Angeles. I know a lot of people think about going there to pursue their dreams, but what would you say to them about it based on personal experience?
DLH: I’m gonna tell you something - I’ve been out here, and if anyone wants to be an entertainer they’re going to have to sacrifice. They’re going to have to sacrifice and spend time in the trade, being in college or taking acting classes, music classes, and they’re going to have to learn to be alone and have discipline. That’s what it takes. My career is now at a standstill because I haven’t been offered to do more stuff with Tim and Eric - it’s just not like people think it is. I tried to get on a new television show and was very hurt that my talent agent didn’t even have me listed on the website that I was represented by! And I was with him for five years, and every time I got work for Tim and Eric I gave him his ten percent, so I don’t know why he had the other clients up, but he didn’t have me up! On top of that, his phone was off, and he gave the job to another actor after I had read for the part. So just because his phone was off, I missed out on a part to be in the new “The Odd Couple.” People are just playing too many games. Then, John C. Reilly, Tim and Eric, and other people who care about me said, “This guy, he’s your agent, and he doesn’t have you up as being one of your clients!” That was very embarrassing. It’s just the kind of mess I go through with phony people in California. So I had to let go of him, and now I just need to find another agent. Gotta have some people who will be proud of representing me and having my name online. I’m grateful for what he did do for me, but I just had to let him go.
NF: How would you describe your relationship with Tim and Eric?
DLH: Tim and Eric are great and extremely talented. I was very lucky to work with them - they made me a household name. I’m very grateful for what they’ve done for me, but at this time they’re not using me on any of their productions. They’re only using really big stars. So I’m just trying to get something else and it’s been very difficult. I also just renewed my business license with the city of Santa Monica, so I’m going to be at the Santa Monica Pier Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays starting in February on a regular basis doing portrait sketches and selling my CDs, and I’ll also be at the music center every night in downtown Los Angeles doing music as a street musician.
NF: Have you incorporated any of the songs from the new album in those performances?
DLH: Sometimes. For the most part people will be hearing the older, traditional songs I’ve done on past albums and during my run on Awesome Show: Great Job!, but I’ll be doing those sooner or later. I just have to practice them more on my own because they’re pretty freshly new. But I did play some of them at a big birthday party for the president of a record company, and he liked the songs.
NF: I’ve been listening to the new album that your manager Jonah sent me when we were setting up this interview, and it’s been really solid.
DLH: Well thank you. I wish more of the fans were ordering it and not just listening to it online. I was very lucky to find Jonah after my old manager, Adam Papagan - when a relationship doesn’t work out, it’s time to move on. He’s been making music with me, co-writing songs with me, and is a very talented guy.
NF: One song on Astronaut that I’ve been wondering about is “The Pickleman and Mr. Moose.” Could you tell me more about that story?
DLH: Okay, well “The Pickleman and Mr. Moose” is a true story. I grew up in the south side of Chicago, and my parents moved into a house that was a haunted house. That past owner was a police officer and he had two German sheperds that he loved a lot. While he was out working, someone robbed his house - it was a four-plex house at 8136 S. Ellis St. in Chicago, and his two German shepards got shot and came back as these two orange glowing ghosts, Mr. Moose and the Pickleman. There were three ghosts, one puppy German shepard and two adult ones, and the ghosts would tickle me and my sisters, pull off the covers - these were lonely dogs, connected to the house, and they were very close to their master. They would also throw the silverware and the dishes and play with me and my sisters. Ghosts really do exist. Just like the UFO phenomenon is real, that one is too. I’ve had a lot of family members come back and visit me from the dead, and they watch over me like the aliens do - when I do something that isn’t right, they let me know.
NF: Another song on the new album, “Rap Music,” also grabbed my attention. In it, you talk about how you think the rap music game is a very bad influence on the youth. Care to explain?
DLH: Yeah. It’s destructive. It just teaches hatred, disrespect for the law, disrespect for women… and I think the African-American rap writers, musicians, and entertainers are very talented, but their songs don’t have any structure or substance to them and they need to build up the African-American race and not tear it down - it’s always violence, it’s always drugs, it’s always running away from the police, shooting and killing people, and that’s troublesome. We just need more good leadership in the community - people thinking right, people doing right, people teaching right. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be rolling over in his grave if he knew about what the rap music was teaching.
After this, David laid out some serious thoughts about one of his biggest peeves: wasting money on trains in the public transportation - the man loves his trains, and they’re a huge theme in his older music. Whether it was talking about frustrations with America not using electric trains to cut down on pollution like other nations, explaining in detail how trains are often sold for scrap rather than being reused, or being able to point out specific stories about this wastefulness, he had much to say on the subject. Overall, I learned a lot more about David Liebe Hart than I expected: his ghostly encounters, career as an artist, and general eccentricities really came through in the interview. He also mentioned that he is facing a hard time financially after using much of his money to record and produce his new album, so if you’re a fan or just interested in supporting this man and his work, buy a sketch, CD, buttons, t-shirts, or whatever else grabs your eye from his website’s store. I’m sure he’d appreciate it.
