Fred Armisen

Armisen said SNL is the one show he is religious about watching live.

“The thing that I'm most religious about of like actually catching is SNL”

Good Hang with Amy Poehler: Fred Armisen (Apr 7, 2026) · Listen from 1:03:25

Armisen said he refuses to name the best or worst hosts when asked in interviews.

“And people ask it like in interviews, like who's been the worst host of best? And I always keep it”

Good Hang with Amy Poehler: Fred Armisen (Apr 7, 2026) · Listen from 44:35

Armisen said his connection to SNL as a viewer came largely through its musical guests, which felt like a message from Lorne Michaels.

“I really connected to the B-52s and Devo and Talking Heads”

Good Hang with Amy Poehler: Fred Armisen (Apr 7, 2026) · Listen from 36:53

Armisen said that having toured in a band for years made his SNL salary feel enormous rather than low.

“Where some people would say, like, that's not a lot to get paid for your first year. I was like, are you kidding me? To me, it was so much money”

Good Hang with Amy Poehler: Fred Armisen (Apr 7, 2026) · Listen from 36:03

Armisen said his rude-interviewer character was based on real experiences of promoters telling his band how poorly they were doing.

“they'd always say like, oh, your group is not so good. Yeah. fugazi was here a week ago and it was very crowded and that's not so crowded today”

Good Hang with Amy Poehler: Fred Armisen (Apr 7, 2026) · Listen from 32:40

Armisen said he identified culturally as Venezuelan because his mother's relatives were constantly present while his East German father's family was distant.

“My dad's from East Germany, which means that it was communist Germany at the time. So we had no relatives around us”

Good Hang with Amy Poehler: Fred Armisen (Apr 7, 2026) · Listen from 19:49

Armisen said researching his family history taught him that history was more complex than he had learned, including immigration in Germany and racism against Koreans in Japan.

“Things are just more complex than I ever learned originally. Or that there was racism against Koreans in Japan”

Good Hang with Amy Poehler: Fred Armisen (Apr 7, 2026) · Listen from 18:42

Armisen explained that his Persian given name came from his grandmother's Persian boyfriend in Germany, who named the baby though he was not the father.

“Because his mom in Germany was dating a Persian man at the time when she got pregnant. Not by him”

Good Hang with Amy Poehler: Fred Armisen (Apr 7, 2026) · Listen from 17:41

Armisen said he realized he lacked a passion for filmmaking when classmates wanted to discuss editing all day and he did not.

“They would talk about editing and I'm like, we're supposed to get good grades, but we're not supposed to like-”

Good Hang with Amy Poehler: Fred Armisen (Apr 7, 2026) · Listen from 23:29

Armisen said he went to art school mainly because his favorite bands came out of art school, not out of a passion for film.

“I really had it in my head that I wanted to be in a band. So the common way to go is to go to art school”

Good Hang with Amy Poehler: Fred Armisen (Apr 7, 2026) · Listen from 22:38

Armisen said he is not impressed by free climbing and does not want to watch or hear about it.

“I'm also not interested in watching it I'm not like no stories about it like all that I'm not”

Good Hang with Amy Poehler: Fred Armisen (Apr 7, 2026) · Listen from 1:01:16

Armisen said his fear of heights kept him from taping the podcast at Spotify's high-floor New York studio, and that he dislikes having the fear.

“I don't like it, and I don't like that I don't like it”

Good Hang with Amy Poehler: Fred Armisen (Apr 7, 2026) · Listen from 59:57

Armisen called Brownstein his soulmate and said he feels completely himself around her.

“She's like, she's my soulmate. She is a person who I feel like I've known forever”

Good Hang with Amy Poehler: Fred Armisen (Apr 7, 2026) · Listen from 50:10

Armisen described performing with Devo and the B-52s at the SNL 50th anniversary as the crystallized peak of his career.

“It was like the top, like the very crystallized top of a mountain. Like... It's almost scary because I was like, that's it”

Good Hang with Amy Poehler: Fred Armisen (Apr 7, 2026) · Listen from 48:57

Armisen said he lets discomfort pass rather than confronting it, treating it as a page that has turned, and envies Poehler's directness.

“it's gone. It's, I really do feel, treat it like a page that's turned. I'm like, oh, that didn't work out”

Good Hang with Amy Poehler: Fred Armisen (Apr 7, 2026) · Listen from 40:55

Armisen said Blue Man Group was his first show business paycheck and that its training improved his drumming.

“I trained a little bit in Boston, in New York, and it made my drumming better. It was really frenetic and crazy. And I really loved it”

Good Hang with Amy Poehler: Fred Armisen (Apr 7, 2026) · Listen from 30:53

Armisen described Trenchmouth-era touring as a total, all-consuming campaign with no money and constant motion.

“The feeling was like, it's like a campaign. Like we're going to do it. We're going to drop our jobs. We're going to do it”

Good Hang with Amy Poehler: Fred Armisen (Apr 7, 2026) · Listen from 24:47