It’s 4 p.m. on a Monday, and as the only member of the WellRED Comedy trio on Eastern time, Corey Ryan Forrester (pictured above in middle) is the only one who might be considered bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as that quintessentially American colloquialism goes.
He’s the first on a Zoom call with BLANK Newspaper, grinning as he talks about being a new father and the impending arrival of Southern summer heat.
Trae Crowder (left), known in many circles as “The Liberal Redneck,” pops up onscreen a few minutes later, already thinking about the podcast the guys will record after the interview. Drew Morgan (right) helped facilitate the interview and is the last to arrive, yawning nonchalantly while his wife, filmmaker and musician Andi Morrow, pads across their living room in the background.
It’s 1 o’clock in Los Angeles, where Crowder and Morgan live, and the never-ending grind has left all three a bit out of gas.
They’re gracious about an opportunity to talk to the hometown press, but buzzing phones indicate incoming texts and emails for each, another sign of the constant hustle to make it in an industry that’s still stick-and-carrot.
One thing stands out, though: However occupied their days may be, their determination to grab the brass ring is as bold as it ever was. It just might look a little different going forward because WellRED Comedy as a regular touring entity is being retired.
To be clear, as Crowder explains, the WellRED “band” is not breaking up. But to preserve a friendship that predates the fame they’ve found collectively and individually, long stretches on the road as a group will be no more. They’ll still do shows together; an annual holiday show in Nashville is tradition, and coming back to Knoxville for a hometown performance – like the one on Saturday, May 20, at the Bijou Theatre – is a must.
“The WellRED podcast will go on, and we’re still going to do stuff together,” Crowder says. “For us, touring as stand-up comedians is more like being in a band without all the coolest parts, except maybe the drugs. It’s like having roommates – you’re going to get on each other’s nerves, and there are going to be fights and arguments, and there have been plenty of them, but at the end of the day …”
“When you spend the amount of years we spent together on the road, you really get to know people, and unfortunately, I’ve gotten to know them at their most tired or most professionally heartbroken,” Morgan interjects. “The absolute truth is, there have been times where I thought I could go years without seeing these two, but they’re in my life forever because we are a family and because of how long we’ve been together and how much we love and respect each other.
“WellRED as a tour is all but ending, but WellRED as a concept isn’t because we are a family, and we have mutual interests professionally,” Morgan continues.
“My goal for us together is still to get a 30-minute comedy show on a network. On a personal level, my wife and I are starting a family, and I’m wanting to do different things. But professionally, I’m wanting to do an hour of my own material. And I’m even more interested in working with these two guys on a 30-minute television show.”
The trio’s friendship predates their fame, but the comedy lane in which they’ve found success was laid down in Southern ancestors who passed down traditions and trauma in equal measure. Crowder grew up in Celina, Tennessee; Forrester hails from the Georgia side of the Chattanooga metropolitan area; and Morgan hails from the rugged rural hills of Morgan County.
They’re educated and well-rounded men – Forrester attended Georgia Northwestern Technical College; Morgan got his diploma from Maryville College before obtaining a law degree from Boston College; and Crowder is a Golden Eagle alum of Tennessee Tech in Cookeville. Credit education, friend groups and a hunger for the accumulation of knowledge that shaped their worldviews, but none of the three men shy away from being labeled as progressives. It’s understandable, even, that they might be labeled as political comedians. After all, they were catapulted to fame when Crowder’s “porch rants” as the “Liberal Redneck” went viral in 2016.
That was a blessing, they acknowledge, but it’s also been a challenge and, on occasion, a stumbling block.
“I remember being told that I was a political comedian, but no, I’m a comedian who has a different point of view,” Forrester says.
“I’m not doing a ripped-from-the-headlines type of thing. When you’re writing a bit, you don’t want to spend a lot of time writing one that in two or three months isn’t going to make any sense. In the back of your mind, you’re thinking, ‘I can’t add this to my repertoire because it’ll be dead in two months!’
“The best jokes are the ones you work on for a long time, so you’re always looking at situations for the evergreen part. So yes, something might happen that’s political, but the overarching thing is that it’s part of something that happens all the time. So instead of talking about the situation, let’s talk about the phenomenon.”
That comedic finesse came later, but the raw talent in all three has been percolating for years. Forrester lied to get into a club when he was 16 to try stand-up. Morgan was encouraged to give it a go by his wife, whom he met at Maryville College. Crowder did the same when he moved to Knoxville, and through a now-defunct East Tennessee collective known as the Black Liver Society, they met one another, became pals and, after shows and over drinks, began to play the what-if game.
“We were friends back then, even though we didn’t see each other all the time,” Forrester says. “When we started touring, we all stayed in one hotel room together, but after a while, it was like, ‘Guys, I know we’re saving money, but for our own mental sakes, we gotta get our own rooms.
“Seriously, though, we were friends before this, but they’re as close as family to me now. We’re doing the same stuff now that we did back then; we just get paid to do it. I genuinely can’t imagine my life without these two dudes in it.”
Fame came in April 2016 when Crowder pivoted hard into his “Liberal Redneck” character: thick accent, standing on a wooden porch, ranting about political topics of the day. It’s not a charade; he described himself to The Daily Times newspaper of Maryville as “an intelligent redneck” as far back as 2012.
“My whole thing is trying to be a more intelligent, higher-brow version of the ‘Blue Collar Comedy’ guys,” he said at the time. “I have this accent, and I don’t try to hide it, but I have a larger vocabulary, as well.”
A particular video about the kerfuffle in right-wing circles regarding trans individuals using Target bathrooms exploded. When he went to bed that night, the number of views and shares was climbing; when he woke up the next morning, his phone had more than 1,000 notifications, and it had been viewed roughly 2 million times. It was as if the talismen of show business ripped the brakes out of his metaphorical ’69 Dodge Charger, but like those Duke boys of TV fame, Crowder, Forrester and Morgan had a plan.
They shared a manager and were already working as a writing team, and when producers, fellow writers and TV pitchmen came calling, they found three well-educated Southern comedians who knew exactly what they wanted.
It may have come as something of a surprise to the experienced TV people. As the three have referenced in their comedy, folks with thick accents often leave the mistaken impression that they are clueless yokels. By the same token, they note, being outspoken Southern advocates for progressive values had a tendency to make them caricatures on the other side of the political aisle, as well.
“In 2016, we were talking about [political] things a lot, and in the aftermath, it was like people expected us to be the standard-bearers,” Morgan says. “It seemed like some people thought, ‘You can have liberal ideas, but you have to tow the party line.’ And we know that’s how the internet works. The people who agree with you just move on and don’t say anything. The naysayers are going to say nay, and you can get lost by not processing that everyone else isn’t expecting you to do that.”
“So many people, especially with Trae, act like he shouldn’t be allowed to do that,” Forrester adds. “It’s like, ‘How could you waste your time talking about this? Don’t you know there’s been a mass shooting?’ Sometimes, some of them think that you can’t talk about anything else, like if you’re the flagbearer for Southern Democrats, that’s the only thing you can ever do, and if you do anything else, you’re wasting your time.”
And therein lies the rub: The internet made Crowder famous, and that fame catapulted the three friends to the next level. Within a year, they had published a book, “The Liberal Redneck Manifesto: Dragging Dixie Out of the Dark.” Add a contentious, polarizing and generally surreal presidential election into the mix, and it’s easy to understand why the “political comedy” label became synonymous with WellRED. And to be fair, it’s still part of what they do.
But it’s not all they do – not by a country mile.
“I’m aware that some people feel ownership of other people’s content or products or whatever, almost like it means more to them than the people who make it,” Crowder says. “For me, this is a thing I do. I believe what I’m saying, but saying it is the thing, and then I’ll go make dinner, so it’s just one part of me. And I would argue that [my stand-up] has always kind of been less than people might expect, based on seeing my videos.
“I never considered myself a political comedian at all. The videos became another thing I was trying, and now some people will show up expecting a whole show full of Trump jokes or headline news jokes, but I feel like we were never really doing that. Having said that, we were still in the ballpark and doing social commentary, but we still talk about real things. We dunk on white supremacy in America, but we also like to mix it up.
“I’ll joke about my background and living in California to keep it interesting, but I feel like I’ve always tried to do that,” he adds.
When the guys first hit the road, Crowder was clearly the “headliner,” even though he took as many pains as possible to foster an all-for-one, one-for-all mentality both publicly and in the media. When ABC’s “Nightline” came calling, reporters focused on Crowder, but Morgan and Forrester were beside him on camera.
When Comedy Central spotlights WellRED, all three get airtime. When Amazon Prime wanted to put out a WellRED special earlier this year, each comedian got a special of his own. And when they finally land their own sitcom – a project that’s been off and on and off again for half a decade now – it will be a joint affair, as well.
By the same token, each man is an individual comedian. Like any band can and does, they riff off of each other, but they’re very much men of their own tastes and styles. Take, for example, Morgan: In the beginning, he went out of his way to not be known as “the guy who’s like Trae Crowder,” he says.
“I made a very conscious decision to steer away from politics, especially with newer stuff,” he says. “On my Amazon Prime special, I think I have two jokes that reference political ideas, and those were under the framework of my wife and I deciding to have a child. But then, a month ago, I put out 13 straight minutes on one political topic as it relates to the state of Tennessee, and it was something I had to put out or lose forever (the Youtube mini-special is called “Tennessee is a Drag”).
“So … I made a conscious effort to come across as a comedian with more breadth … but then a month ago, I did the exact opposite,” he adds with a chuckle.
Life, it seems, is … well, funny, even for guys who know funny. For years, Crowder steered away from jokes about his kids (now aged 10 and 11), whose origins date back to around the time he met Morgan and Forrester and started doing comedy. Morgan, on the other hand, started talking about his and Morrow’s baby-on-the-way before her pregnancy was even publicly announced (his Amazon special is titled “To My Future Kids … I’m Sorry”). Since becoming a new father, Forrester keeps notes on material that may one day turn into a nugget delivered from the stage.
Crowder, on the other hand, never really enjoyed bits that portrayed kids as feral savages who drive parents crazy. Until recently, that is.
“Corey and Drew got their wives pregnant, and lately I’ve been talking about how my sons are California kids now, and I’m like, Tennessee trash,” he says.
“Let the record show that Corey and I have been the biggest influences on Trae Crowder!” Morgan quickly adds.
The three men laugh, those easygoing, shoulder-rolling chuckles that are the hallmark of inside jokes and shared experiences, longtime friendship and a ride-or-die commitment to one another … and to comedy.
“I want to give people what they paid for, but I just don’t want to be only that,” Crowder says. “I have plenty in my set about my background, my childhood, my kids – all the general stand-up areas. And then I get into cultural or political things, or topical or regional stuff that I’ll never do again, because it doesn’t have a shelf life.”
“I truly believe there is no subject which, if treated properly, you can’t find the humor in it,” Forrester adds.
And that’s been the genius of WellRED since the beginning. Not their accents, although they play well. Not their politics, which they have parlayed into a nationwide audience of like-minded fans.
Making folks laugh has always been the goal, and that they’ve been able to do so in ways that have changed each of their lives has made it all the sweeter.
“I can’t sit here and say we’ve checked off every single box, but we checked off more boxes than any person ever thought we would when they saw us do our first open mic,” Forrester says. “If we never did anything but this comedy tour, we would be successful comedians, in my opinion.”
“I think we set out to do a few things, and in the stand-up world have come relatively close,” Morgan adds. “And we’re not done yet.”
Tickets to the Knoxville show are available here. Tickets to all other shows are available at traecrowder.com.
To watch and follow Corey Ryan Forrester’s work check out coreyryanforrester.com
To do the same with Drew Morgan, visit drewmorgancomedy.com
wildsmith@blanknews.com
