Dusty Slay may be popular with blue-collar audiences because of his Southern drawl, his relatively clean comedy act or his every-day-guy appearance — long hair, trucker hat, big beard, even bigger glasses — but he doesn’t just play the part. He grew up in an Alabama trailer park and worked as a pesticide salesman before trying his hand at standup. Slay also paid his dues in the comedy scene, working his way through the ranks from Tennessee to New York, telling jokes anywhere he had an audience. Slay can also be found hosting popular podcasts, chopping it up with Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show or performing at the legendary Grand Ole Opry (he has had that honor about 30 times now) but he has never lost touch with his trailer park roots, or his love for the smaller venues. Slay will bring his witty humor to Quezada’s Comedy Club and Cantina June 28-29.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
The Paper.: You have been called, and have been billed as, a clean comedian. What does “clean comedy” mean to you?
Dusty Slay: I’m an adult and I do adult-themed comedy, but I just do it without being graphic and without cussing. I guess cussing is a southern word that people have been making fun of me for using. I’m not trying to change the world, I’m just trying to point out things that we’re all experiencing. I talk about songs that we’ve all heard and I just try to do it in a fun way, [but] also still have a little edge to it.
Are there any topics or subject matter you would not use in your act?
Well, yeah. There’s so much stuff. I just mainly try to stay away from anything controversial or anything divisive. I want the whole audience to have a good time. I don’t want anybody to be taken out of the moment because I’m trashing their belief system in any way, whether it be political or religious. I like to do regular comedy that I think we’re all experiencing regardless of what our belief system is.
You obviously have a stage persona. How would you describe the evolution or development of that persona?
I’m an ever changing person in general. I grew up in Alabama. I grew up in a trailer park and I moved to Charleston, South Carolina, which is this very nice, classy kind of city. I started to become a little bit more of a Charleston-type dude. When I started doing comedy, I started channeling my old trailer park stuff. I was suddenly telling my stories from my childhood and it helped me overcome any kind of self consciousness I had about growing up in a trailer park. I look at it now and I think, “Wow, I had a great time growing up in a trailer.” I had so much fun. I was playing in the woods and I had a bunch of friends in the trailer park. But growing up, you’re like, “Ah, I feel poor,” you know? Nobody wants to feel poor.
When I moved to Tennessee after doing comedy for a little while, I felt like I was almost back in Alabama. I felt like I was back to who I was ten years ago and I felt good. My evolution as a person has also been that [evolution] of me on stage.
Do you have a funny story about being a pesticide salesman?
There were four different pesticide companies and we were all going to Lowe’s and Home Depot and we would compete with each other. So you go in and the competition has a display built of their product and you just break their display down. Take their shelf and throw it in the dumpster in the back, or the trash compactor, so that it can’t even be retrieved. And then you put all their stuff up in the overhead and build your display. And that’s basically what we would do all day. Just go around really trying to outwork the competition. You just want a picture, you build your display and then you take a picture and you send it to your boss.
Have you been to New Mexico before?
Yeah, years ago I did a casino in Mescalero, New Mexico called the Inn of the Mountain Gods. I believe I came to the [Santa Ana] Star Casino and I did the very same room that I’m about to do, even though it was a different name. I opened for a couple of the guys from Broken Lizard who did Super Troopers and Beerfest. That was probably 2016.
You’ve performed at some large, high-profile venues. You’ve been on television, big specials. How do you feel about performing at smaller, more intimate venues like Quezada’s?
What I’ve been doing for the last 10 years is [performing at] clubs where people are really right up on you, and that’s really where I feel the most comfortable. I’ve been getting into theaters now. I gotta say it’s pretty great to do theaters, but clubs are what I’ve been doing for a long time and I like them. As long as there’s a group of people in a room that are ready to listen to some comedy, it doesn’t really matter what it is.
Which do you like better?
I’m in the middle of this transition, right? I have been known to say that I don’t want to move to theaters because I really like doing clubs. But once you get into theaters you’re like, “I’m doing 1,000 seat theaters.” Once you get in there, you’re like, “Oh, this is really nice. I could really get into this.”
I think there is something nice about the intimacy of a smaller comedy club. But there also is something to be said for being in a theater where you have no table service and servers aren’t going around the room talking to people trying to listen to you do comedy.
Dusty Slay
Quezada’s Comedy Club and Cantina
54 Jemez Canyon Dam Road, Santa Ana Pueblo
7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., June 28
7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., June 29
$25-$30