Everett Byram

TEXT + VISUAL FARIDA AMAR

Sick – a word that best sums up everything Everett Byram loves and hates about the world that exists and the one he’s creating. There is a reason this brilliant dude has such a sick sense of humor. He sees and calls it like it is, which after all is a skill every great comedian aspires to master.

Bryam was born in Washington state. Much to his disappointment, he didn’t grow up there. He was stuck in Arkansas every. single. year. prior to his arrival in Los Angeles. He survived as best he could, but at the end of the day he and the South just didn’t get along. “it was the south. like confederate flags flying everywhere, i graduated with like six black people. looking back it was fucking weird. I haven’t been back to the town i grew up in since i got kicked out of college. i have a racist nemesis there that wants to kick my ass. he’s a loser. the white supremacists he looks up to online even make fun of him. so yeah i don’t really wanna visit the state i grew up in.” Everett served a sentence of two semesters at Arkansas Tech before getting expelled for “being too badass and cool.”

Since then he has been living in Los Angeles working as a comedian as well as bartending for seven years all in pursuit of his ultimate dream, “being able to buy a hotdog without having to plot it days in advance.” Byram was classically trained as a singer growing up and enjoys singing and playing music, placing him squarely on the edge of becoming a triple threat. He humbly admits, “most millennials call me the modern day justin bieber.” From comedy to hotdogs to music, Byram understands love as “not hating something so much that you go ‘ughhhh’ all the time.” This is just about the best explanation of love I’ve ever heard and I half-jokingly want to ask his girlfriend how it makes her feel. I doubt we’ll ever find out.

last night i dreamed i bought a major hi-tech microwave for a very reasonable price. i don’t even need or want a microwave, but hell, a bargain is a bargain. and deals are sick.

EVERETT BYRAM

Byram was quite clear regarding how important his privacy is and that he rarely puts the relationships from his own life into his stand up work or comedy sketches. Even during this interview he bluntly admits, “i don’t like answering questions of this nature either.” A comedian who is not all about self-exposition or self-exploitation or self-deprecation is fascinating to me and intriguing in many ways. This is how Byram maintains a constant, yet gentle aura of mystery around him. Unless you ask about Boys Club.

Boys Club is a weekly comedy show that Byram puts on with friend and comedian Daniel Moquin every Monday Night at The Next Stage Theatre. If you ask about Boys Club, Byram LIGHTS UP. “Boys Club is HUGE. i’m talking about boy power. it’s huge. daniel and i started it, so it would be a dope open mic that we and our friends could party at. we inherited it from another comic and called it ‘Boys Club’ ironically because we noticed no female comics were showing up at first. then they came. they all came. everyone comes. it’s great now. it’s dope.”

It was a long hard road from Arkansas to Boys Club. Much self-reflection and hard work lies behind him. The first time he performed stand up comedy was in 2012 at an open mic in Arkansas. “as far as comedy goes, i started writing jokes when i was depressed and had no other way to cope with stupid dumb life. luckily this was exactly the time of the advent of twitter dot com so i had a totally sick outlet to let my 140 character bullshit fly.” He took what he had written on twitter and basically just regurgitated it live. Byram has learned a lot since then, working hard over the past five years observing the world around him and absorbing inspiration from the work of other comedians. “watching other comics that you admire and respect is hella dope for understanding how shit works, and for emulation of the styles you like. other than that, i haven’t taken any classes or anything. if i did i would probably call the teacher a huge nerd and storm out leaving my pieces of the hot dog i was eating behind.”

Everett Byram wanted to collaborate with SOVO// on a comedy show for SOVO// WEDNESDAYS because “the free spirit vibes and ‘everyone is welcome’ attitude really does it for me. what the fuck is art if we aren’t doing it all together.”