Stephen Glover began doing stunts in a flea market circus and first transitioned to television after sending videos of himself to Jeff Tremaine who recruited Glover for Jackass which quickly became a huge hit for MTV. Just as quickly as Jackass' rise in popularity, Glover became a household name as Steve-O and has since been widely known to have attempted and succeeded some of the craziest and most life-threatening stunts in the Jackass archives.
Most recently, Steve-O is set to host a brand new reality series on truTV entitled Killer Karaoke which airs on Nov. 23 and the wild boy himself recently took some time to speak with us about his involvement with the show and some of his interestingly entertaining past moments, so read through and get the scoop from Steve-O!
Killer Karaoke airs this Friday. What can you tell us about the show?
Well, it's a lot of fun, man. Above everything, I think I'm just super excited getting to work in the capacity of comedian host rather than just a guy who hurts himself. That's really the most exciting thing for me and it's just an appropriate show for me because it's just really crazy and fun, you know? It's just a simple idea but if you can let someone know what a show is and get them excited about it in just one short line, then I think you're on to something, and this one is people singing karaoke while horrible things happen to them. It's just really pretty great. It's simple and it's fun and it's crazy, yeah.
Was this presented to you or is this something you auditioned for?
I was approached about it, yeah. I guess being that my history with Jackass and having become a touring stand-up comedian, I think that it was kind of a no-brainer to get me to do it and I'm really glad that they did.
Speaking of Jackass, what has the crew been up to? Anything new in the works?
There's a new project going on right now but it's too early to talk about.
Any chances that Wildboyz will ever return?
I would say there's no chance whatsoever. I'm actually one hundred percent vegan and pretty active in animal rights. The whole Wildboyz experience was so largely kind of going from cage to cage and viewing a lot of the world, I wouldn't be able to deal with that today. It's just too depressing.
Did that Wildboyz experience lead to your role in animal activism?
Um, no, it was a very gradual thing but I'm glad. Wildboyz was great, don't get me wrong, and we did it with all the best intentions, but that's just not where I'm at today. I couldn't continue to do that.
So we cover a lot of Machine Gun Kelly and you appropriately did the intro for his “Wild Boy” remix. What was it like to work with him on the song and video?
Oh, rad. [laughs] Man, it was pretty funny. Initially, he called me up, or I should say his manager called me up wanting me to do a show somewhere and actually come out on stage and sing “Wild Boy” but I just wasn't able to get there. I was out of town when that happened but I said, “I'd like to get together and at least film something, maybe not on stage but something separate.” I met up with him and I brought hair clippers and I – well actually we both – Machine Gun Kelly and I shaved off a bunch of our pubic hair, rolled both of our pubic hair – pubic hair from both of us – into a joint, which was not even a joint because it had nothing in it [laughing]. It wasn't a doobie, it was a pubey. We actually both smoked this thing. We lit it and we were both smoking each other's pubic hair. Sadly that footage never quite saw the light of day. They did wind up showing us making it but the part where we were actually smoking it I think wasn't very hip hop [laughing].
I'm so glad you told me that.
Right right. It's very funny. I'm reasonably sure MGK wouldn't mind me indulging that data that I'm sure has been very closely kept secret [laughing].
To continue on a bit with music... The Dumbest Asshole In Hip Hop... what happened there?
Yeah. Well, I don't know. I had a record deal with Universal Records to record a comedy gangster rap album and I was just out of control at the time and rather than record my songs for Universal and have them put out the album, every track I recorded I would release it online and then put out this Dumbest Asshole In Hip Hop mixtape which was all very counterproductive and ultimately that mixtape was the only thing that ever came out because Universal dropped me and shelved the record which I'm really pretty grateful for, man. I'm so glad that that didn't come out. I don't know. All I can say about my rap career is that it was kind of the last straw but once I got serious about coming a rapper I think it was evident that I really needed to go to rehab.
[laughing] I don't think that should be funny but it is, I'm sorry.
Sure, man! It's hilarious.
As you previously mentioned, you've been known primarily as a guy who hurts himself as you've done a ton of crazy shit. What would you say has been the scariest moment of your career?
I think the closest I came to actually dying was probably this random little scuba diving mishap that wasn't too exciting. I mean it was, I just didn't realize it was exciting at the time. I really don't remember where we were. I wanna say maybe Australia. I remember being told that the sharks were on the bottom of the ocean. I ended up going towards the bottom of the ocean and wound up going way too far like maybe way too fast, and I don't know, turns out I almost died doing that.
Amongst many other times I'm sure.
Yeah, I mean there's been a lot of scary stuff but the truth is that at a certain point you're kind of maxed out on scary. You're kind of maxed out on fear.
What would you say has been the biggest blessing you've gained from your career?
There's been so much. I guess getting to see the world. I've got a big map of the world on my wall, I'm looking at it right now and there's just not a whole lot of the world that I haven't seen and I would have to say that that's probably the coolest thing.
If you were to quit everything tomorrow, what would you regret that you never accomplished?
If I had a goal at this point – and I can't believe I'm about to say this – but it would be to sort of conquer scripted work, you know? Like maybe actual acting, like a sitcom. My whole career I've always sworn up and down that I'm not an actor and that I'm not interested in acting but at this point, over the last five years or so, I've done so much stuff that I never thought I would; I learned how to live clean and sober, I became a successful stand-up comedian, I learned how to surf and all of this stuff that is so unnatural for me and having been successful with all of that, I no longer think it's that farfetched for me to have the goal of getting into acting. So if I were to throw in the towel now I'd be bummed that I didn't try to crack the code on that.
So do you think that hosting Killer Karaoke could lead into that for you?
Oh sure. Clearly, doing stand-up comedy led into Killer Karaoke and if I do say so myself, I did a darn good job of hosting that show. HA! So we'll see what happens, man. I definitely predict that the public's perception of me is gonna change in a way that I think is conducive to me doing scripted comedy.