Standing in front of a microphone before a crowd of New Yorkers expecting to laugh is a daunting task, but for Brad Rickert, it’s his source of energy. New to the city, he’s bulking up his weekly roster in Manhattan comedy clubs, performing weeknights at the likes of The Bowery and St. Marks Comedy Club. A natural under the spotlight, he appears comfortable maneuvering around the stage making people laugh and ache from Steve Buscemi bird impersonations to recreating Kermit the frog getting to third base. Off stage, he exudes that same confidence. At nearly six feet, he stands tall and relaxed, poised to make a joke at any opportune moment. Upon first meeting, it would be impossible to guess the journey it took to make it to the stage.
Brad spent most of his childhood living in a trailer park right outside of Gary, Indiana, a once thriving community of steel industry workers left in an economic depression after mass layoffs in the ‘60s and ‘70s. His home was one of many in Pine Village, a tree-themed trailer park. While some were newly modeled mobile homes the rest stood grimy and dilapidated. His family of four lived in a two bedroom trailer, Brad and his brother sharing one room while his baby sister’s crib stayed in his parents room. Their yearly home project was tarring the ceiling to protect against the spread of rust since their roof had no shingles. With four people living in a two bedroom house, everyone wanted to be outside. He spent his time playing basketball, his first passion, and playing with his friends in the sprawling neighborhood, always aware that there could be conflict at any turn.
“I feel like my life is like an oxymoron, right? I was growing up in a place where there was gang activity all the time. When I would go out in the neighborhood I knew it was basically in between the Gangster Disciple and the Latin Kings fighting. It was territory they were fighting over and then I would have to go to a private school during the day and I’d have to be a pastor’s kid so it felt like I was living dual-lives from the beginning.”
His private elementary school was connected to the church where his father worked as the principal and assistant pastor, and his mother was the preschool teacher. With only about 150 students enrolled at school, Brad was one of the two children in the sixth grade class. He laughs as he recalls a science lab he’d taken where the experiment was proving how easy it is for fossils to form, dismissing classic earth science in favor of the biblical creation story. Following a strict interpretation of the Bible, their lifestyle felt rigid. When Brad would watch TV as a child he remembers having to click mute when Uncle Jesse’s band, Jesse and the Rippers came on the screen. The siblings sat in front of the television watching John Stamos singing in his open vest and acid wash denim only hearing the static of the screen.
Independent from an early age, he started working odd jobs at 10 years old for what he describes as a need for agency, so a family friend who worked for the bank got him a gig. Tenants nearby who couldn’t pay their bills or got their homes repossessed would leave them in filthy condition, it was his job to go in and rip the floors out or apply drywall, general landscaping. It wasn’t until around puberty though that he felt a yearning for another life. He began to resist the rigidity of the church, began questioning what kind of people he wanted to associate with and where he wanted to live. All around him were either devout followers of God or childhood friends repeating the cycle of the neighborhood, often getting initiated into the gangs they grew up with.
By the time he was 16, he was living an independent life and grew further away from the church.
With his earnings from bagging groceries at Strack and Van Till’s, he saved up and bought a forest green Chevy Cavalier. Using different excuses each night, his job the most reliable, Brad was able to sneak away to Chicago up to four times a week performing standup. In the black of the night, he’d flip through his CD album and fill the dark roads with sounds beyond his home- Kanye West’s Graduation, Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter 3 and The White Stripes Icky Thump. He says he was always drawn to music that came from a strong individual voice rather than a collective; he likens it to his aversion to groupthink.
His early sets were an exploration of finding his own voice, usually some sort of commentary on pop culture rather than his personal life. Steadily he built his roster and performed most weeknights over the course of living in Chicago for the next 10 years.
“It felt like a therapy session,” he says. “The thing that I became very adept at growing up in a religious household was lying and manipulating emotions because I had to have any semblance of a real life. My ability to elicit a reaction out of people or get a certain emotion out of people, comedy seemed like the most noble thing to do with that.”
Now, comedy is something different for him. After years of conflict with his family over leaving the church and Christian guilt, he sounds at peace when he reminisces on the tumultuous years of his boyhood. He describes the rough years of transitioning out, doing what he had to in order to gain his independence. Brad shrugs his shoulders and smiles. “Maybe it’s all the concussions but I’m a pretty forgiving person,” he jokes. “I don’t hold anything against them, I just don’t want to be driven by that guilt.” Comedy no longer serves as a form of exoneration for Brad, but a skill he wants to fine tune with each set.
While Brad was the first to leave, the rest of his family have since drifted from the church and support his career. His mother, who used to don long denim skirts and defer to their father for the decision making, has recently left the church and is now what Brad jokes as being on rumspringa. His dad and grandfather are the only ones who have remained close to the church, and they often call to tempt him into coming back. “Think of how easy it would be,” they say. The thought is funny. Brad jokes that the home he lives in now is too comfortable, the thought of returning to his former life would be more strenuous for him than hustling his way through New York’s comedy cellars.
