Oct. 30--"Portlandia" star Fred Armisen earned his comic chops by playing pranks on bands at the Lincoln Park rock club he worked at in the '90s, Chicago audio engineer Steve Albini told Marc Maron on his WTF podcast posted Thursday.
Armisen, 48, stamped hands and answered phones at the now-closed Lounge Ax before moving on to "Saturday Night Live" in 2002 and "Portlandia" in 2011. Armisen also was the drummer in the indie rock band Trenchmouth and now is the bandleader and drummer for The 8G Band, the house band on "Late Night with Seth Meyers."
"Seeing him go from being just like Fred from Lounge Ax to being this, like, international star, television star, that's one of the most amazing things that I've ever witnessed up close," Albini told Maron. "He's the first person that I've ever known that wanted to become famous and then like, through strength of will and being funny made himself famous."
Armisen has said he was influenced by Albini, the frontman for the Evanston punk rock band Big Black. Albini discusses his time working Iggy Pop and the Pixies and living in the Chicago area on Maron's nearly two-hour-long podcast.
