Guy Seidel – entertaining guitarist, comedian, & entrepreneur

Recorded in the Skybox Conference Room at Kiln SLC (Gateway Mall)

Guy’s company: Easy Flow Air Duct Cleaning Facebook Page

Intruder by Gary Numan on Spotify

Intruder by Gary Numan on Apple Music

Intruder by Gary Numan on YouTube

Book Recommendation: The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx, Mick mars

MarcusandGuy.com

Community Animal Welfare Society (CAWS) – All Animals Ready for Adoption

This episode features Guy Seidel, a comedian, and entrepreneur, who shares his journey and insights into his career. Guy is part of a comedy duo with Marcus, and they perform under the name “Marcus and Guy.” They have a dynamic relationship where Marcus handles the booking and schmoozing, while Guy takes care of the technical aspects such as setting up the PA system and driving to gigs.

Guy also runs his own business, Easy Flow, where he is the sole employee. He explains that he’s not a natural salesperson and prefers to be straightforward with his customers about pricing. He doesn’t believe in selling products that he doesn’t believe in, and he’s found his niche in providing a service that people need without upselling unnecessary extras.

In addition to his comedy and business ventures, Guy has also worked on cruise ships. However, he didn’t enjoy the experience, as he felt it was more about work than getting to experience the destinations. He would like to go on a cruise as a guest in the future.

Guy also discusses his experiences performing at Wise Guys, a comedy club. He and Marcus prefer to perform at smaller clubs where they can sell out one show a night, rather than trying to fill a larger venue multiple times. Guy enjoys buying tickets to shows at Wise Guys and experiencing the show as a regular audience member.

Despite his busy schedule, Guy has tried his hand at TikTok, although he admits he felt like a senior citizen trying to figure out how to post his first video. He acknowledges the importance of platforms like TikTok for reaching a wider audience but admits he doesn’t want to spend too much time on his phone.

Throughout the podcast, Guy’s passion for comedy and his commitment to providing a quality service in his business are evident. He values honesty and straightforwardness, both in his comedy and his business dealings. His story offers valuable insights for aspiring comedians and entrepreneurs alike.

Kyle Knowles:
Hello there. Welcome to episode number eight of the Maker Manager Money Podcast, a podcast about entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, founders, business owners, and business partnerships. From startups to stay ups, to inspire entrepreneurs to keep going, and future entrepreneurs to just start, it’s simply a celebration of entrepreneurship. My name is Kyle Knowles and I’m just trying to make some cool content at Kiln Salt Lake City, right at the Gateway. That’s K-I-L-N, as in nice. Kiln provides working communities that are handcrafted and programmed to elevate lifestyle and performance. The kiln guy, as you know, is an oven to bake things, especially pottery and art. Really. So we’re going to try to bake some art tonight in this-

Guy Seidel:
Baked art.

Kyle Knowles:
Yes.

Guy Seidel:
I got the baked part covered.

Kyle Knowles:
In this cool Sky Box conference room, this content is getting baked. Tonight’s guest is Guy Seidel.

Guy Seidel:
Seidel.

Kyle Knowles:
Yes. Tonight’s guest is Guy Seidel, an entrepreneur and owner of Easy Flow Air Duct Cleaning Company. He’s also a solopreneur, stand-up comedian and a business partner. As the guitar playing half of the Marcus and Guy musical impression comedy show that spans decades paying tribute to the best voices, songs, and artists from all genres from the last 50 years. They sell out Wise Guys comedy club and perform at special events and corporate gigs. Guy has won numerous awards for his stand-up comedy, including funniest person in Utah, indie.com Comedy Blitz, and was a finalist in both the Rocky Mountain Laugh Off and the World Series of Comedy. Guy is a rescue pet advocate, has a collection of guitars and sometimes drives a 1972 VW Bug named Fry Sauce.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah, emphasis on the sometimes when it starts.

Kyle Knowles:
Welcome to the show, Guy.

Guy Seidel:
Thanks for having me. I forgot about half those things you just nailed, you just said. You know what I like to do? I won in 2015. I won Utah’s funniest person. It was a comedy competition and then they never had another one. So I’m technically still-

Kyle Knowles:
Still number one, right?

Guy Seidel:
I’m still the reigning funniest person in Utah, even though I don’t do stand-up hardly ever.

Kyle Knowles:
Right, right. That’s awesome. And I’ve joked about Maker Manager Money being the LinkedIn of Podcast, but this is slowly coming true, because back in 2015 or 2016, I called my first guest, Ken Allred, because I was looking for an entertaining act to play at a sales meeting. He texted me your phone number and the rest is history.

Guy Seidel:
Rest is history. Marcus and Guy Corporate. If you’re listening to this and you need corporate entertainment, marcusandnguy.com. Look at that. How’s that for a plug?

Kyle Knowles:
I love it. I love it. So tell me about your career before being a business owner. Just all the things you did.

Guy Seidel:
I’m like a store brand Forrest Gump. I did a lot of things, but I mean, none of them were as significant as, I never met Nixon. But let’s see. When I got out of high school, I was working at a Little Caesars in Price, Utah. And I didn’t go to college. That’s a whole other thing we would get into. But I became the manager eventually just because what else was I going to do? And then I got sick of that. I was a truck driver for a minute in the oil fields. I worked for a mining machinery company. Just labor jobs, just nothing. And then I moved to Salt Lake and I got hired on with a company called Superior Water and Air as just a, I wanted to move to Salt Lake and I needed a job.
So they were advertising that they needed HVAC dudes. I’m not an HVAC dude, but I called the number and was like, I don’t know anything, but I can be there tomorrow and I’m willing to learn. So they hired me and I worked there for 10 years before starting my own air duct cleaning business. But I’ve done a lot of, I’ve had other small stupid jobs between that and stuff. But yeah, I’ve done a lot of things.

Kyle Knowles:
And you were doing music on the side the whole time while you were working with these other companies?

Guy Seidel:
Always. Like, I started a band with my buddies when I was 16 and they were 15. And then by the time I was 17 and they were 16, we were playing in local bars, doing covers. And I did that until I was 28. So I spent 10 years before I left Carbon County Helper Price area. I left when I was 28, but oh, I was a car salesman somewhere in there. And then I moved to Salt Lake and wanted to do comedy later on.

Kyle Knowles:
Okay.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah, it’s weird. It’s been a fun ride.

Kyle Knowles:
And then you were working for Superior?

Guy Seidel:
Oh yeah. No, I got behind myself. So I was working for Superior, and then in 2016, well, in 2010, let’s back this up. I demoted myself kind of at Superior because I was working in the install department, installing furnaces and air conditioners. And if you need AC, you need it now. And I was going on the road a lot and I needed, not a lot, but enough to where it was becoming an issue doing comedy. So I kind of demoted myself to the duct cleaning department because it wasn’t as important. If I needed a day off, somebody wasn’t going to be without air conditioning. So I did that. And then after about five years, in 2016, I started my own businesses, because I was like, I don’t know. I know how to do this and I have a few extra bucks so I can start, buy what I need.
And the duct cleaning department at Superior wasn’t a big priority for them. It was just something they added in with sales. You know, buy this system, we’ll throw in a whatever. It wasn’t like a big money maker for the company. And it was kind of like the stepchild department. So I was just like, oh, I’m just going to start my own thing. And I did and it was the best decision I’ve ever made in my life. I never intended to be a business owner. I just was like, I know how to do this, I know how to work Facebook to advertise, so I’m going to start my own business. And they were cool about it. Superior was really cool about it. After I left, they shut the department down and either gave or sold me all their old equipment. And then now they send me tons of work. Anybody calls them, hey, I need my ducts cleaned. Call Guy. So it was a good relationship. It was a really good relationship to have there still. I did the owner’s house yesterday.

Kyle Knowles:
Oh, wow.

Guy Seidel:
So I still talk to, well, he’s sold, but he was one of the owners of Superior. And talked to him yesterday, still on good terms with everybody from there. It just worked out so nicely because I’m not good at playing the corporate game. Spear is a great company, nothing that, but there is a chain of command and it just was never my, yeah.

Kyle Knowles:
So why was it the best decision?

Guy Seidel:
Because one, I’m making a lot more money. And that is partly because of my situation. I don’t have to rent a building. Everything’s in a trailer that’s attached to my truck. I back it into my driveway and I leave. So I don’t have to pay overhead, so the profit margin’s pretty good. I’m not rich by any stretch, but for an idiot like me, it’s easy enough to maintain. Not having a boss is the biggest one. That’s the biggest one for me. I don’t do well when people tell me I can’t do things. Even if it needs to be that way. You can’t have this time off. You have to request this time off. I just don’t like that. Who does, right?

Kyle Knowles:
Nobody.

Guy Seidel:
Nobody. And I was in a position where I had, the comedy stuff pays my bills. I can live off that if I wanted to. It’d be a little tight, but I could live off that if I wanted to. So I was in a position enough where I could start my business and if I had a rough start, I still had a second income, which I know a lot of people don’t have that luxury. But it worked out pretty well. I mean, I was busy from the word go. And it’s because I think I had a good network on social media from comedy. I had a lot of followers, I guess you could say locally. So I’d be like, hey, this is a thing I’m doing now, you need, and then word spreads and it takes off to where I’m at now.
So it’s great. And just freedom. Freedom is so much more valuable than money to me. I see, I have friends who are money guys and they’re just nonstop working. And I respect it. But I would rather, I mean, my life right now I’m home by two o’clock usually every day sitting on the back patio. It’s pretty nice. But again, I don’t have a wife, kids. There’s not a lot of pressure to make a lot of money, which is also nice. And I do fine, but I don’t have to make $1 million this year just to keep everything afloat. So keep it simple stupid. It’s kind of my approach.

Kyle Knowles:
I like it. So when you were working for Superior, how long ago did you and Marcus get together and start doing your act?

Guy Seidel:
Well, it’s kind of funny because the first night I ever did stand-up comedy, I went to an open mic. And this was in March of 2008. And everybody was talking about Marcus, Marcus, Marcus. I’m like, who’s this Marcus guy? He was on Last Comic Standing when TV still mattered and he was in the finals and stuff, so he was on TV at this point. Everybody’s talking about local dude, local comedian on Last Comic Standing, I didn’t really watch the show. So when I went to open mic, he was the one hosting the open mic. He was in town from filming on a break or whatever. And I did my first open mic, and I did really well. I lucked out. If I would’ve bombed my first time, I would’ve never gone back.
So I did well. And then, so Marcus hyped me up. Oh man, that was great. Where are you from? How long have you been doing this? And I told him, this is my first time. He’s like, what? So we became quick buddies. Don’t get me, I wasn’t a phenom, trust me. I bombed on my third time hard. First two went well. And then I was like, oh, there’s a new sheriff in town. And then the third one, I laid an egg. Humbled. So we met then, and then we just became buddies. He started taking me on the road opening for him. And then eventually I became my headliner in my own right and we would do shows together. And what we would do is we’d go on the road and we would just, we’re both giant music nerds. So we would just put on the iPod or phone or whatever it was at the time and talk about the bands, make fun of them.
This sounds like this. He would make fun of the singer. So one day we were like, why don’t we do something with this for our shows? Because I’ve been playing guitar since I was 14, 13 or whatever. I don’t know. And it kind of took a minute for us to figure out what it was what we wanted to do. We tried an initial show where we had recorded backing tracks for Marcus to sing along to. And I was kind of like the musical director a little bit, kind of like, okay, this fades into this, fades into that. And we used karaoke tracks and Marcus went on stage and did it by himself and it was terrible. Not because of him, but it was just, you’re just watching a guy doing karaoke at this point. So I just learned that whole set on my acoustic guitar and I’m like, let’s try this.
So we did it and it slowly got better and better. And we were doing it at 10, 15 minutes at the end of stand-up shows. And then it became 20, and then pretty soon it was just like, why are we doing stand-up? People come to our shows just to see the music and the stand-up is kind of a warmup. So that’s what we do now at Wise Guys. We’ll each do 15 minutes of stand-up and then do our show. We don’t do stand-up on the corporate events for obvious reasons, but the music we do squeaky clean. So it works out great. And it’s all just because we were two music nerds. And Marcus is a great singer. He does impressions and that’s how he got as far as he did on Last Comic Standing is he’s a great impressionist. But before he was ever that, he was a singer, and he’s a great singer.

Kyle Knowles:
Was he in bands too like you growing up?

Guy Seidel:
Not as much. I think he was only ever in one band, but I think he did that for a few years. But he just has a naturally great voice. He can sing like Chris Cornell and you’d be like, whoa.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah, he’s amazing.

Guy Seidel:
Do a Chris Cornell impression or something like that. And it’s crazy. And then I’m like, a lot of comics play guitar. They can strum major and minor chords, but I was a little more advanced than that. So we were able to use his voice, my guitar playing ability that’s not, no, I’m not a phenom on the guitar or anything, but I’m better than most comedians. So we made it work and it’s just slowly gotten better and better. And it’s now even evolving to where we don’t do a ton of music because it’s become a roast battle. We get on stage and we’ll talk to people and just hammer them. And it’s all in fun. We never go too far or anything or we’ll beat each other up. It’s so fun. And when we do Wise Guys, we’d be like, oh, we didn’t get to three of the music bits because we were beating up Jessica in the front row. And it’s all in fun. The people are cry laughing. And it’s all just so much fun.
And we do that at corporate events too, because we’re adept enough, we’ve been doing this long enough and I think Mark and I are both smart enough. We know where the line is so we can adapt that to a corporate version, G-rated. Look at this guy, he looks like he works in tech. Blah, blah, blah. We can still have fun with a crowd and without being, look at this fat idiot. So it’s constantly evolving. It’s still very much focused around music, but my guitar playing isn’t necessarily what makes me irreplaceable. It’s the comic mind and the timing on the guitar. That’s something that works. And with Marcus as well, timing on the singing. There’s a million good singers out there. There’s a million good guitar players out there. But knowing when to stop, when to go down, dynamics, comedic timing with a guitar. That’s kind of where this skill set lies rather than I’m not up there playing Beethoven.

Kyle Knowles:
Right. So were you using your guitar in your comedy act before Marcus? You never took the guitar up there?

Guy Seidel:
No.

Kyle Knowles:
You started doing it with Marcus then?

Guy Seidel:
Yeah. Guitar comedy can go really bad. It can be really cheesy and hokey. And sometimes I feel like we even cross that line on purpose. When we clean it up, we kind of lean into the hokiness a little bit, but guitar comedy, it’s really hard. And there are some good guys out there. There’s a comedian named Steven Lynch who’s brilliant. And he’s a musical comedy guy. But then, I don’t know, there’s just a bunch of, remember Bob and Tom?

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah.

Guy Seidel:
Bunch of those kind of dudes. Oh, my wife wears the pants in the family. Boom. So we didn’t want to be that.

Kyle Knowles:
So Adam Sandler, Demitri Martin, those kind of comics?

Guy Seidel:
They pull it off. Yeah, they pull it off really well. And I know because I was never a songwriter. Even in my band, we just played covers and I just wanted to rip solos on the guitar. I was never a songwriter, so I was never confident in my ability to write something funny. And in the early days, I tried, because I did like people like Steven Lynch and Adam Sander and stuff. So I tried writing some stuff early on in the comedy days, stand-up days, and it was garbage. I never took any of it past the notebook. But I do feel that it can be done right, but I’m not the guy to do it right.

Kyle Knowles:
Right. So you basically are running two separate companies, right? You’ve got Easy Flow that you do when you’re not doing corporate gigs or this guy’s comedy club kind of thing.

Guy Seidel:
Correct. Marcus, I won’t lie. Marcus is kind of the, we don’t have a manager, but he’s basically the manager. And we have a dynamic between us. We know what we’re both good at and we know what we’re not good at. He’s good at booking, he’s good at schmoozing. He’s good at saying, this is our price, take it or leave it. I’m good at, I’ll drive. I’ll set up. I set up the PA. I have the ability to be, in the show, I’m the guy that that doesn’t work because it ends in a, and this one starts in GA, you can’t transition. And after our shows, I tell Mark, I’ll break down the equipment and get everything put in.
If we’re bringing our own PA or whatever, I’m like, you go schmooze, shake hands, pass out business cards. I’m going to go set up the equipment. So we both have our roles and he’s definitely more of the manager role, for sure. Because I know he’s better at it. He could get us more gigs, more money. Because I’d be like, yeah, it’s this much dollars. He’d be like, no, it’s this much. I’m like, okay. I’m not good at asking for money. I was never a good salesperson. That’s why my car salesman career didn’t do well, took a shit.

Kyle Knowles:
How does that work with Easy Flow then? Because you’re the manager there, right? You don’t have anyone else booking.

Guy Seidel:
It’s pretty straight. Yeah, I do everything. I used to have, I’ve had a couple employees, but it’s down to just me now, which is where I want it. Yeah, that’s a lot easy because it’s just pretty much, I don’t really have to sell them. I’m kind of like, here’s what the price is for your house. If you want to call around some other people, I get it. Call me back if you want to. I’m also in kind of a fortunate situation where I don’t have to. If I wanted to, I’m as busy as I want to be. But if I bought three trucks all of a sudden and had to go out, I would suck at that, Hey, use my company for blah, blah, blah. But when people are calling me, it’s pretty easy to be like, here’s the price, see you on Tuesday. So I don’t have to do much salesmanship on this. Sometimes, but even then, I’m just not good at it.
I don’t sell people products that I don’t necessarily believe in. And I think there’s a lot of that in what I do for the day job. Well, you need this super duper sanitizer. It’s going to disinfect your entire house 10 times over and make your dog smarter and your kids cuter. And it’s liquid money. People charge for a sanitizing product to sanitize their house, people charge, I’ve seen $300. It costs $1 and takes 10 minutes. So I’m not good at being like, you need this stuff and then doing it and leaving and being like, yeah, I’ll just do it for free. Tell your friends about me. I’m not good at sales. Unless somebody needs something. Hey, we’re having crazy allergies. What kind of UV light technology do you know about? And then I’ll tell them. But I can’t walk in and be like, you know what you need? This super duper UV light.

Kyle Knowles:
Right.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah. So I think I found my niche.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah.

Guy Seidel:
Niche, niche, whatever.

Kyle Knowles:
I never know how to pronounce it. I’m always niche, niche.

Guy Seidel:
Niche, niche, niche. Frederick Nietzsche.

Kyle Knowles:
Niche. So I love seeing your Instagram and Facebook posts with your dogs. I don’t know if I’ve seen cats yet, but how do-

Guy Seidel:
I do have a cat. She’s not very camera friendly though.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah, the cats don’t pose. They won’t pose like dogs do. How did you get involved with rescuing and adopting pets?

Guy Seidel:
In 2010, I had moved into this little apartment downtown and I was dating a woman and she was like, you need a cat. She didn’t live with me. I was by myself. And I was like, I don’t want a stupid cat. I’ve never had a cat ever in my life. You should get a cat. It’ll keep you company and blah, blah, blah. And I was just like, she’s like, how about this? Because she’s like, I’ll get the cat. And then we had plans on moving in together at some point down the road. She’s like, let’s get the cat, you take care of it. And then when I move in, it’ll be our cat. So I got the cat and things didn’t go as planned with the girlfriend. So I got stuck with a cat, but it wasn’t stuck with a cat. I immediately fell in love with the cat. And still, that’s still my cat.
I have that cat still. But that cat made me kind of like animals. And then I had a roommate move in a couple years later who had just an awesome dog. Just the best chilled. And that’s when I just kind of really fell in love with dogs, rescue dogs specifically, just because, I don’t know, going and paying $1,000 for a designer dog, just, it’s fine. I used to be really, I don’t know, annoying about it. Don’t shop, which I still agree with all of that. But there’s so many dogs in shelters that just want a cool house. And I’ve had four, five rescue dogs. They’ve all been awesome. It’s not like you’re getting used dogs or mean dogs or whatever. Most of the time, they’ve been returned. My first chihuahua I had, he was returned because he would bite kids.
Well, I don’t have kids, so he works out for me. The next one was blind and needed a house without stairs. Well, I don’t have stairs. That’s great. So I think while as long as there’s dogs, and I don’t want to sound preachy, but as long as there’s dogs in a shelter wishing they had a home, you’re going to go pay somebody who’s breeding dogs a bunch of money just to have the breed that you think’s the prettiest. All my dogs have been ugly. I love them. I’m ugly. So maybe that’s what it is. Maybe I’m like, I’m a little rough around the edges too, dog.
But no, I don’t know. I’m not going to sit and tell you some spiritual, they can tell that they’re rescued and I saved them. No, I just like, and I like senior dogs specifically because it’s fun to give them, I have a life where I can give them a cool, I have a huge backyard and a doggy door and no kids. So I can give an old dog a pretty good life. And then as much as it sucks losing a dog every couple years, you get a new dog every couple years. I lost my best boy ever, Roscoe. I lost him in February. I’ve had him since he was small. And it sucked. It sucked so bad. It was really hard. And then a month later, I was scrolling and I saw a dog. I’m like, boom, new dog, because this dog just spoke to me. And I saw his picture, I’m like, something about that dog.
And I went and met him, and now he’s been in my house for two months and happy as a clam. So it sounds cheesy, but I always tell people, focus on the bond, not the breed. I love Corgis. I love Frenchies. They’re cute. But am I going to go pay somebody $1,500 just to keep a dog pregnant and then take its babies away to get dark? Oh, look at your brand new litter of puppies. Let’s sell them for money. I don’t know. Just doesn’t. And there are responsible breeders. It’s just, we don’t need to be breeding dogs right now. There’s a bunch down at the Humane Society screaming to get out.

Kyle Knowles:
Where do you tell people to go look for rescue dogs then?

Guy Seidel:
There’s a million places. I’ve had three dogs from a place called CAWS. C-A-W-S. Community Animal Welfare Society. I’ve had three dogs from them. I got Roscoe from the Humane Society. There’s like any of the West Valley Animal shelters, Salt Lake County animal shelter, places like that. There’s so many dogs. You get on the internet. I even tell people this too, if they’re like, well, I need a such and such dog because I need a hypoallergenic or this or that. petfinder.com, which they don’t pay me any money to plug this, but you can type in what kind of dog you want, what kind of size, filter it down. It’ll be like, well, there’s this kind of dog at this rescue in wherever, Boise. So I got to take a drive. Whatever.
You can find anything. And you can find puppies. You can find, any kind of dog you want, you can find out there if you’re willing to, I don’t know, maybe travel a little bit or spend a little bit of money. I just don’t like the idea of somebody keeping dogs pregnant in their backyard. Yeah, I don’t know. I’m not like some angel. I’ll eat a steak right now. I will murder a steak. But I don’t know, there’s just something that everybody’s got to have something they believe in, right? That’s mine. Save dogs and cats. Be nice to animals. I like animals.

Kyle Knowles:
I love it. I love it.

Guy Seidel:
Some people have a problem. That’s a joke.

Kyle Knowles:
Well, so what was the inspiration for you to go into stand-up comedy? Did you have some favorite comics when you were growing up, or what was the reason?

Guy Seidel:
Insecurity. I had been in a band with my buddies from the time I was 16. At around 28, they started all kind of settling down, having kids, getting married, this kind of stuff, and playing in the bars just wasn’t as attractive as it used to be to them. I was still having a good time. But that kind of started, we never broke up or anything, but it was just lives were changing. So I moved to Salt Lake and then I was up here for about a year and I met a girl on MySpace. It was 2008. So I met a girl on MySpace and asked her out on a date. She lived in Ogden. I don’t know what the hell’s in Ogden at this point. So I knew there was a Wise Guys up there. So I got us tickets to Wise Guys and we went there.
And the Wise Guys Club at that time was not what it is today. In that, today you can see the biggest names in comedy at Wise Guys. In 2008, it was kind of, especially the Ogden Club was more of like a, we call them road dogs. Dudes that kill, great comics, funny, but nobody you’d really know. Wise Guys used to be kind of that. And then they’d get a few times a year they’d get a Bobcat Goldthwait or whatever. And then slowly around 2010, ’11, Wise Guys just kind of blossomed into this A club chain. Wise Guys is great. Especially the downtown club. Before you get to that stadium or arena level, Wise Guys is your last stop for clubs. You can’t get any bigger than that at a club level anyway. And then a lot of the big comedians come back to do, Joe Rogan did Wise Guys downtown not even two years ago.
When these big comics want to work on their new material, they’ll go out and do clubs. And they’re at such a level, they make money too. So why not sell out six shows at 400 a pop to practice. And it’s entertaining. I mean, comic’s that good, it’s going to be funny even though they’re kind of working out a little bit. But at that point, Wise Guys was kind of like local dudes, local headliners. And I just was like, I want to do this. And the openers were there. They do five minutes. And I’m like, man, I could do five minutes. So I went to the open mic the next week. Well, I knew a friend who was kind of in the comedy scene a little bit. I knew a girl named Melissa who she had been doing comedy a little bit. And I was like, where do I go? Where do I sign up? And she told me and I did it. And now, here we are.

Kyle Knowles:
So did you write material? I mean, what did you do to prepare for your first five minutes?

Guy Seidel:
You know what? You only get three minutes on an open mic. And I wrote this whole bit about the band Abba, and how the BBC offered them $1 billion to reunite, and they didn’t, which actually happened at some point back in the day, I guess. I had heard this story. And then I spent three minutes, or I wrote three minutes of me explaining what I would do for $1 billion. And then three hours before the open mic, I was like, this is dog shit. This sucks. Literally scrapped it and wrote a new three minutes in three or four hours.
And that was the best decision I’ve ever made in my life. Because the minute that I wrote in that time crunch worked. Now that I know comedy and how it works, that Abba bit, I would have eaten my balls and I would’ve never gone back. If I would’ve bombed that first time, I just know me and I would’ve never gone back. So one of the most important things I’ve ever done in my life was scrapping that three minutes of Abba material and rewriting a new one, because comedy afforded me the ability to start Easy Flow.

Kyle Knowles:
Yes.

Guy Seidel:
I don’t have any skills. I never went to college. So that literally changed everything, those stupid three minutes of jokes. Because I did well and Mark took me under his wing, Marcus, his real name’s Mark, called Mark, took me under his wing. And then it just blossomed into what we do now.

Kyle Knowles:
Do you remember the three minutes? Can you give us a little flavor of it?

Guy Seidel:
I have it on a disk somewhere. Because they used, Wise Guys used to record. They had a camera set up on the lighting rig and connected to a DVD burner thing. This was technology in 2008. And if you wanted to, for five bucks, you could burn your set and they’d give you a CD at the end of your set. It was, what was it? I’m sure it was something stupid and racial in making fun of my own ethnic ambiguity. Oh man. What was it? It was something, the classic open mic line, when you go up, I know what you’re all thinking. Nobody’s thinking anything stupid. Just be funny. Every time I say, I go to an open mic, there’s 10 guys. I know what you’re thinking. We’re not. So I went up with that line and I can’t remember what it was. Ah man. I don’t remember the first bit. Yeah. I don’t know. I have it somewhere. I don’t want to watch it. It’s cringey. But I had-

Kyle Knowles:
You had enough. It was good enough. You got a reaction.

Guy Seidel:
It did fine.

Kyle Knowles:
People clapped.

Guy Seidel:
It was the best set of the night as far as new open micers go, but that doesn’t mean it was good. But even now, I can look back and I was more comfortable on stage just because I had confidence from being in a band. I had long hair at the time, which I have long hair now, but that’s new. I had long hair. And then it’s long again now. But anyway. But yeah, I had long hair. So I was trying to be like this rock comic. That was what I wanted to go for. Being the rock and roll guy.

Kyle Knowles:
Edgy, shock material?

Guy Seidel:
Yeah, that was the plan originally. And then after you get into comedy a little bit, you kind of like, that’s stupid. I mean, you can be that, but you got to be good. Every open mic, there’s dudes that just go up and say the most horrific things just to get a reaction. And that doesn’t mean it’s funny. I knew I didn’t want to do that, but definitely I’ll find those discs someday. I recorded my first two open mics and I have them. I was so excited that I went home and threw them on YouTube. I’d never used YouTube. I built an account, slapped them on YouTube, forgot everything about the YouTube account information. About, I don’t know, five, six years after that, I paid somebody who knew what they’re doing. I was like, get that off of YouTube. Make it go away. Because I didn’t want, at that time, I didn’t want people in the industry Googling me and seeing my open mics come up. I’m not going to hire this hack. He’s terrible. But now that that’s not the goal, I kind of wish they were still up there.

Kyle Knowles:
So do you prepare new material for your stand-up before you do the Marcus and Guy show?

Guy Seidel:
I should. I write a little bit. I’ll sprinkle in a little bit. Because stand-up is not either of our focus. It’s kind of just a fun thing we do at our own shows. I don’t go do opening sets anymore. To get good at stand-up, you have to spend a lot of time in clubs, a lot of time at bars. It’s like working out. You have to do repetitions. And the fewer repetitions you do, the weaker you get. I don’t do that many reps because I’m at a point in my life where stand-up isn’t the focus. And then I just don’t really want to spend my weekends in a club. I have a house and a yard and dogs and I like to go home. And now, I like to go home, go in the backyard, smoke some stuff, chill out.
Even on weekends, I just don’t like spending my time in a loud club. Not that comedy clubs are loud. But to get good at stand-up, you have to. And I just don’t want to go do five sets a weekend when I could just be home. And it’s nothing against any of the clubs or the bars or the local scene, I just don’t have the ambition to put in what it takes to get better at stand-up. So what I do is, when Marcus and I do our shows at Wise Guys, which has been almost monthly lately, I’ll sprinkle, I’ll have some ideas. I’m like, okay, where can I fit that in? So I’ll tell, I’ll do an old set and try to throw in some new things to see if it works. So it’s kind of evolving.
But I haven’t really written a new set in years. I just have to hope people that come to our Wise Guys shows haven’t seen us before. The show Marcus and I do, that’s always changing, because even if we do some of the same bits, it’s so much crowd work that you’re not going to see the same show twice. But my stand-up, yeah. There are times where I’m doing my stand-up closer, and as it’s coming out of my mouth, my brain’s like, you’re still telling this joke? You wrote this when Obama was president? What are you doing?
You wrote this when Bush was president. I mean, so yeah, that’s something I should be better at. But to get better at it, I just don’t want it. I don’t want to do what it takes. It’s not a priority anymore. Same with guitar. I don’t really play guitar outside of what Marcus and I do, because I’m not going to join a band. I’m not going to. My skill level on a guitar is more than what Marcus and Guy calls for. So I don’t really have a reason to play like I used to. I play drums. We talked about that. Not well, but I got an electric kit. I like to go outside, get a little red-eyed, put the headphones on, beat them drums.

Kyle Knowles:
What are you playing along to mostly?

Guy Seidel:
You know what’s funny? My battery’s about dead. I have a playlist on my phone on my iTunes.

Kyle Knowles:
Just for drums?

Guy Seidel:
Yeah.

Kyle Knowles:
Drumming along to.

Guy Seidel:
It’s called Stoney Time Rock Concerts. That’s what the playlist is called. What it is, I got this, so I have a podcast studio in my garage because I dick around with podcasting sometimes. So I have this partition curtain that’s on rails and closes half my garage off. And then on the other side, I have my podcast studio, my electric drum set. And then I have this stupid little light that you turn on, it turns the stars and the nebulas and stuff. So sometimes I’ll just-

Kyle Knowles:
The club atmosphere.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah. I’ll just close that curtain, lock the door. Even though nobody’s going to come in, still just feel a little better. Lock the door and then I’ll just put on whatever. Random shuffle. Oh, I’m going to drum along with this one. Because I suck, it doesn’t matter anyway. Usually the drums are turned down so low that you can’t hear me anyway. I’m just rocking out. And it’s just the best release. I don’t want lessons. I don’t ever plan on becoming a drummer, but I got this semi cheap electric kit that I can just go in there and pab pab pab pab pab, and nobody can tell me I suck because nobody can hear it.

Kyle Knowles:
So you’re on headphones or what?

Guy Seidel:
Oh yeah. Total headphones. Because I put a little mixer next to the drums. So I got my iTunes going into that, and then my drums going into that, and then my headphones, so I can mess with the levels of the music and the drums. So it’s so fun. I don’t know why I don’t do it more often. I have a bass drum that’s out right now.

Kyle Knowles:
It’s the funnest thing. It’s the funnest thing I’ve ever done musically.

Guy Seidel:
And it’s like a rock concert in my head because I’ll just get in my head and be like, ah, then I’ll open my eyes. I’m like, oh yeah, I’m just in my garage. It’s just such a good release. Guitar, there’s a lot of frustration because when you hit a bad note, you know you hit a bad note. But drumming, whatever, who cares? I’ll pick it up on the next one.

Kyle Knowles:
As long as you’re kind of in the beat and you’re playing along with something else, it sounds like you’re amazing.

Guy Seidel:
I know where one and four are.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah.

Guy Seidel:
Okay, to put a little, I’m not the worst drummer. I’m more than just crashing symbols and hitting Toms. I can chop wood with the best of them. But even that has taught me some stuff, because I was always like, oh man, AC/DC’s drummer and ZZ Top’s drummer, that’s the easy gig. No.

Kyle Knowles:
No, it’s not.

Guy Seidel:
No, it is not. Especially Dusty. Or not Dusty, Frank Beard from ZZ Top. That guy’s a champ. Shuffling? He’s got a left hand on, man. Yeah. So that’s what I do in my free time. I’m like the 40-year-old Virgin. You ever see that show where he is playing trumpet one minute. And then he’s like, that’s my house. I never had to grow up. So I just got drums here. I got a stupid old Beetle that I work on. I got records. I like old magazines, like Time Life magazines. I’ll order those off eBay, they’re like 50 years old.

Kyle Knowles:
Do you have figurines? That’s the question.

Guy Seidel:
Yes. But I don’t want to say that I’m like a toy guy. I have strict rules because my garage is kind of my man cave, and that’s where all my music memorabilia goes. I can only have memorabilia of somebody if I’m truly a fan. I’m not just going to, you won’t find Led Zeppelin stuff in my garage because, not because I dislike Zeppelin, but I just don’t really, they’re not my thing. So I don’t feel I deserve to post a Zeppelin poster anywhere. But other things that I’m actually into, I’ll buy. I have a shirt that was on the plane that killed Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Kyle Knowles:
Wow.

Guy Seidel:
It was a guitarist’s shirt. He wasn’t wearing it, but it was in the bag or in his bag on that plane. I have.

Kyle Knowles:
Is that an eBay purchase?

Guy Seidel:
eBay purchase. Yeah. I bought it from their guitar tech.

Kyle Knowles:
Wow.

Guy Seidel:
But I do, to your figurines, I do have a dozen or so of those Funkos, but that rule stays. I’m like, it can only be bands or artists that I’m truly a fan of. So I probably have, I’m not just going to go buy everyone that comes out, but I probably have 12. And they’re not in the box, I take them out of the box. I’m not going to be that guy that just has everything perfect. They’re never going to be worth any money. They’re not Beanie Babies like that again where it’s going to retire the kids and then they’re worth nothing.

Kyle Knowles:
And you have a thousand of them.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah. Although the Funko Pops, there are some, because I remember one time I was like, I was going to buy, maybe it was a Prince one or something and I didn’t buy it. And then I was like, ah, let’s go buy it a year later. And I looked on eBay. It’s like 200 bucks. No.

Kyle Knowles:
So what are the bands that you’re really big fans of then?

Guy Seidel:
Beatles would be number one. But I don’t even count them because that’s home base for music to me. Saying your favorite band is The Beatles is like saying your favorite weather is warm. So I don’t even put them in that category because the Beatles are almost on a religious level for me. But I got Apple Music. I didn’t stream for a long time. I stuck with iTunes. I wanted-

Kyle Knowles:
You were buying 99 cent songs?

Guy Seidel:
I was buying individual buck 29 or albums, because I wanted a hard, in case the apocalypse come, I want to hear my music. I don’t want to rely on the internet. And then I just did it one day. I was like, how often am I out of internet? It’s not like I’m some camper. So I downloaded Apple Music and it’s like Spotify or whatever. So in the past year and a half, two years, I’ve learned so much new old music. I don’t listen to new music. Not because it sucks, but it’s just there’s so much old music to still discover that I never really got into. I’m super into ’80s New Wave. As a music fan, I like more than just the music. I like the history. Where’d this band come from? Who’s in the band? Who produced it? So old music gives me a chance to kind of go down a rabbit hole. So lately I’ve been really big in ’80s New Wave, late ’70s, early ’80s funk.
Old Country, not old, oh, Wayland. No, no, no, no. Yeah, I love Wayland. But I love ’80s and ’90s country. Just because that’s what Mom always had that on the kitchen radio. So that’s what I just, it’s nostalgia, sure, but I genuinely like the music. Grew up on it. So I’m all over the place. But at my absolute core, what made me want to do music and become a music nerd was heavy metal. I was a metal kid. My siblings, I have brothers that are 12 to 15 years older, 12 to 16 years older than me. So they were into the ’80s stuff.
Motley Cru was my first favorite band. All that stuff. And then it just progressed from there. And as I got older, I developed my own tastes and stuff. And then now that I’m on the other side of the hill, it’s definitely mellower. I don’t seek out metal, but I’m also still very much, if I find the right band, I’m down. I’m not getting in the mosh pit anymore, but I’m not the old guy. Oh, metal was better when I was a kid. It’s just, I don’t like the noise as much as I used to. But I’ll still get down for good metal band comes out.

Kyle Knowles:
You bang your head.

Guy Seidel:
I don’t know. Theoretically, I’ll play drums on the steering wheel.

Kyle Knowles:
Nice. What about the ’80s New Wave? What kind of new stuff are you discovering with ’80s New Wave? Because I was a big fan.

Guy Seidel:
Let’s see, who have I gotten into lately? The Mission. I don’t know if they would be considered New Wave. That was a dude from Sisters of Mercy. But I’ve discovered old Cure songs, like A Forest. Early Cure. I was never big into Friday I’m in Love and all that kind of stuff. Some of the other ones, who was it, Skinny Puppy. Gary Newman. I love Gary Newman.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah. Yeah.

Guy Seidel:
I had to take, he was here a couple weeks ago.

Kyle Knowles:
Really?

Guy Seidel:
Yeah, with Ministry. And I bought a ticket to see Gary. One ticket, because I was like, most concerts, I’m like, I’ll buy a pair and find either a date or a buddy. Gary Newman, I was like, I’m not going to sell anybody on Gary Newman. So I bought one ticket. And then by the time the concert came, it was cold and rainy and it was at a club. I was like, I’m not going to go wait outside the rain to go. So I didn’t go. I just ate the ticket. But Gary Newman would be a hard sell to anybody, so I didn’t even try.

Kyle Knowles:
I only know the song Cars.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah, it’s that. It’s more of that. He has a really-

Kyle Knowles:
It’s real synth.

Guy Seidel:
Late ’70s.

Kyle Knowles:
Is it just synthesizers? I mean, is that?

Guy Seidel:
Yeah, pretty, well, I don’t know what his live setup is. I don’t think. But I think he records that way maybe. But there’s songs like Tracks. And he went through his career. And in the ’90s and 2000s, he’s still putting out really good. And I’m the first one to be like, old people shouldn’t make new music. Gary Newman’s still putting out, he has a song, a newer song called, hold on, now I got to look. It came out in 2021 or something.

Kyle Knowles:
Really?

Guy Seidel:
And it’s my favorite Gary Newman song. It is called Intruder. Yeah. Song Intruder by Gary Newman. Came out 2021 and it’s great.

Kyle Knowles:
I’m going to check it out. I’ll put a link to it in the show notes.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah. His old stuff, he was in a band called The Two-Way Army in the late ’70s. And I think that was just, it was like Nine Inch Nails. It was him, but it had a name. Not an easy listen. If you’re just a casual music listener, he’s got a voice that’s like, why would he sing? But I like it. So that kind of stuff is what I’ve been getting into lately. Just rabbit holes. I’ll get in the shower. I’m such a music nerd. I have, listen to this. I have a stereo system on my back patio that’s like in the ceiling. It was Bluetooth controller in the building.
I have one of those in my living room television setup and I have one in my bedroom setup, all high quality sound stuff. So music just kind of follows me. And when I go in the shower, I have a Bluetooth in the shower and a little phone holder thing. So I will just put it on random and it’ll like, here’s an old country song. I’m like, cool. Create station. We’re doing old country tonight. And just go down that rabbit hole. And let the internet tell me kind of like what’s out there.

Kyle Knowles:
Is it Spotify, Apple Music?

Guy Seidel:
Apple Music.

Kyle Knowles:
Okay.

Guy Seidel:
I have Spotify just because there’s some podcasts I like to listen to on there. I’ve just never figured out really how to work the music side of it. And Apple Music, I’m just familiar with Apple, so it’s just, I defaulted to Apple Music. But are you a Spotify dude?

Kyle Knowles:
Spotify. Yeah. I have Apple Music for other reasons because it’s easy to load songs and then they’re available on all your devices.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah. It’s easy to send them too. I mean, Spotify.

Kyle Knowles:
Even podcasts, I can record this, put it in Apple Music and it’s on all my devices because it goes to the cloud.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah, yeah. That makes sense.

Kyle Knowles:
Stuff like that.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah. I’m just an Apple loyalist. Yeah, I know people are jumping out of windows, but they make a good product.

Kyle Knowles:
They do. They definitely do. So where’s the coolest place you’ve ever performed, whether stand-up or whether with Marcus and Guy Show?

Guy Seidel:
Let’s see. Coolest place. We’ve done, okay, this is yes and no. Stand-up has taken me to some cool places. We did cruises there for a summer, so I got to see Turks and Caicos. That was the only place I really saw.

Kyle Knowles:
Was that by yourself or what was that?

Guy Seidel:
That was with Marcus.

Kyle Knowles:
Okay. And you were doing your musical?

Guy Seidel:
Music show, yeah.

Kyle Knowles:
On a cruise for a whole summer or whatever?

Guy Seidel:
Well, we did three or four of them. And I wouldn’t do it again. It’s just, you’re a crew. You work for Carnival. And you are treated as such. We weren’t treated poorly, but we were sleeping down in the steerage, eating in the chow hall down with the workers. And we did what’s called a fly on. So the comedians, the stand-ups. They’ll do a cruise like a week or two or whatever at a time and entertain in the nightclub. We were, it was a little more prestigious, but we were flown in to perform in the big theater for one night only. We were like a kind of, and on Friday, it’s Marcus and Guy.

Kyle Knowles:
So you’d meet at a port and just get on.

Guy Seidel:
We’d meet on a port, get on, perform, next port off. So there was a lot of just sail days where you’re just on the water and you’re not allowed to do much. We can’t. And we’re not drinkers anyway, but we can’t drink or party. We did. Not excessive. We just went and hung out with people, which you’re not supposed to. You’re not supposed to go to the pool. You’re not supposed to go in the pool.

Kyle Knowles:
Just stay in your room? Or I’m like, what?

Guy Seidel:
You can hang out. We couldn’t gamble. Which I could understand. It just wasn’t the awesome cruise experience. Getting on and off was the worst part. You got to go down, they take your passport. It almost felt very cattle.

Kyle Knowles:
Wow.

Guy Seidel:
It was just, I don’t know. I didn’t care for it. Neither did Marcus.

Kyle Knowles:
Human trafficking or something.

Guy Seidel:
Something. It was just-

Kyle Knowles:
Modern slavery, right? Because if they’re taking your passport, that’s kind of weird.

Guy Seidel:
Well, I think they do that so that we can’t just bounce. We can’t get off in Bermuda and be like, later. Yeah.

Kyle Knowles:
You got to stay put.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah. I think that’s probably why they do that. It was just, I don’t know. And looking back now that we’re away from it, nobody really did anything wrong. It was just not what I expected.

Kyle Knowles:
It wasn’t enjoyable.

Guy Seidel:
Wasn’t enjoyable. And then if you break down the money, because even to do one night, we’re gone for four days. Because we’ve got a travel day, perform a night. Sometimes we have a whole full day until we get back to whatever port. And then you got a day of travel back then. So when you’re talking four days away from your real life, that money wasn’t great. So we were just like, okay. We did that. The only place we ever saw was Turks and Caicos because they dropped us off and the flight didn’t leave till the morning. So we got a 8:00 PM to 9:00 AM time in Turks and Caicos, which was amazing. And I want to go back. But for the most part, we got to Bahamas and just went from the airport to the ship, Jamaica, airport to the ship.

Kyle Knowles:
Didn’t see-

Guy Seidel:
Puerto Rico, airport to the ship. Yeah. I saw them as we’re sailing away, I saw that cool, in Puerto Rico, that cool old fort. I’m like, see ya thing that I didn’t get to go experience. So yeah, they sucked. They hated them. Cool experience though. I’m glad I got to do it. It was fun. I wish my mom would’ve been alive because we were trash. So she would’ve thought performing on a cruise ship was pretty awesome. Yeah. It was fun. That was an experience that a lot of people don’t get to have. Yeah. It is what it is. I want to go on a cruise as a guest. I think that’d be kind of fun.

Kyle Knowles:
That’d be funner.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah. Yeah. So I want to go on one of those music cruises someday. They have the Monsters of Rock cruises with all the ’80s bands. And they have genre specific bands. They have band specific cruises now.

Kyle Knowles:
Wow.

Guy Seidel:
Like a KISS cruise or a whatever.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah.

Guy Seidel:
So something like that would be cool. I wouldn’t go just to go see a bunch of other fat Americans.

Kyle Knowles:
So the Marcus and Guy comedy duo takes you all over the United States? Or is it mostly Utah? Where are you guys going?

Guy Seidel:
You know what? Pre COVID, we were all anywhere and everywhere. And we did. We were all over the country. Post COVID, Marcus and I are both kind of like, if it comes along and the offer’s right. Because we both hate airports. Flying has just become so crazy. We’re both kind of at an age where we don’t want to go on the road for three days in hotels and airports just to make enough money. Somebody calls me $20,000 to be in Indianapolis, I’ll be there tomorrow. So we were kind of like, we have a few travel dates on the books for this year, but we’ve kind of focused more on local. Because in Utah alone, and I don’t know how to tap this market, we have so many tech companies. We have so many companies to keep us busy, which we stay pretty busy. But there’s so much more that we could be doing here if we had the right connections in all these companies, which things like this can help word of mouth.
But yeah, we do Wise Guys and then we do local stuff. We’re going to Denver in July. We’re driving because neither one of us want to fly. We would rather, because we’re buddies, we’ll just hop in the car, get some snacks and road trip. So within reason, we drive to gigs. Haven’t flown for a while. I think the last flyout gig we did before everything went crazy was your sister’s birthday party in San Francisco. And we came back and a few weeks later, it was done. I think we’ve done one or two flyaway since then.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah, we brought COVID back from California.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah, it was us.

Kyle Knowles:
We brought it to Utah.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah. It’s our fault. Sorry, Utah Jazz.

Kyle Knowles:
So what’s your favorite song to play on the guitar?

Guy Seidel:
If I pick up an acoustic guitar, I’m going to strum a G and see if it’s in tune. And then I would probably play two songs. And I’m not great at either one of them, but enough to make people go, oh, that guy can play guitar. The intro to, do you remember Tesla? The band Tesla?

Kyle Knowles:
Yep.

Guy Seidel:
I really used to like those guys. Well, they have a song called Love Song, and the intro is this acoustic classical piece that’s just kind of out of nowhere for a band like that. But it’s really well written and well played. And it’s done on two guitars. One of them’s a 12 string, but I do kind of just a different scaled down version, a worse version. So that’s a fun one to play. Or a song by a country band called Sawyer Brown called All These Years. It’s really a dark kind of sad song about a couple who’s been married forever and catches the wife cheating. But great guitar. Beautiful guitar. That’s a song that when it comes on the headphones, I’m like, listen, whoever recorded this, got it.
If I grab an electric guitar and it’s a clean channel, I’m probably going to play some blues licks. If it’s distorted, I’m probably going to rip. I don’t know. I haven’t played a guitar plugged into a storted amp for so long. Probably some ’80s something or other. Some Motley Cru riff or something. Maybe some, depending on who’s, if a real guitarist is nowhere near, I’m going to play some leads, I’m going to do some finger tapping and just showboating. But if there’s a real guitarist in the room who knows that I’m full of shit, I’m probably just going to play some crunchy power chords and few riffs.

Kyle Knowles:
Nice.

Guy Seidel:
Especially as rusty as I am. During COVID, my memories keep popping up on Facebook. And I was learning some stuff that was way out of my, I was making some progress there. Because I watched these things and I used to post videos and I’d learned these solos and I’m like, I can’t play that now.

Kyle Knowles:
You were putting the reps in.

Guy Seidel:
I was putting the reps in. What else was I going to do? Yeah, so I watched some of those videos now. I’m like, wow, I just did a Vito Bratta solo. That’s pretty cool. Now I can’t. I still have all my guitars, I still have all my gear just in case I ever get that. I still want to buy guitars. I went to a Guitar Center the other day to get a cable or something, and there’s Nate, he’s got to go look at the guitars. See one, I’m like, ah, look at that. That’s a nice color.

Kyle Knowles:
People don’t understand it, but if you play guitar, you want more guitars.

Guy Seidel:
I haven’t touched any of my electric guitars for at least a year, and I still see them and I’m like, ugh, I don’t have a Telecaster. I should buy a Telecaster. And I’ve done that so many times. I bought a Gibson Les Paul three, four years ago. I’ve always wanted a Les Paul. Whole life wanted Les Paul, could never afford it. Finally had the money. It was a place in life where I could buy a Les Paul and not have to finance it. Bought it, had it for a month. And I was like, I just don’t like it. I’ve been so used to using the Strat shape that the Les Paul just felt weird. So I sold it. So I think that was the one that told me, stop buying guitars, stupid. You got the guitar you always wanted and you didn’t like it. My favorite guitar is a cheap used one I bought.

Kyle Knowles:
It’s the one you play all the time.

Guy Seidel:
But about five years ago, I went to Guitar Center and I wanted an electric guitar with a Floyd Rose. And you know what a Floyd Rose is. For the listeners, it’s this fancy system that you can do dive bombs and just crazy. None of my guitars had a Floyd Rose on them. I knew how. I had had them before, but I didn’t have any at the time. So I was like, I just want to buy one with a Floyd Rose to tinker with it. I bought it, kind of messed with it a little bit. It became my favorite guitar ever. It’s the only electric guitar I have that’s not in a closet. Because on the rare occasion I do pick it up, that’s the one. And it was like a $200 guitar. I got Strats in the closet.

Kyle Knowles:
That’s the one you want to pull out.

Guy Seidel:
It’s a Washburn. Yeah. It’s not like a Fender or a Gibson. Just a semi cheap guitar. And it’s my favorite. I tuned it in 2020 and it’s still in tune. It’s got that locking nut on it. Man, that thing’s a champ.

Kyle Knowles:
Those are amazing.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah, they’re a pain to work on when you need to. But yeah, when they’re a pain, they’re a pain. But when they’re doing what they’re supposed to, they’re awesome.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah, I agree.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah.

Kyle Knowles:
So who is your favorite comic of all time?

Guy Seidel:
Of all time?

Kyle Knowles:
All time.

Guy Seidel:
It’s hard to say because I was never really that guy that always wanted to do comedy and I watched everybody’s special. I would have to say probably Bill Burr. He’s the guy who I respect the most and just how his mind works and relatable. But the guy when I first started doing comedy, it was kind of about the time, wasn’t about the time, but YouTube was popping. It was still kind of new. And Mitch Hedberg, there was a million Mitch Hedberg clips on YouTube because he is just short form jokes. And I loved Mitch. I think even if you watched that first disc I was talking about, I think I have a delivery like this on a couple of jokes because I was just listening to so much Mitch Hedberg. And then Jim Norton.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah.

Guy Seidel:
I was never going to be as dirty as Jim Norton because I knew he’s good enough to where he can be. But I really liked his style, his aggressiveness. I wouldn’t put either of those two in my favorite comics today, but I mean, Hedberg probably. He’s still brilliant. And so is Jim. Just, I kind of grew out of his style or whatever. But now there’s so many, comedy right now is experiencing the biggest boom it has ever experienced. Bigger than the ’70s, bigger than the ’80s. Comedy right now, there’s probably 10 comics out right now who are doing arenas. Basketball arenas. That’s nuts.
Being a club comic’s almost a slam now because everybody’s doing theaters and arenas and trying to get, and it’s crazy. And it’s good. And there’s a lot of good comedians out there and Wise Guys is popping every weekend. But there’s a lot of Tom Segura, he’s one of my favorites of the new guys, the current kind of bigger guys up there. I watch a lot of comedy podcasts. I don’t watch stand-up very often just because I know what goes into that. But I love watching two comedians just riff, just talk. So I like comedy podcasts more than I like actual stand-up. So I’m familiar with a million comics who are popular right now, but I couldn’t tell you any of their jokes because I don’t really watch their stand-up but watch their podcast.

Kyle Knowles:
So you listen to the podcast with Tom Segura?

Guy Seidel:
Yeah, I’m a watcher.

Kyle Knowles:
Who’s the other guy that’s on it?

Guy Seidel:
Bert Kreischer.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah. I don’t listen to podcasts. I’ll listen to this one or wherever you put it up because I like hearing my own voice. Just kidding. I hate it. But yeah, I’d rather watch two people do kind of unscripted just conversation because that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 15 years, hanging out with comedians and talking about things. When my buddies go on stage, I don’t necessarily watch them. They get off stage and then we talk and bust balls and rip on each other. So that’s kind of why I like comedy podcasts. Or even just two interesting people, whatever it is. They don’t have to be comedians. But I’m pretty in tune with comedians, just not their material. I don’t go to the comedy club unless it’s somebody I really want to see.
Just I’ve spent a lot of time in comedy clubs. It’s great. And when somebody comes to town and I go to Wise Guys with a friend or something, it’s awesome. That’s such a good time. I need to do that more. Yeah. But it’s weird now. Because now I walk into Wise Guys and the people at the door don’t know who I am. I’m like, look at the poster. My face is still up there. They haven’t taken down the poster yet. At the downtown club. We don’t do the downtown club very often. But yeah, I still consider it my scene even though I’m not really an active member of it.

Kyle Knowles:
What do you feel like made Wise Guys go to the next level? Was it different ownership or what happened there when you talked about-

Guy Seidel:
100% Keith Stubbs and his wife Noelle. They own the Wise Guys clubs and Keith just, he’s just always looking to better the clubs. When I started in West Valley at the old club, it’s a Hustler store now. When I started there, it was a great club, very established. But it was kind of like I said, kind of like the Bob and Tom guys. Every few months you’d get a David Atell and somebody that was noteworthy. And you’d go. And then Keith Stubbs, he just keeps reinvesting into the clubs. He keeps just pushing, pushing, pushing. And he’s got the brain, the business brain for it. He’s a smart dude and he’s got the drive. Because he opened that, he opened the Trolley Square Club. The Trolley Square Club moved to downtown eventually. The West Valley Club there.
It’s changed. The locations have changed a bunch and there’s been added, so now there’s, let’s see, there’s one in Vegas, there’s one in West Jordan, there’s one in downtown Salt Lake, there’s one in Ogden, there’s one coming in Boise, and then another one coming in Vegas. So he’s a busy dude. It’s 100% Keith Stubbs. He’s just a badass who has put in the work. It’s his passion. He’s there every night. It’s not like he’s just counting money and smoking a cigar somewhere. He’s hands on. And it’s worked. I got nothing but good things to say about Keith.

Kyle Knowles:
And did he take over ownership? Did he buy?

Guy Seidel:
No, he started it.

Kyle Knowles:
He started it.

Guy Seidel:
I believe he had some other clubs way back in the ’90s, maybe even in Ogden and maybe Provo, I can’t remember. But he started the West Valley Club, which was kind of like the anchor club, if I remember right, in 2001. And then I can’t remember how far after that Ogden came and then he kept pushing. He built it. Just built it.

Kyle Knowles:
Year after year.

Guy Seidel:
And now if you listen to any of the comedians podcasts, all of them, Wise Guys is great. Keith Stubbs, I listen, every podcast I listen to, especially if there’s one I know is in town this weekend, I’ll listen to their next podcast or whatever couple weeks later. Every one of them, like Wise Guys, awesome as always. Keith Stubbs is great. In the circle, in the comedy comedian world, Wise Guys is very respected. Because there are some clubs out there that change management all the time, they change hands all the time. And people, business people that don’t know comedy. Keith Stubbs is a comedian. I forgot to mention that. Before he was ever a club owner, he was a comic working the road for a long time. So he knows what it takes to build and have a good comedy club for the performer and the spectator. It’s not like he’s just some investor, like start a comedy club. No, he knows the business. So that definitely helped. What were we talking about?

Kyle Knowles:
Just how Keith took it to the next level.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah. He’s awesome. And Wise Guys is an A club. There’s a lot of little chuckle huts across the country, but Wise Guys, it’s up there with any of the improvs or Funny Bones. Funny Bones is even kind of a slam even. But yeah, Wise Guys is great. And if you’re listening to this and you’re in Utah and you’re not going to one of the Wise Guys clubs every so often, you’re doing something wrong. Because even in today’s day and age, you can Google. That’s why I always get, when somebody comes to a show and they’re like, I’m offended. It’s like, did you not Google who you’re coming to see?
So you can do that. You can be like, okay, I don’t like edgy comedy. I’m going to Google this person who’s on the website. Oh, they’re what I’m looking for. I’m going to go to that. So even though Wise Guys is sold out pretty much all the time, you can still, wiseguyscomedy.com. If you want to go, just go look their rosters up. Oh, I want to see whoever, Duane Perkins. Let’s see. Let’s go to that. It’s so fun. I scroll Wise Guys’ website to see people I want to see.
Because I used to hang out in the club in the back room because the local comics would go and watch and hang out. But I like now to buy a ticket. Keith would never charge me. If I want to go to any show, he’d go and let me stand in the back. And if it’s not sold out, I could sit in any seat. He’s a good friend of mine. But there are shows where I’m like, I want to go sit down, get waited on, have a plate of nachos and watch a comedy show. So I still will buy tickets to Wise Guys every so often and just go and sit down. What’s today? I might swing by there after if anything’s going on. It’s right here.

Kyle Knowles:
And you guys are playing there.

Guy Seidel:
We’re playing a different location. It’s kind of random. Marcus and I, we don’t do the Salt Lake Club. Because we do, that’s almost 400 seats, the downtown club. And they’re a four show a weekend club. So when comedians come through once a year or once every couple of years, or they’re a big name, they can sell, what is that? 1,600 seats? Marcus and I, we’re local and we have a draw, but we can’t sell out four shows in a giant club all the time. So rather than doing Wise Guys downtown once a year, we bounce between the smaller clubs doing one show a night. That way, our draw, we still sell it out. I can’t compete with some of the acts that go to the downtown club. Once in a while we’ll do, somebody will fall out and we’ll do a one nighter there or something. And I don’t want the pressure of having to sell 1,600 seats locally five times a year. So it’s hard. But we do West Jordan. Awesome club.

Kyle Knowles:
How many seats at West Jordan?

Guy Seidel:
Close to 200.

Kyle Knowles:
And do you do four sets or is it just-

Guy Seidel:
One a night.

Kyle Knowles:
One a night. Okay.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah. And Ogden, same. Ogden’s my favorite club because it’s a little rough. Not rough, that’s not the word. It’s more got a real brick behind the stage. It’s a real brick wall. Low ceilings. It’s old. I don’t know why that affects it, but it does, an older building. It’s dark. I like it.

Kyle Knowles:
It’s more intimate.

Guy Seidel:
It’s more intimate. Low ceilings.

Kyle Knowles:
Todd Barry up there was fantastic.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Knowles:
The crowd work he was doing, it’s just like you were there.

Guy Seidel:
And the West Jordan club’s the same thing. It’s smaller, it’s got low ceilings. It doesn’t have the same, as a performer, it doesn’t have the same vibe that Ogden does. But it’s still awesome. I still love doing West Jordan. But just something about a 100 year old building and knowing that it’s a little, it’s been around, real brick wall behind you. It’s just, there’s something extra special about that. So we love doing Ogden, and we murder in Ogden. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s just the Ogden people. I don’t know. But we love Ogden.
But we’re doing West Jordan May 20th. I don’t know when this comes out, but we’re doing West Jordan May 20th. Awesome club. Like I said, it’s like Ogden, but it’s newer, so it’s not, same low ceiling, it’s comfortable, everything. It just doesn’t, it’s more open wide, I guess. Still great to perform at. Still great to catch a show at. That’s my second favorite of the places. I love the downtown club, but again, it’s so hard to fill. That’s a lot of pressure. And when you’re playing to 200 people in a 400 person room, this is not the same.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah, yeah.

Guy Seidel:
But when you’re playing to 200 people in a 200 people room, it’s awesome.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah.

Kyle Knowles:
That makes sense.

Guy Seidel:
Yeah.

Kyle Knowles:
Well, we’ll put links to the website, all things Guy Seidel in the show notes. I just want to get through a lightning round of questions real fast.

Guy Seidel:
Let’s do it.

Kyle Knowles:
These are just real quick questions. Favorite candy bar?

Guy Seidel:
Whatchamacallit.

Kyle Knowles:
Favorite musical artist?

Guy Seidel:
Impossible to answer, but I could probably give you an at the moment. At the moment, who would it be? George Strait.

Kyle Knowles:
Okay. Favorite cereal?

Guy Seidel:
Cocoa Dino Bites. That is the Malto meal version of Cocoa Pebbles.

Kyle Knowles:
Mac or PC?

Guy Seidel:
PC. I don’t have one, or no. I do have a PC. I don’t have a Mac. Only because I’m so not tech savvy that a PC is cheap and I know how to do my, I can do my taxes on it. That’s all I need.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah, Google or Microsoft?

Guy Seidel:
I truly couldn’t tell you the difference, but we’ll say Google because I use that.

Kyle Knowles:
Okay, fair enough. Dogs or cats?

Guy Seidel:
Dogs for sure. But shout out to cats. They have their place. I love my cat.

Kyle Knowles:
Phantom or Les Mis?

Guy Seidel:
Look, I’m trash from helper, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve become a little more open to things. I went to t Carmina Barona at the symphony, at the Eccles, Utah Symphony. Awesome. I haven’t seen Phantom or Les Mis because musicals are the worst thing ever in the history of the world. However, I would go check it out just to see. I can appreciate the production and the work and the talent, but musicals are dumb. I hate them. But if somebody was like, I got tics to Les Mis at Eccles. You want to go? I’d probably go. It’d be entertaining. But I can’t tell you that I’ve ever spent any time with either of those.

Kyle Knowles:
I love it. I love the answer because I love teasing my brother-in-laws because I ask them the same question and they basically give me the same response.

Guy Seidel:
The only musical I’ve ever enjoyed was South Park. I am a redneck. Not really, but I’m not, yeah. Musicals, I missed that boat.

Kyle Knowles:
I get it. So where can people find you and Easy Flow?

Guy Seidel:
Easy Flow, I mean, my phone number. I have a website, but I don’t maintain. Who goes to websites? I mean, probably everybody, but for what I do, I just need it there. I just need a website so my phone number’s on it. (801) 792-2853. I’m not famous. Text me. Or marcusandguy.com. Easyflowutah.com. That’s my business, but I haven’t even looked at that page in five years.

Kyle Knowles:
You have a Facebook page or something?

Guy Seidel:
Easy Flow Air Duct Cleaning on Facebook or just Guy Seidel. There’s a Marcus and Guy Instagram page, Guy Seidel on Instagram or whatever you want to find me. S-E-I-D-E-L. Not hard to find, but yeah, I’m not. I should be more active on social media, but I’m not. I am, I’ll post pictures of my dog, but I’m not the guy posting content, posting TikToks every four minutes of my stand-up set.

Kyle Knowles:
But you did make your first TikTok?

Guy Seidel:
I did make-

Kyle Knowles:
A week or two ago.

Guy Seidel:
A couple weeks ago, I made my first TikTok ever. And I’ve never felt like a senior citizen more of just, okay, how do I post, literally, how do I post this? I made the video and then I’m like, okay, now what? There’s not just a post. I mean, there probably was, but it took me, I felt like-

Kyle Knowles:
There’s a few steps to get it out there.

Guy Seidel:
I felt like a 100 year old man being like, how do I make the internet work? Because I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole. I know you have to because TikTok is so massive and just posting reels and content and clips. And I’m just not. I don’t want to stare at my phone that much. I already do too much. So it’s probably hurting some things if I was more. This TikTok video of duct cleaning goes viral and yeah, I don’t know. I just don’t care. I’m an old curmudgeon.

Kyle Knowles:
I get it. I get it. Well, thank you Guy for so being so generous with your time tonight. I’ve really enjoyed our time together.

Guy Seidel:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Kyle Knowles:
Thanks for being on the show.

Guy Seidel:
This was fun. Time flew. How long did we do? Not bad.

Kyle Knowles:
Not bad.

Guy Seidel:
Nice.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah.

Guy Seidel:
It’s probably dark outside now. It’s going to be weird.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah.

Guy Seidel:
Nice. Well, yeah. Thanks Kyle.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah.

Guy Seidel:
This was fun.