Tim Heidecker

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Andrew Levy

Tim Heidecker

It's not that unusual to have a combined bill of a comic and a band, but it is unusual for the comic and the lead singer and guitarist of the band to be the same person. But that’s the case with Tim Heidecker as he performs his Summer Tour of Comedy and Music, his first two-act tour. Heidecker will be taking his “No More Bullshit” stand-up character on the road, and appearing with The Very Good Band during the second half of the show. Heidecker himself is a quirky folk-pop presence well worth catching; his new album, High School, was released in June.

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Tim Heidecker announces his new album, High School, out June 24 on Spacebomb Records, and presents its first single “Buddy.” Produced by Heidecker, Drew Erickson, Eric D. Johnson and Mac DeMarco, High School sees Heidecker emerging as an increasingly playful and poignant story teller, infusing childhood tales with new gravity. In conjunction, he announces Tim Heidecker Live! Featuring Tim Heidecker and The Very Good Band, his first two-act tour of comedy and music.

Since 2016, Tim Heidecker has chronicled the annals of adulthood on a series of supreme singer-songwriter albums. The crushing devastation of divorce and the existential malaise of middle-age, the minutiae of home ownership and the ritual of family vacation, child rearing and global warming: Heidecker has handled it all with humor and heart. But, there’s one pivotal lodestar of human development he has yet to mine — that’s right, High School. First single “Buddy” is a composite of a few woebegone friends, which finds Heidecker reminiscing on the familiar tragedy of the adolescent stoner, manifesting the destiny of undiagnosed depression and parents who didn’t care much. The song itself is a jangly delight, but it’s hard not to mourn for “Buddy,” then re-count whatever blessings you may have.

  Watch Tim Heidecker’s “Buddy” Video  

After initial and fruitful sessions with Jonathan Rado, Heidecker started recording tunes with DeMarco and Erickson, who had also worked on 2020’s collaboration with Weyes Blood, Fear of Death. At DeMarco’s studio, they added drum machines and synths and sidewinding solos to Heidecker’s big strummed chords. Johnson (Bonny Light Horseman, Fruit Bats) helped Heidecker finesse the tunes even more, making the music as rich as the feelings. Kurt Vile contributed to one song, as well. Through all those sessions, it slowly became clear: Heidecker was writing not only about the adventures and misadventures of life as a Pennsylvania teen in the early ’90s, but also how it felt to lose a juvenile sense of mystery and possibility as an adult. He was writing about high school — and, really, the way it helped shape everything else.

Back at Pennsylvania’s Allentown Central Catholic High School, Heidecker dreamed of making it with one of his many rock bands — Time and Other Things, Shaggy’s Beltbuckle, and (incredibly) The Pulsating Libidos. Two years shy of his graduating class’ 30th anniversary, Heidecker admits he had little of substance to say when he was 17, like all but the rarest of precocious minds. In college, though, he found the friends with whom he built his comedy career, largely apart from music and without much thought for his time back at Central Catholic. He was focused on his future. It is fitting, then, that as Heidecker has become such a delightful singer-songwriter and collaborator, he returns to the first scene of his time as a musician. Maybe he’s right — he didn’t have anything to say or sing about life back then. But across the earnest and amusing High School, he finds plenty to say about those weird and wonderful and ordinary times.

This summer, Heidecker is taking his “No More Bullshit” stand-up character on the road, as well as The Very Good Band to present the first two-act evening of Tim Heidecker’s comedy and music. Heidecker’s “An Evening with Tim Heidecker” stand up special has prompted publications like Vulture to dub him “the poet laureate of delusional assholes.” Truly, the “Tim Heidecker” of stand-up comedy is the epitome of a “‘truth-telling’ comic with none of the Jonatalent, but all of the narcissism and aggression” (Vulture). The second half of the show features Heidecker, the songwriter, musician and performer. This is Tim Heidecker without the quotes around his name, a representation of a talented and prolific songwriter who never eschews his natural inclination towards humor, but where there’s always something deeper and more real for listeners to sink their teeth into. Heidecker (guitar, vocals) and the Very Good Band, Josh Adams (drums), Eliana Athayde (bass, vocals) and Catfish Connor (lead guitar, pedal steel), will play songs from the entire Tim Heidecker catalog. Tickets are on sale at  timheidecker.com/live.