By Dan Rubinstein
Certain facts about Tommy Chong are well documented. Working alongside comedic partner Cheech Marin, he made a series of hit records and movies in the 1970s and 1980s, with films such as Up In Smoke cementing his image as a stoner icon. He was imprisoned in 2003 for selling bongs, targeted by America’s war on drugs in part – one prosecutor wrote – because “he became wealthy… through glamorizing the illegal distribution and use of marijuana.” Lesser known, however, is that Chong was born in Edmonton and grew up in Calgary, and that before becoming a comedian, he was a blues musician who partied with Jimi Hendrix and “discovered” the Jackson 5.
You dropped out of high school in Calgary to play music?
I dropped out to pursue a blues career. I was trying to be a white guy, but doing a lousy job of it because I was half Chinese. So I found the blues and I decided I wanted to be a black guy for a while.
When did you know you wanted to be an entertainer?
I always wanted to be entertainer. It was always something I could do, something I could fall back on. I was 10-years-old and I could play guitar, so the neighbour, who was a fiddle player, would get me to play house parties. I got to stay up late and have beer under my chair if I wanted. That was pretty cool, I thought. I was good at school, but not if I partied all night, and as soon as I could stay out late at night my life changed dramatically.
You left Calgary and went to Vancouver to play music, but then came back to Alberta?
I tried to go straight. I tried driving truck. I was doing the midnight shift, midnight to eight in the morning, and part of my job was driving a meat van over to a packing house. I’d get there at 2:30 a.m., in time to see people on the killing floor having their lunch. It was horrific, like being in a movie. It was cold outside and it was cold inside, and people were sitting there eating their lunch with blood on their clothes. It made me think, “Go back to school and get an education and become the guy running the plant.” I used to talk with the foreman, he was from Chicago, and we’d talk about nightclubs. Oh, God, I just missed it so much. So when I got a chance to go back to playing music… I went back to Vancouver in 1961 and never looked back.
Was Jimi Hendrix ever in your band?
I was playing with Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, and the Hendrix thing is a line that Bobby said. Bobby could really sing better then anybody. But he’s got a problem. He lies. And that was one of his lies. Jimi sat in with us one time when we were playing at a little club in England. Jimi Hendrix was a fan of ours from Vancouver but he never played with us there, he would just come to the gigs. But in England he came into the club with his entourage and played one set with us, then we partied with him afterwards, and that was fun.
But the Jackson 5 did record one of your songs?
We discovered the Jackson 5. That was one of the lies that was the truth. We were on the road, playing the American South and North, playing all the theatres. We were in Chicago and the Jackson 5 were the opening act. We heard the Jackson 5 and were very impressed. We were there for about a week and after the gig finished, Bobby told the 5 to come stay with him in Detroit.
You’re in a band, you’re successful, you’re touring, you’re writing songs and then you switch gears and you start focusing on comedy?
Well, I got fired from the band.
What did you do?
Well, Bobby left the Vancouvers, and we – a bunch of Canadians – were recording in Detroit and went to Toronto for Christmas. On the way back down to the U.S. we told the authorities that we were recording an album in Detroit, and we were kicked us out of the country. The lawyers looked into getting me a green card and said it was no problem. I had a date for a meeting with U.S. immigration but it conflicted with a gig we had in New Jersey. I went to the meeting instead of the gig and was fired. But sure enough, I got a green card. So I just decided to go to California, start writing songs and get a new band. I was in L.A. for a couple of months and then I went up to Vancouver to work in the clubs and figure out what I was going to do. I ended up changing the show into improvisational comedy.
So where did you get the idea from? Was improv comedy becoming more popular?
I discovered it in Chicago, about the same time we discovered the Jackson 5. We had some downtime and the intention was to go to some of the blues clubs but I found the Second City theatre. I didn’t know what it was so I wandered in and got treated to some of the best comedy I have ever seen in my life. It changed my life. I couldn’t get enough. I went down there every day I could to watch those guys. That’s where I got the idea from. I started telling my own jokes, using bits I saw those guys do. Then I found Cheech. The titty bar that my brother owned in Vancouver, where I was performing, was loosing money. We were getting people in the door but we weren’t selling much booze. I started doing comedy shows with Cheech and we came down to L.A. and struggled around here for a year until we got discovered. The rest is history.
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