“Agitated” could be used to describe a hefty portion of Linkin Park‘s music, but “agita”? Comedian and actor Avery Pearson and a starry cast of fellow funny people will reveal the connection in his comedy special Give It Up, Avery Pearson, which was recorded at the Dynasty Typewriter at The Hayworth Theatre in Los Angeles and premieres Thursday (June 26) on the livestream platform VEEPS.
Executive produced by David Nickoll (NFL Network, Back That Year Up With Kevin Hart & Kenan Thompson) and co-produced by Dr. Phil impersonator Adam Ray and Thousand Percent, the special will feature Pearson — whose work has been seen on Broadway, Saturday Night Live and the ESPY Awards — and his band performing his original songs with a lineup that includes Ray, Arden Myrin (The Righteous Gemstones), JR De Guzman and Beth Stelling (both have Netflix comedy specials), Luke Null (SNL), Josh Adam Meyers (Bill Burr’s Friends Who Kill), Scout Durwood (MTV’s Mary + Jane), Jeremiah Watkins (Cartoon Network’s DC Superhero Girls) and singer-songwriter Stevvi Alexander, who has performed on tour with Fleetwood Mac, Barbra Streisand and Diana Ross, and appeared in the documentary Twenty Feet From Stardom. There are also special guest appearances by Iliza Shlesinger and “Roastmaster General” Jeffrey Ross, whose upcoming one-man show, Take a Banana for the Ride, which bows on Aug. 5 at Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre, will include a song Pearson wrote for the production.
The set list includes “Monster Inside,” performed by Pearson and Watkins, which is about indigestion, although the agita is not caused by Linkin Park. Pearson says the song is about heartburn that comes from “eating late night in your 40s, and is played in the rap-and-rock style of Linkin Park’s ‘In the End.’”
There’s also “I Am a Hyundai,” sung by Pearson, which, he rep explains, is about “identifying as a Porsche but accepting you’re a Hyundai.” “”Boys’ Night Out,” by Pearson, Null and De Guzman, takes a feminist perspective on guys at the club. “They’re not looking to have sex,” Pearson says. “They’re just there to dance.” “Fingerblasting Women,” by Pearson and Durwood, is an electronic banger about “the one thing in common between a straight guy and a lesbian,” according to Pearson.
“Sex Chair,” performed by Ray and Pearson, is a hard-rock anthem based on a true story: the time Ray went to party and the host insisted on showing him his glow-in-the-dark sex chair. “I was always told by my eighth grade English teacher, ‘You’ll never make it, your goofs are disruptive, and you’ll never meet a weirdo with a sex chair,’” Ray says. “She was wrong about one of those.”
The special will be available on VEEPS in the United States and Canada for $12.99. All-access subscribers can watch for free.
