In 2012, I interviewed Reggie Watts for American Songwriter‘s issue on comedy and music. We covered a lot of ground in a half an hour, split in two parts by phone trouble. This was several years before Watts got the job improvising James Corden’s theme song every night on the “Late Late Show.”

In this excerpt from that interview, he reveals some surprising influences – I was not expecting Victor Borge to be the first name he mentioned. The Muppets feel right, since Watts is a bit Muppet-like to begin with, and Frank Zappa is a natural influence. To Watts, chaos is beautiful, and he contains multitudes.