Fred Armisen Links

Career

Armisen began his career in 1988 when he moved from New York to Chicago to play drums for the punk rock band Trenchmouth. In the 1990s, he played background drums with Blue Man Group in Chicago, and in 1997, he toured with David Shouse of The Grifters' side band Those Bastard Souls, which also featured The Flaming Lips' Steven Drozd.

Armisen's transition from music to comedy occurred with the 1998 short film Fred Armisen’s Guide to Music and South by Southwest. The film featured Armisen's trip to the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, where he captured reactions while posing as a music journalist. After this, Armisen began doing stand-up comedy. In 2002, he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live as a featured player. In the 2004 season, he was promoted to a repertory cast member. On SNL, he is noted for hardly ever breaking character. He has done a handful of supporting roles. He was a standout as the creepy Italian man in the film Eurotrip. Also, he appeared in the films Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Deck the Halls.

As of 2007, Armisen continued to star on Saturday Night Live. The same year, he was seen in a supporting role in the comedy The Ex and in a starring role in the comedy Quebec. He has also created a comedy team with former Sleater-Kinney guitarist Carrie Brownstein titled ThunderAnt. [1] Armisen will also be seen in the upcoming feature The Rocker starring Rainn Wilson.

Throughout his comedic rise Armisen has maintained substantial ties with music. Armisen has directed music videos for bands like The Helio Sequence. Armisen also had a memorable role in the Wilco documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, which featured footage from his stint opening for front man Jeff Tweedy's 2001 solo tour. He also appeared in video segments on Blue Man Group's How to be a Megastar Tour 2.0.[2] Armisen occasionally writes for Pitchfork Media and interviewed Cat Power for that company.[3] Fred appeared as Jens Hannemann on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on October 19, 2007, promoting a 28-minute DVD called Fred Armisen presents Jens Hannemann: "COMPLICATED DRUMMING TECHNIQUE". On SNL, Armisen often plays musical instruments in sketches, has two recurring characters who are musicians (Mackey the drummer from the Rialto Grande and Ferecito from Showbiz Grande Explosion) or impersonates famous figures in the music world such as Liberace, Phil Spector, Lou Reed, and, most notably, Prince.

Armisen directed the music video for The Helio Sequence's "Don't Look Away." He is noted for the quote "You gotta get yourself some marble columns!"

Armisen has both Venezuelan and Japanese ancestry, making him both the second Asian-American and second Latin-American Saturday Night Live castmember, after Rob Schneider (who is part Filipino) and Horatio Sanz (who is Chilean), respectively.