BEST OF: Trae Crowder on Comedy and The Liberal Redneck

Summary

Title: BEST OF: Trae Crowder on Comedy and The Liberal Redneck
Podcast: The Al Franken Podcast
Host: Al Franken
Guest: Trae Crowder (The Liberal Redneck)
Release Date: March 16, 2025

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Introduction

In this "Best Of" episode of The Al Franken Podcast, host Al Franken sits down with Trae Crowder, widely recognized as "The Liberal Redneck." The conversation navigates through Crowder's personal history, his journey in comedy, and his distinctive blend of Southern culture with progressive political commentary. This episode offers listeners an engaging mix of humor, heartfelt stories, and insightful analysis on contemporary social and political issues.

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Salina, Tennessee: A Town in Transition

Al Franken opens the discussion by highlighting Crowder's roots in Salina, Tennessee—a small town that faced significant economic downturns in the mid to late 1990s. The closure of the Oshkosh Bagash factory led to widespread unemployment, while simultaneously, the town grappled with a surge in pill addiction.

[01:34] Trey Crowder: “Forever and the pills showed up for good at the exact same time in like the mid to, you know, mid to late 90s in Salina. And that combination, just that was it. It was curtains for that town. It's never recovered, you know, to this day.”

Crowder emphasizes how these simultaneous challenges decimated Salina's economy and left enduring scars on the community.

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Personal Struggles and Family Dynamics

Crowder delves into his tumultuous family background, recounting his parents' divorce when he was seven. His mother struggled with opioid addiction, leading to legal issues and intermittent custody of Trae and his sister. His father assumed full-time custody, ceasing child support payments, which later resulted in significant debt after his father's untimely death from pancreatic cancer.

[10:30] Trey Crowder: “I knew what the... This lump sum of money was for. I knew it was this back child support. And like at that moment, I said to her, I was like, so. So you're advising me that I need to sell the house my grandmother currently lives in so I can pay y'all my own child support? Is that what's happening here?”

This personal narrative not only highlights the systemic issues surrounding child support but also underscores Crowder's resilience in overcoming familial and financial hardships.

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From Education to Early Career

Despite his passion for comedy, Crowder pursued an MBA to secure a stable career while nurturing his comedic talents. He worked at the US Department of Energy in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where he managed government contracts. Although he wasn't directly involved with the Manhattan Project's legacy, his role kept him connected to a significant scientific hub.

[22:11] Trey Crowder: “I had no interest in that starving artist at all, like, because I had grown up poor and everything.”

This pragmatic approach allowed Crowder to balance practicality with his creative aspirations.

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The Birth of the Liberal Redneck

Crowder's comedic breakthrough came in 2016 with his "Liberal Redneck" videos, which went viral on social media. These videos cleverly juxtaposed Southern stereotypes with liberal political viewpoints, carving out a unique niche that resonated with a diverse audience.

[35:10] Trey Crowder: “...I realized that, like, if this dude and this thing is what I'm trying to make fun of, then I don't need any kind of fancy setup or camera. In fact, that would be a mistake...”

Inspired by viral content mocking conservative rhetoric, Crowder adopted a raw and unfiltered approach, leveraging humor to challenge and satirize prevailing political narratives.

[37:20] Al Franken: “Let me ask you about that.”

[37:22] Trey Crowder: “Yeah.”

This strategic pivot not only amplified his comedic voice but also positioned him as a prominent voice in political satire.

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Navigating Political Identity in the South

A significant portion of the episode explores the complexities of being a liberal in the traditionally conservative South. Crowder discusses the evolving political landscape, noting the shift from working-class Democrats to the entrenched support for figures like Donald Trump.

[42:22] Trey Crowder: “…places like, like, to this day, gay kids get put out on the street by their Christian parents or like that stuff still happens all the time.”

Crowder reflects on the challenges of maintaining a progressive identity amidst widespread conservative attitudes, emphasizing the importance of representation and empathy in his comedic work.

[46:10] Al Franken: “People start saying it out loud. But yeah, I, I feel like not every Trump voter is racist, but every racist is a Trump voter.”

This candid analysis sheds light on the intricate interplay between cultural identity and political allegiance in modern America.

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Career Milestones and Future Aspirations

Throughout the conversation, Crowder shares milestones from his career, including selling multiple pilot scripts and engaging in various writing projects. Despite setbacks, such as projects affected by the pandemic, he remains steadfast in his pursuit of expanding his comedic and creative endeavors.

[46:14] Trey Crowder: “Yeah, always touring.... I've just written a feature script that I'm about to try to get read and see what happens.”

Crowder's dedication to his craft is evident as he continues to tour, produce content, and collaborate with industry veterans to bring his vision to broader audiences.

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Closing Reflections

As the episode concludes, Crowder expresses his admiration for Al Franken's legacy in comedy and political discourse. The mutual respect between host and guest underscores the episode's theme of bridging cultural divides through humor and understanding.

[46:51] Trey Crowder: “I. I want to say, just so you know, like, as somebody with that background who's a longtime fan of comedy and I grew up watching SNL and all that... I appreciate you having me on it. I think it's very cool because you're awesome. Kind of a legend. So I appreciate it.”

Al Franken wraps up by thanking Trae Crowder for his candidness and contributions, leaving listeners with a profound appreciation for Crowder's unique perspective and enduring commitment to his craft.

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Conclusion

This episode of The Al Franken Podcast offers a comprehensive and intimate look into Trae Crowder's life as a comedian navigating the intricate terrains of Southern culture and liberal political ideology. Through heartfelt storytelling and sharp humor, Crowder illustrates the power of comedy as a tool for social commentary and personal expression. Whether you're a fan of comedy, political discourse, or both, this conversation provides valuable insights into the challenges and triumphs of being a "Liberal Redneck" in today's America.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Trey Crowder [01:34]: “Forever and the pills showed up for good at the exact same time in like the mid to, you know, mid to late 90s in Salina. And that combination, just that was it. It was curtains for that town. It's never recovered, you know, to this day.”

• Trey Crowder [10:30]: “I knew what the... This lump sum of money was for. I knew it was this back child support. And like at that moment, I said to her, I was like, so. So you're advising me that I need to sell the house my grandmother currently lives in so I can pay y'all my own child support? Is that what's happening here?”

• Trey Crowder [22:11]: “I had no interest in that starving artist at all, like, because I had grown up poor and everything.”

• Trey Crowder [35:10]: “...I realized that, like, if this dude and this thing is what I'm trying to make fun of, then I don't need any kind of fancy setup or camera. In fact, that would be a mistake...”

• Al Franken [46:10]: “People start saying it out loud. But yeah, I, I feel like not every Trump voter is racist, but every racist is a Trump voter.”

• Trey Crowder [46:51]: “I. I want to say, just so you know, like, as somebody with that background who's a longtime fan of comedy and I grew up watching SNL and all that... I appreciate you having me on it. I think it's very cool because you're awesome. Kind of a legend. So I appreciate it.”

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This summary captures the essence of the podcast episode by providing a structured overview, integrating key discussions, personal anecdotes, and notable quotes with proper attribution and timestamps.

Transcript

[Al Franken]

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[Al Franken]

Hey everybody. We got a best of today, which means it's a great one, you know, for a change, Trey Crowder, also known as the liberal Redneck, joined me and I have to say we had a wonderful conversation. Trey is a great stand up comedian. I saw him live a few months ago and he's just put out his latest standup special, Trash Daddy up on YouTube. And I think you'll see from our conversation that Trey has a brilliant and very funny mind. Born and raised in Salina, Tennessee, a small town with no traffic lights and one factory, Oshkosh Bagash, which left Salina and went to Mexico in the 90s. And as Trey says, the jobs left.

[Trey Crowder]

Forever and the pills showed up for good at the exact same time in like the mid to, you know, mid to late 90s in Salina. And that combination, just that was it. It was curtains for that town. It's never recovered, you know, to this day.

[Al Franken]

I know you'll enjoy this discussion. In the meantime, you'll recall during the entire presidential campaign, Trump said he would the war in Ukraine in one day, just as he said he would immediately end inflation. You'll recall that Ukraine took over territory last year in the Kursk region of Russia, but are now retreating thanks to a Russian push that appeared to accelerate after Trump froze military aid and intelligence support to Ukraine on March 3. The flow of aid returned just this past week after Ukraine agreed to Trump's proposal for a 30 day ceasefire. Well, Putin has thus far rejected a ceasefire. He believes he has an advantage over Ukraine's depleted manpower. The Wall Street Journal published a report from Pokrovsk, a city in eastern Ukraine where they are now outnumbered by the Russians about 10 to 1. But Ukraine's growing supply of drones, plus influxes of new soldiers have allowed the Ukrainians to continue fighting the Russian advance. The Russians are suffering at least seven casualties for every Ukrainian soldier injured or killed, but the Journal says Kyiv would need 10 times as many troops there to stop Moscow's troops entirely. It seems that Putin is willing to take this ratio of casualties and has said that any pause in fighting at this point would be in Ukraine's interest because Russia is gaining on the battlefield. Putin, after all, has little incentive to end a war in which he now appears to have an upper hand. So Ukraine resolved in one day, the economy working on all gears, the stock market hitting record highs, and now Trump's telling us there's a chance for a recession this year. Ah, hell. Enjoy. Trey Crowder.

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[Al Franken]

You're known as the liberal redneck. And that's just one of your iterations, right?

[Trey Crowder]

It's kind of weird because that's, I mean, yes, I for sure am, because what happened was I was a stand up comic. I was trying to do. I was doing comedy and trying to pursue that whole thing while living in Knoxville in the early 2010s. And then I went viral in 2016 with the video that I called, you know, the liberal, like a character. And it was more of a character at the time. Now basically those videos are pretty much just me. It was like me really cranked up and I called it the liberal redneck. And it was just like a, you know, a thing I was trying. Another thing I was attempting as a comedian, like a web series. Let's see what happens with this. And then that went viral and it became the thing I was known for. And so then. Yeah, but now when I put them on the videos on YouTube, I still call them liberal redneck. But everywhere else I'm just, you know, listed as my name. Just Trey.

[Al Franken]

Well, when you do liberal redneck, you it's different than some of the other stuff and it's, it's, it is still a caricature of yourself in a way.

[Trey Crowder]

What I used to always say was, it's just, it's a character in as much as it's me like cranked up a little bit. And you know, early on in the very first videos, it was cranked up way more. Oh, and like I, I cranked the accent up and everything.

[Al Franken]

Oh, okay.

[Trey Crowder]

Gradually over the years because I wanted to sort of like, I didn't Want people to only see me as just the liberal redneck, basically. So I sort of. Over the years, it became more just me, but it comes from a very authentic place. I'm from a very, you know, stereotypically redneck background, upbringing, place in the world, and I am a liberal person. So it's all real. It's just that, like, comedically, I, you know, talk about a bunch of other stuff too, in my podcast or on stage and whatnot.

[Al Franken]

It's.

[Trey Crowder]

I'm not just purely a political comic.

[Al Franken]

Right.

[Trey Crowder]

Generally.

[Al Franken]

Right. Although I watch your. Your stand up special. Well, let's go. Let's go talk about where you're from. You're from Salina, Tennessee. Let's locate it for us.

[Trey Crowder]

Salina is. It's like halfway between Nashville and Knoxville and then 40 miles north on the Kentucky line. So it's. Tennessee is divided into east Middle and West Tennessee. It's northeast. Middle Tennessee is where it is.

[Al Franken]

So Salina had oshkosh B'gosh as its main employer. Right? Is that right?

[Trey Crowder]

Yes, for years and years. You know, like since way before I was born, it was like the. The beating heart of the town's economy. You know, people either worked at the Oshkosh factory or they worked at the various businesses that like, kind of supported and sold things to people that worked at the Oshkosh factory, basically.

[Al Franken]

And then Oshkosh left.

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah, in the 90s.

[Al Franken]

In the 90s. Went to Mexico. The factory or.

[Trey Crowder]

Yes, yeah, I know that. That became sort of cliche, misnomer or whatever over the year for a lot of places, like all the jobs went to Mexico. And that's not what happened with all of them. But in the case of Oshkosh, specifically, like, yeah, it literally went to Mexico in the 90s.

[Al Franken]

And when Oshkosh left, the pills came in. That's. When we talked the other day. That's what you said.

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah, that's how I often put it. Because it's true. I say, like, the jobs left forever and the pills showed up for good at the exact same time in like the mid to, you know, mid to late 90s in Salina. And that combination just. That was it. It was curtains for that town. It's never recovered, you know, to this day.

[Al Franken]

And it was personal for you. The pill part. You tell a story in one of your podcasts that I saw, it wasn't the liberal redneck.

[Trey Crowder]

Oh, putting on airs.

[Al Franken]

Putting on airs.

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah, Me and Corey, Ron Forester, he's also up Hillbilly from A small Southern town. We talk about fancy stuff, fancy people, culture and fancy things, you know.

[Al Franken]

Okay, on that, you told about almost having to pay your own child support.

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah.

[Al Franken]

Tell that story because it sort of says a lot about who you are.

[Trey Crowder]

So. Yeah, I'm also. I'm currently doing that on stage too. But I'll just. I'll just tell you the actual story instead of doing like a bit about it that. So, like, oh, you can do a.

[Al Franken]

Bit if you want.

[Trey Crowder]

My dad.

[Al Franken]

Or we've in weave in a speed or two of your bit.

[Trey Crowder]

So my parents got divorced when I was seven. Right. Which surprises no one. People are only ever surprised that they were married at all. You know what I mean? But they were. And they got divorced when I was 7. And my mom, you said earlier the pill thing was very personal for me. It was. My mom ended up getting very wrapped up in that whole thing. You know, she ended up getting strung out on pills, but also she sold them and got caught, put multiple times, went. Was in and out of jail and was an addict for most of my childhood. So my dad raised us. But when they first got divorced for any of that happened, like early 90s rural Tennessee, parents get divorced. Like, mom just kind of got custody of us kind of by default, basically. I mean, I was seven at the time, so. But that's just how it always worked. Like, it would be very rare then and there for a man to get sole custody of his kids. And that was the case. She got custody of us, but my dad was like, okay, but I mean, they're going to live with me, though, you know, and the judge was just like, you got a Camaro to work on or something? Just let her have it. You know, like, what are we doing here? From the very beginning, they split custody. And within just a couple years, we lived with our dad full time, always, every day, every night. And when that happened, he stopped paying her child support because in his, you know, in his eyes, that was bullshit. It's like she's never even here there with me all the time. Why would I pay her child support? But as it turns out, you know, that's bullshit. It's not a formally recognized legal defense for not paying child support. Right. Like, he didn't. He didn't do anything legally or with the courts to establish. He just stopped paying her because, you know, he's a redneck.

[Al Franken]

Yeah. And he established custody. He didn't establish that with the courts either.

[Trey Crowder]

No. Right.

[Al Franken]

Yeah.

[Trey Crowder]

That just all happened. He just left the courts.

[Al Franken]

It happened because it was the right thing to do. Even though she got custody legally?

[Trey Crowder]

Right at first. Right. So it went on for years like that. And then eventually, and I don't know what took him so long, but eventually like the state of Tennessee came after him for it, for all this back child support. And my dad, we had no money, so I mean, there wasn't anything. He didn't have it. And at the point they came after him, I don't know, it was like thousands of dollars. And he then did have to go to court. Me and my sister had. I don't get into all this in the stand up, but me and my sister had to go to court and like give sworn statements as kids saying, we live with him full time, we always have, whatever.

[Al Franken]

How old were you at this point?

[Trey Crowder]

Probably like 12ish. And my sister was like 9. 12 and 9.

[Al Franken]

So it's like five years. You've been five years living with your dad?

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah, yeah. And I might have been a little bit older, but not much older than that. And again, I was a kid, so I don't remember exactly how it worked out. All I know is like they, I guess they reached some kind of compromise with him, but it ended up being like, okay, well here we can't just let you completely off with this for some reason. So they started saying you got to pay. Like I think it was like literally 10 or 15amonth pretty much for like ever after that, you know, to pay it all back. That's what he started doing. And then he died when I was in my 20s, right. And I hadn't thought about any of that in years.

[Al Franken]

This is pancreatic cancer.

[Trey Crowder]

He had pancreatic cancer, which was insane. I mean, from the time he found out and got diagnosed with it to the time he was gone, it was like two and a half months or something. I mean, it was so fast. And I hadn't thought about any of that child support stuff in years. But then my dad dies and it's just me and my sister. And I got a call from the state of Tennessee one day and they were just like, yeah, so, you know, and I think there were letters and stuff too. It's like, you know, your father still owed the state of Tennessee. I feel like it was like $8,000 or something like that. And I was like, okay, well, so what? You know, and they were like, what are we going to do about this? I was like, I don't know, you tell me, you know, and then they were like, are there any assets you can liquidate and I was like, asset, you know what? I said, well, there's the house I grew up in where my mama still currently lives. At the time, my mama, his mother was still living in that.

[Al Franken]

That's your grandma?

[Trey Crowder]

Yes. Yeah. My dad's mom, she has also since passed away, but at the time she was living there had been my dad's house. She moved in with him after her husband, my grandpa, had died years before.

[Al Franken]

Okay.

[Trey Crowder]

So it was my dad's house, but she still was living in it. And I told him that, I said, well, there's that house. That's literally the only thing he owned or whatever. And the state of Tennessee person on the phone was like, that's perfect. That's great. So here's what you could do. You could sell that house and, you know, use the proceeds to pay us off, and then, you know, you can do whatever you want with the rest of it. And I literally said on the phone, I knew what the. This lump sum of money was for. I knew it was this back child support. And like at that moment, I said to her, I was like, so. So you're advising me that I need to sell the house my grandmother currently lives in so I can pay y'all my own child support? Is that what's happening here?

[Al Franken]

Yes.

[Trey Crowder]

And when I said it like that, she was like, can we call you back? Right? And. And I got a call a couple hours later from her, her manager or whatever, and he was just like. He was like, yeah, you're right. Don't worry about that. We wiped all that out. We took care of it. Right? And at this point in the bit I've. I've done a thing earlier where I talked about how I don't feel like I'm white. I'm white trash. And then when this happens, I say that's the first time in my life that I was like, damn, maybe I am white. Actually just, you know, they actually just let this go. But yeah, for a minute there, they try. Because you can't be held accountable for like your parents debts or whatever, unless it's debt to the state, apparently. And that's what makes it different. And the only way they can't like come after me and force me to pay it, but they can do what they tried to do. They can take like, you know, if there's any inheritance or whatever. Yeah, property, whatever, they can take that first.

[Al Franken]

But when you frame it the way you did, which is you want me to pay for my own child support, that kind of crystallizes it enough that they had to go, oh, okay. That's funny that you use it in your standup because it's so good.

[Trey Crowder]

Thank you. I appreciate it. Of course.

[Al Franken]

But I mean, I was sampling your stuff, and that's one I randomly hit on. And it's a great story. So let's. Let's go back to your mom. She was OxyContin. That was her drug of choice, right?

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah. I mean, any of those opioids like that, like, anything she get her hand, you know, oxys, percocets, any of those things. But yeah.

[Al Franken]

And she's sober now?

[Trey Crowder]

Yes, she is sober now. She's been in recovery for a long time. The thing that I realized when I finally got older, like, for a long time, I had real negative opinion of, like, drug addicts and whatnot. Like, I was the type of person who's just like, just get it together. What's wrong with you? Like, that was my. Because I had this very personal connection to it. I realized years later, as I became an adult and I guess had my own kids and stuff. Like, I finally realized I had more empathy for her now because it's become clear, like, my mom also has, like, outside and around, that she has, like, mental health issues too. Like, for sure. So she's thankfully sober, but she still got, you know, she's got her things.

[Al Franken]

Well, probably being addicted that long and in, that.

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah.

[Al Franken]

Definitely changed the arc of her mental health.

[Trey Crowder]

Right.

[Al Franken]

I would think. Okay, so then you graduated from high school there and you went to Tennessee.

[Trey Crowder]

Tech, which is 40 miles down the road in Cookeville, which still to me was like, you know, I used Cookville, Tennessee. It's a cow college in a town of like 20,000 people or something like that. But, like, I thought Cookeville was like a legitimate city as a kid because of how small Salina is, you know.

[Al Franken]

Right. Salina has what? What is it? What? Or had what when you were a kid in terms of.

[Trey Crowder]

City itself is like around a thousand people. The whole county has maybe like 6,000 or something like that spread out. We have no traffic lights in Salina or McDonald's or Walmart's or anything like that. I graduated high school with like 65 people. That was the biggest class they'd ever had. Most classes at Salina are like, you know, 40ish students. Maybe 35, 40. So that's about how big it is.

[Al Franken]

And, you know, you want to be a comedian at this point, is that right?

[Trey Crowder]

My dad had run the video store in Salina. It was a converted single wide trailer called Crowders Video, and it was like the video store in town, and I grew up in that. So, like. And my dad was a big movie buff and all that type of thing. And so, like, I had only ever really wanted to do show business stuff. And then from the time I was like, 12, I always tell the stories it being 12 years old, because that was when me and my dad watched Bigger and Blacker Chris Rock Special when it came out in 1998. And that was when it sort of crystallized into, like, you know, that specifically. Like, that is the thing I want to try. And I was like, kind of a funny kid at school. Other kids would tell me, like, you should be a comedian or whatever.

[Al Franken]

So they did. They didn't have those. Those kind of concert tapes or videos when I was kids. So I got it from watching the Tonight show with my dad and from those comedians, Buddy Hackett.

[Trey Crowder]

Did you see, like, your dad laughing at stuff that was on the Tonight Show?

[Al Franken]

Oh, yeah, yeah, my dad.

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah, right.

[Al Franken]

My dad inhaled a pipe for his entire life until he died of lung cancer.

[Trey Crowder]

And you'll have that.

[Al Franken]

Yeah. And he. My.

[Trey Crowder]

If.

[Al Franken]

If Buddy Hackett came on, for example, on the Tonight show, my mom would get up and leave the room because my dad would always laugh and then start coughing and cough up phlegm, right? And this is why I always. I always have a handkerchief in my right pocket, right front pocket, because my dad always did. But I don't have the phlegm problem that he quite had from I don't smoke. Anyway, the point is we have similar. I think around the same age, started thinking comedy.

[Trey Crowder]

I've found that, like, a lot of comedy, a lot of male comedians especially, or comedy people, I've heard of a lot of similar stories about saying they're something made their dad laugh or whatever. Their dad. And like, specific, Bigger and Blacker specifically is the special that has that whole bit about, like, Chris Rock goes in this whole thing. He's like, every song is about mama. Everybody talks about mom all the time. Nobody gives a. About Daddy. He's like, you know, what about that? And then he goes in the whole. It's like, all Daddy gets this big piece of chicken. He's got this whole big chunk on, like, fathers actually raise their children. And it's super hilarious. My dad was just like. I mean, just losing his mind throughout all of that. And, you know, I didn't think of it in that way at the time, but I definitely think that's part of why I was like, oh, hey, you know, I'd like to do that or whatever. But my dad was always. He. He was always like, I can't do these anymore. But at the time, as a kid, he'd have friends over and he called me in the room and he'd be like, hey, do your forest Gump boy or do your Al Gore.

[Al Franken]

You know, the Al Gore that you came up with. Daryl Hamm did it, but Jim Downey, who's a great SNL writer, legendary writer, not only wrote that, but taught Daryl the. The impression.

[Trey Crowder]

Oh, yeah, I didn't know that part, but it was definitely. I was just trying to ape what Daryl Hammond was doing. For sure. What's wild is like, now I know Al Gore. Like, I ended up doing comedy at Al Gore's birthday party and, like, corporate retreat he had and stuff. And so. But anyway, my dad was always, like, encouraging me to do funny stuff too. Like, he thought I was funny even as a kid, and his friends did too. So it was all part of that. So. But I also was making straight A's. I was making really good grades. Nobody in my family had ever gone to college, so it was always like, you're gonna go to college. And so I went to college and I went and got an mba, but I had no interest in business or anything. The only reason I got that is because I thought it would give me the best chance of getting a, like, good paying job while I started.

[Al Franken]

You didn't want to wait tables. You didn't want to wait.

[Trey Crowder]

I had no interest in that starving artist at all, like, because I had grown up poor and everything. And I waited tables in college and I was like, I don't want to do that. So that's why I got a mba and then I got a job working for the US Department of Energy. And then Oak Ridge was it. Yeah, Oak Ridge. Yeah. A lot of people don't even know. I didn't realize until I left Tennessee, a lot of people don't know anything about Oak Ridge.

[Al Franken]

Well, it's one of the labs, right? Yeah.

[Trey Crowder]

But it also, like, Oak Ridge was technically the headquarters and was one half of the Manhattan Project. They enriched all the uranium there that got sent to Los Alamos and put in the bombs and stuff, you know. But like in Oppenheimer and all that, it's always in the public consciousness. It thought that was all like Los Alamos, but in Tennessee we knew all about Oak Ridge, but that was the forerunner to the doe and they just never left. They're still cleaning up nuclear, like, spent material and stuff to this day. But they also do a bunch of other things. They have Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Like, there's a particle accelerator, world's fastest supercomputer, all this crazy stuff there in Oak Ridge. And.

[Al Franken]

Yeah, and that's what you ran, that. You. You developed this. The super computer, right?

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah, the. Yeah, the supercomputer. I was that guy. I was in charge of that.

[Al Franken]

I mean, your master's in. In business.

[Trey Crowder]

Business, yeah. That's. It's funny, because people in Salina, like, that's what. When I would come back to my hometown or whatever, they'd be like, they got you in charge of the nukes trade. They literally meant it. You know, they thought that. But I was. You know, I was a desk jock. I was doing contracts, government contracts, and, like, mostly for most of my time there, janitorial and IT contracts and that type of stuff, you know, not. Nothing crazy.

[Al Franken]

So did you meet your wife there?

[Trey Crowder]

Met her in Cookville when I was at Tennessee Tech and worked at. I said I waited tables. One of the places I worked at was a Cajun place called Crawdaddy's. I think it's the best restaurant in Cookville, and I thought that at the time, too. But I worked there, and she also worked there, and that's how we met.

[Al Franken]

Now, if they put best restaurant in Cookeville, Trey Crowder in the window, would that mean anything?

[Trey Crowder]

I don't know. It could. Could drive some people away. You know what I mean? Like, I'm a polarizing figure, and I don't cook ville. I don't know. But like, in Salina, for sure, Like, I'm not. Not really a hometown hero because of the nature of what I do. A lot of people see me as a blood trader, but, you know, what are you going to do?

[Al Franken]

Okay. Yeah. No. So that might drive business away, I see.

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah. Possibly. Yeah. Yeah.

[Al Franken]

Some. And the other business, they probably already had. So it's a small town, right?

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah. By any. By any real metric, Cookeville is also a small town.

[Al Franken]

That's where you met your wife.

[Trey Crowder]

Yes.

[Al Franken]

At that restaurant that you're.

[Trey Crowder]

Yes.

[Al Franken]

And now this is me making too much of this. I've heard you reference it a couple times, I think, which is that somebody was sick or something, and one of the other waitresses said something like, I'll pray for you. And your wife said something else.

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah, it actually was another waitress had gotten a dui. You know, she got in, like, some trouble with the law and other certain. We were all at the restaurant, and this other server heard that, and Goes, oh, man, well, I'm gonna pray for her. And my wife goes, that's crazy. I too am going to do nothing at all to actually help.

[Al Franken]

And was that a moment where you went, yeah, that's her. Because that's my.

[Trey Crowder]

I had never. I'd never really even thought about it until I met her and until like that and everything. But literally every girl I'd ever dated up until that point was like your stereotypical, like, small town, Christian conservative girl. Like, very churchy, very conservative. Like, one of my ex girlfriends now is like, I don't know if she still was, but on Facebook for a while, she was like actively campaigning for Parlor. You remember Parlor? Like the, the right wing social media thing. They tried to make a thing. Yeah, right. She was like, she was on Facebook trying to get people to sign up for Parlor and stuff. Like, she's like hardcore MAGA and everything. And they had all been like that when I met her. I real. She was the first girl I'd ever met around there or dated that was like me and that. She was a religious, wasn't down with church and the Lord and all that. And she liked gay people and stuff.

[Al Franken]

That sort of begs the question, what percentage of the south and of Tennessee and of those states, those states did liberals represent? Is it 10%, 20%?

[Trey Crowder]

Well, I mean, I think when you say, do liberals represent? That question, I think generally, you know, you look at the electoral maps and whatnot, and it's, you know, high 30s, 40s, 46, 47% blue usually. So that there's that many Democrats or whatever in each of the Southern states that just are outnumbered. But there's. That's still millions of people. But when you, you know, narrow it to liberal rednecks, that changes things because obviously a huge number of that people is the black population in the south and things like that. And that's the other thing too, is a lot of the Democrats in the south are people from. And who live in the cities. Right, right. And they probably would not self identify as being rednecks, I would imagine, or they don't think of themselves as rednecky. Most of them don't have an axe.

[Al Franken]

No. If you're in Nashville. If you're in Nashville. I did the City Winery in Nashville recently, a few shows, and my audience, you know, I would not say were. Were rednecks. No.

[Trey Crowder]

Right. So. Right. So when you limit it to that, I mean, you know, it's a pretty small percentage, I'm not going to lie. Like, I. We're not Unicorns. Like, my sister is like me. Most of my good friends from Salina that I'm still friends with to this day, which. So we're talking, like, five dudes, but they're all also like me, and they seem pretty rednecky, so I'm not an actual unicorn. But it's there. It's not a huge, huge number of people, for sure. I don't even know what the percentage would be like in a town like mine where most people are kind of redneck. I mean, what percentage are, like, liberal at all? I mean, yeah, 10, maybe 10 to 15, but I'm pulling that straight out of thin air. I don't actually know, but not a lot.

[Al Franken]

I want to get to so many things. Your career. I also want to. Your uncle was gay, and that was something that he was very accepted by his family.

[Trey Crowder]

Yes, Uncle Tim. Yeah. See, like, for example, on your last question, Uncle Tim was the president of the Clay County Democratic Party for a long time, and it was like him and three women and stuff. But, yeah, my Uncle Tim was gay. I knew that ever since I knew what being gay even was like when my parents, like, sat me down to explain, you know, sexuality, like bird and the bees talk or whatever. Like, from that moment, I knew Uncle Tim was gay. And so I was, like, nine or ten. I didn't think. I was like, okay, whatever. I didn't know that was weird or anything at all to anybody. I mean, or that anybody had a problem with that. I loved Uncle Tim. I still love Uncle Tim. He's still kicking. He's great. He's hilarious. But after I found that out, after I understood what all that meant, then I started noticing, like, things that I had wouldn't have noticed before, like the homophobia and like, that that you see in churches or around places like Salina. So the first thing I was ever openly, I guess, progressive about was LGBT stuff because of my gay uncle. But I didn't think of that as being a political thing. I was just, like, standing up for my uncle. You know what I mean? Of course, that was kind of the gateway thing. I guess that's kind of what I've always said. I. In retrospect, I think about, like, my grandma, his mom, she just died recently and actually talked about it at her funeral a little bit. Like, I also didn't have a frame of reference to really appreciate how cool it was of, like, my grandma and my grandpa and everything. They accepted my uncle still, that him and his partner, my Uncle Mike, who they're not together anymore, but they were together for like 30 years. They were at every Christmas, every holiday. It was like they didn't ostracize him or kick him out or anything. And you can't take that for granted. And you know, places like, like, to this day, gay kids get put out on the street by their Christian parents or like that stuff still happens all the time. And so that was definitely a big factor that, you know, my family didn't do that to Uncle Tim and wouldn't have done that.

[Al Franken]

Okay, we're gonna take a break now. We'll be right back with Trey Crowder, the liberal Redneck.

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[Al Franken]

Let's talk about your career. You decided to do a video. What, your second one hit?

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah, I started standup in 2010.

[Al Franken]

Where were you doing standup then? I'm sorry to interrupt, but where did you do standup?

[Trey Crowder]

I started at Side Splitters Comedy Club in Knoxville, Tennessee, which has since closed down. But like in places like that, you go. I'd go to Chattanooga to the Comedy Catch or to Zany's in Nashville.

[Al Franken]

That's where you did your special. Is Zany's right?

[Trey Crowder]

Yes, I consider Zany's like my home club now because that's, you know, I'm from, from middle Tennessee and whatnot. But I started in Knoxville though, and a lot of bar shows, a lot of breweries, those types of shows were kind of just starting to happen a lot whenever I started, at least in areas like that. And so by 2016 I was like featuring in comedy clubs and headlining like bar shows and things like that. I was pretty, you know, well established in like the south at my level. So, you know, the bar show level. And I was doing a lot of comedy festivals. I had come to LA and did some shows. I got a manager in la. I got into this NBC talent development program for writing, late night writing. Actually. I'd submitted a packet and got into the NBC Late Night Writers Workshop and went to 30 Rock for a while.

[Al Franken]

When you went to 30 Rock, there is a late night show at 30 Rock?

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah, no, we went to, we like toured the SNL studios and the Tonight show set and the Late show set and all that stuff and like took classes and lessons from writers and you know, it was like a, like a week long intensive thing at 30 Rock all about NBC's like late night slate, you know, SNL and the Tonight show and all that. It was, I mean it was super cool. Like it was great and that. So like at that NBC thing, I was the only comic who didn't live in New York or la and I was from Knoxville, you know, so like, especially considering I was in Knoxville, I was feeling good about the whole thing. I thought it was going well. I still had my day job and all that. And at the time I had this bit that I would do and stand up. And the premise, the way I would set it up was like, anytime anyone hears my accent, they always think, you know, you're a bible thumping troglodyte or a dipshit or whatever. And it's because of, that's the only thing you ever see in the media or on the news. Like that's all you ever see is somebody. If somebody sounds like me, they're going to say some crazy dumb stuff every time. So I was like, so what I'm going to, I'm going to try to combat this. You know, I'm going to start going out in public and being just as loud and just as crazy and just as redneck. But I'm going to say a lot of like smart progressive stuff to try to balance the scales. You know, that's how I would set it up. And then I would just start yelling progressive Things, but in a very redneck sort of fat. You know what I mean? Like, my. My F150 has got a bumper sticker on it that says my other truck Suprius. You know, like that type of thing in stand up. And it always did really well, even in, like, Southern clubs and stuff. At the time, I would tell my friends, I would be like, you know that bit I do about being, like, a liberal redneck or whatever, it's like, I was. I've been thinking about making, like, a web series around that idea or something, and every one of them, every time would be like, that's a great idea. You should totally do that, right? And I was like. But in my head, I was like, I don't.

[Al Franken]

That's funny.

[Trey Crowder]

I don't know how to edit. I don't have a good camera. I need all this stuff. It felt like a barrier to entry, which did not actually exist. And then in 2016, I saw this video that was going viral on the right. Like, so people I went to high school with and stuff were sharing it on Facebook. Had like 30 million views. It was this preacher in North Carolina. Like a young preacher, kind of looked like me. Like, white southern guy, dark hair, all this stuff. And he's standing out in the woods holding his phone, screaming about the transgender bathroom thing in North Carolina. Not a dick joking site. Nothing funny about it. Just, like preaching fire and brimstone about the evils of these freaks in the bathrooms with our little girls or whatever. That's what he was doing. And it had, like 30 million views and all this stuff. And it was like a light bulb moment for me. I realized I was like, if. If this dude and this thing is what I'm trying to make fun of, then I don't need any kind of fancy setup or camera. In fact, that would be a mistake. Like, that would be dumb for me to do that. What I should do is I should just do exactly what he does. I should just go out in the woods or in my truck or whatever and just yell in my phone, you know? And when I realized that, then I made the first one a couple days later. The first one was actually about Tennessee considering making the Holy Bible the official state book of Tennessee. And the whole. The premise, the angle in that one was just like, oh, now y'all give a shit about books, huh? You know how often I got called gay for liking books as a kid? Like, you know, that was. And it got like 70,000 views on Facebook or something, which I was over the moon about. Thrilled So I was like, okay, so, all right, I guess I'm on to something. I'll keep going. The second one I made was about the transgender bathroom law, and that one went to the moon. It went, like, crazy viral, like, you know, tens of millions of views. And I got, you know, suddenly I could tour, I could sell tickets. I got a development deal with Warner Brothers. I got a book deal. Like, all this stuff happened, like, literally overnight. And then I, shortly after that, quit my day job and went full time into. Into comedy. And that was eight years ago. So I've been doing it ever since, you know, and I've sold a number of pilots and, you know, trying to get them off the ground.

[Al Franken]

Let me ask you about that.

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah.

[Al Franken]

I imagine when you got your deal, was it let's do liberal redneck?

[Trey Crowder]

Pretty much.

[Al Franken]

And was you as a character? I read something about or heard somewhere that the first one was set, like, at a place like Oak Ridge.

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah, the first one. We really tried to make that a big part of it. Like, you know, my character worked at a fictionalized Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and there was all these, like, there's redneck characters and brilliant scientist characters in the same place and all this. But we also tried to do some of the sort of, like, liberal rednecky stuff that people knew me for or whatever, and it just, it was kind of too convoluted. It was like it wasn't clear what it was actually about.

[Al Franken]

Now, did you write that with other people who are more experienced in Hollywood?

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah, Warner Brothers, you know, they set a lot of meetings for me with experienced writers, and it's like, okay, you know, and figure out who you're going to do this with.

[Al Franken]

Did you shoot a pilot on that?

[Trey Crowder]

No, I haven't shot any of them.

[Al Franken]

You haven't shot any of them?

[Trey Crowder]

No. Sold four, wrote the scripts, turned them in, didn't get any of them. Shot one of them. I feel like it came down to the wire, came very close. It was with abc, and they don't tell you a reason, but I fully believe the reason that one didn't get shot is because that was the year they decided to reboot Roseanne.

[Al Franken]

Right, right.

[Trey Crowder]

And it was like, you know, two working class things at the same time or whatever. It couldn't do that. But who knows?

[Al Franken]

That's silly. Yeah.

[Trey Crowder]

But, yeah, they. I had all these meetings with writers. I ended up doing the first two with John in Bomb, who's the guy that created Party Down, Longtime comedy writer. I look, Party Down's a great show. And the producer was Rob Thomas, who's produced all kinds of stuff's been around forever, but he created veronica Mars and iZombie and whatnot. He's from Texas.

[Al Franken]

And how many pilot scripts have you written?

[Trey Crowder]

I mean, I've written a bunch. I sold four pilots, three of which were kind of like, you know, a version of the Trey Crowder show or whatever. And then the fourth one was a totally different thing that I got. I mentioned earlier, I did stand up at Al Gore's birthday party. At that I met T Bone Burnett and Cali. Corey. Corey wrote the.

[Al Franken]

Yeah, yeah, I know them.

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah. Love. They're. They're like. I mean, I love them now. They're, like, good friends of mine at this point, but I met them there. T Bone had an idea for a show at the time, and he was like, you want to help us with this? And I was like, of course. And so we put this show together with them. That had nothing to do with me, but I did help them conceive of it all and write it all and everything. And we sold that to Amazon. That one, I feel like, was a victim of the pandemic is what happened there, if you ask me. But I've also. I've written, like, Warner Brothers paid me to write a spec script, and then I've written other things on spec and pilots just because I want to. I just finished a feature script that I'm about to try to get read and see what happens. I mean, I've written a bunch of things, but I've sold four.

[Al Franken]

I. I had an idea that I ran by T Bone, which was Mozart's son and Salieri's son form a band. And Mozart's son is really brilliant and invents rock and roll. And Salieri's son is the guy whose dad buys the amps. Except there are no amps, but, I mean. And has no talent at all, right? And. But I know what it is to write things and not get them done.

[Trey Crowder]

That's the other thing, too, is like, people don't really like people in my hometown, you know, I would sell a pilot and that would get in Deadline or something, which would then be on, you know, the Internet. And Deadline just says abc buys Trae Crowder sitcom or whatever, like, that type of thing. Well, people my hometown think that means.

[Al Franken]

Like, you're on tv.

[Trey Crowder]

When is it coming on? Wednesday. You know, like. And I've had to explain to so many people so many times, it's like, that's not actually how it works. And the vast majority of the things they buy don't actually make it on the air, you know, whatever.

[Al Franken]

So have you seen the Time magazine where they interview Trump?

[Trey Crowder]

No. I mean, I knew that it happened, but I haven't read it yet.

[Al Franken]

So let me run some of these by you. This is Heather Cox Richardson's sort of summary of the author. Eric Cortalessa was a guy from Time magazine and this is sort of what he writes too. Trump plans to use the military to round up, put in camps and deport more than 11 million people. He is willing to permit Republican dominated states to monitor pregnancies and prosecute people who violate abortion bans. That sounds pretty Orwellian, doesn't it?

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah, yeah, I know. And the craziest part is, you know that like his people are hearing this. Like, hell yeah, brother, I know.

[Al Franken]

Well, that's what he kind of says.

[Trey Crowder]

This playing the hits.

[Al Franken]

Yeah. And he has stuff that's completely, you know, got the US Civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic preparedness office. That's a very weird thing for him to do considering how ill prepared we were and how he kept being ill prepared.

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah. I imagine he just sees it as a total win on his part or refuses to acknowledge any kind of wrongdoing when it comes to that. And so it's like closing that. It's his way of saying, you don't need that. We never needed that. I was right the whole time. You don't need something like that.

[Al Franken]

There you go.

[Trey Crowder]

Anything that has to do with Biden, like, get rid of it.

[Al Franken]

Yeah, you distilled that down. I mean, Obama had it too, and they got rid of it when he came in.

[Trey Crowder]

Right.

[Al Franken]

And yeah, that's, that's good thinking. I mean, do you get asked this all the time? What are actual real rednecks? They're Trumpies, right?

[Trey Crowder]

I mean. Yeah, now they are. And it's so weird to me. I mean, basically in 2016, because of everything we already talked about with Salina and the story of Salina and the factory leaving while the Clintons were in office and all this stuff prior to that, for most years, Salina was actually like a working collar blue county, like Southern Democrat camp. But like well into the 80s and 90s, like it went for Al Gore and all this and then, and now it's hardcore Trump country. And in 2016, I was saying, like, you know, when he says to people like this, like, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to go to Mexico and get. Make them pay and bring your jobs back. And all this stuff he was saying, it's like, you know, he's saying exactly what they want to hear. And I understand why they want to believe that stuff. It's just, even then at the time I was like. But I don't get why they do believe it coming from this guy. Like, he's so clearly incapable of delivering on those promises. And also he hates. He's hates and is disgusted by these people and he's completely full of shit. So I don't know why they are on board with it, but I do get why they want to believe it. Right. That's what I said in 2016. But after everything that's happened since then, I, at this point, I just feel like they're too dug in, they're too committed. It's too much about, like, owning the libs and, you know, it's like sports and pro wrestling all wrapped up in one. It's their team and they want their team to win. And it's just all gotten super muddied and everything else. But I was saying at the time, like, I went on Bill Marshall the first time the Friday after the 2016 election. It was wild. It was surreal. And I said to him on there at the time that I don't remember how exactly I got into it, but I said that, like, I knew for a fact that if you had polled every stereotypical redneck before Donald Trump got into politics, when he was just the, like, you know, rich guy douchebag on TV and in the Apprentice and stuff, if you had polled any redneck man back then about their opinion on Donald Trump, it would have universally been like, oh, he's a blue blood, silver spoon Yankee who thinks he's smarter than everybody else and needs his ass whipped and thinks he's better than everybody else and that type of thing, Right? He was the exact picture of like, exactly the type of person they can't stand before he got into politics. But then he went after Obama and then he just started, you know, playing directly to them in every way, and they just totally went for it. I don't know if it's. That's how desperate they were.

[Al Franken]

You say after. When you say after Obama. Did rednecks not like Obama because he was black or did they.

[Trey Crowder]

I mean, you know, I don't know how else to explain it. It's like I said, Clay county was a blue county for most years, but not 2008. You know, I don't know what Else that's about. I mean, they would act like that wasn't. Why, of course, surely that's the other thing that's wild is like, used to even, like the redneckiest dudes I know would have told you that they're not racist or whatever, even though, like, they were. And now I don't. That feels less true now it's like they're more out and proud about that type of thing ever since, ever since post Trump, you know, and it's just, it's all wild to me.

[Al Franken]

People start saying it out loud. But yeah, I, I feel like not every Trump voter is racist, but every racist is a Trump voter.

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah, that's exactly how I feel about it, too.

[Al Franken]

For sure. Yeah. Now what, what's next? You're touring or are you?

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah, always. Always touring. Go to trey crowder.com T R A E crowder.com to check out my dates. I've got. I'm hoping to film the hour I'm doing right now. I'm hoping to film that at some point this year. Trying to figure out the logistics and put that out wherever it ends up going. And then, like I said, I'm always writing about to take another sitcom out and try to sell it. I've just wrote a feature script. I'm, you know, still keeping the plate spinning. Keep pushing that boulder. That's how I put it. Pushing the boulder. But, yeah, you know, keep, keep going and keep making the videos.

[Al Franken]

That Mozart, Salieri, sun thing. Yeah, that'd make a great sitcom.

[Trey Crowder]

Yeah. For me. Yes. That'd be a great Mozart son. Yes. And also, I just want to say, just so you know, like, as somebody with that background who's a longtime fan of comedy and I grew up watching SNL and all that, like, I'm a huge fan also politically, too. And so I really appreciate you having me on it. I think it's very cool because you're awesome. Kind of a legend. So I appreciate it.

[Al Franken]

Oh, Jesus Christ. Well, that's. I might as well end on that. Well, I. I hope you enjoyed listening. That beautiful music is by Leo Kotke. The great Leo Kotke. I want to thank Peter Ogburn for producing this podcast. We'll talk again next.

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[Trey Crowder]

The Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

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[Trey Crowder]

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[Trey Crowder]

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Imagine this.

[Scam Factory Ad]

You help your little brother land a great job abroad, but when he arrives, the job doesn't exist. Instead, he's trapped in a heavily guarded compound, forced to sit at a computer and scam innocent victims, all while armed guards stand by with shoot to kill orders. Scam Factory, the explosive new true crime podcast from Wondery, exposes a multi billion dollar criminal empire operating in plain sight. Told through one family's harrowing account of sleepless nights, desperate phone calls and dangerous rescue attempts, Scam Factory reveals a brutal truth. The only way out is to scam their way out. Follow Scam Factory on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast. You can binge all episodes of Scam Factory early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus.