https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlv_3BJYLHs
Tape Face Interview Without The Tape
Here is my Sam Wills aka Tape Face Interview. Wanna know what Tape Face sounds like? Click The Video and Find Out!
The Tape Face Interview took place in the summer of 2014 at The Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal. Two years later Tape Face appeared on Americas Got Talent. At the time of the interview he was The Boy With Tape On His Face. Click to learn about Sam Wills and what he was doing before becoming Tape Face.
Sam Wills, aka Tape Face Interview:
Mr ShoBiz: Please introduce yourself to the people.
Tape Face: My name is Sam Wills, but I am better known as The Boy With Tape On His Face.
Mr ShoBiz: Shortly we are going to meet The Boy With Tape On His Face but we don’t get him right now.
Tape Face: No, this is a bit of context, because we can actually talk about me and what I do.
Mr ShoBiz: Awesome. S0 Sam, tell everybody about The Boy With Tape On His Face. I have heard amazing things about this show.
Tape Face: It’s a very silly show. The Boy With Tape On His Face is essentially a stand-up comedy without talking. I take a large piece of gaffer tape, you call it duct tape. A Big thick gaffer tape over my mouth and I do not talk for an entire hour. I will make you laugh without saying a single word, and I use audience interactive, but a nice style of audience interactive. I’m not gonna pick on anybody, I’m not being mean, it’s a nice style of comedy.
Mr ShoBiz: Very simply, I’m sure you get asked this a lot, where the hell you’d come up with this?
Tape Face: I get asked that quite a bit. I used to do another show where I spoke a lot. I used to do Circus Side Show stuff, like the Jim Rose Circus Side Show. That style of thing. I used to eat light bulbs, and hammer nails up my nose, shove my body through a tennis racquet and do grotesque stunts like that, and I was doing that for a number of years, but I kind of got bored talking so much. So I decided to do a show that had no talking and no tricks. And so the tape went on, and this show evolved, and it slowly took over. And the more I started putting more tape on, the less nails I had to be putting into my face, and now I find myself travelling the world with more and more gaffer tape.
Mr ShoBiz: How was this perceived at first your show?
Tape Face: It was a hobby. It was kind of just a novelty to get away from talking so much, and doing all these stunts. So I just hear this bit of music and I go that’s a funny song, here’s a visual joke with that, and then I get an audience member out. I used to drop into these comedy shows and do five minutes of this strange character. Then eventually I got twenty minutes and it built up to where I had an hour long. And was like, I wonder if I can start touring this? Well there’s an audience for it, so let’s keep doing it.
Mr ShoBiz: Tell us about where you’re going to be performing here at Just For Laughs.
Tape Face: I am going to be at the Wiggle Room for the rest of the week every night except for Friday, come along it will be good.
Mr ShoBiz: I gotta ask you about Jim Rose Flying Circus.
Tape Face: He’s a huge inspiration for me, really good, I love his stuff.
Mr ShoBiz: First time I saw them was 1995, I’m from Vancouver, at the PNE Forum, they were opening up for this band, Nine Inch Nails.
Tape Face: Nine Inch Nails, they did the tour. I love that. I’m a massive Nine Inch Nails fan. That was amazing. See for me, because I’m a fan of the music, that’s how I got more into the side show stuff. If I could soon tour with my favourite band that would be great. I’ll keep hammering nails into my face.
Mr ShoBiz: I saw them at the PNE Forum, never heard of you guys before, cause were going to see a rock show. I believe Marilyn Manson actually opened that.
Tape Face: More than likely, he was probably the support act.
Mr ShoBiz: We were out doing something else, we missed Marilyn Manson.
Tape Face: Yeah yeah yeah. You we’re preparing yourself for the concert.
Mr ShoBiz: What did you do, you were poking nails?
Tape Face: My main thing was my nose, I sort of got known for hammering nails up my nose. And I’d get audience members to pull the nail out with their teeth. And then I would do a trick, I would give my trust to the audience. An audience member would hold a power drill, and I could lower my face onto it, and so they at any point could move it if they wanted, and I would trust that they wouldn’t, and sort of stunts like that. And I used to do another routine. You know those balloons that clowns twist into dogs, I’d tie a whole bunch of them together, and I’d push them up my nose, cough them out my mouth. I’d hold one at each end and run my head along it like a clothesline.
Mr ShoBiz: I was a going to say I remember somebody swallowing a balloon or something
Tape Face: Yeah that sort of thing. So I did that for a number of years, and then just went, I need to get another job. I’ve been doing this for too long.
Mr ShoBiz: I’m looking for, like, holes in your body.
Tape Face: No, no, I’m pretty safe. I didn’t fall apart. But I stopped. I got out of the side show business before I was too broken.
Mr ShoBiz: One of the things that was great about Jim Rose Flying Circus back then, this is pre-internet, was just going to the show, I didn’t really know what it was.
Tape Face: Yeah, and then you could go after the show and tell everybody you knew about it, and they then would go, I have know idea what you’re talking about, which would leave them to go and see the show. Which I suppose for me is also the thing. You can go online and see The Boy doing some little spots, but you are better not to. Do not do that. Do not go online, do not watch anything online, do not watch TV. Come and see the live show, it’s a completely different experience.
Mr ShoBiz: And we’re about to meet, right after this interview, The Boy With Tape On His Face.
Tape Face: Yeah. Good luck.
Mr ShoBiz: We’re meeting The Boy With Tape On His Face
Tape Face: Your going to interview him, see how much information you can get out.
Mr ShoBiz: I don’t know what to say. Any advice, any questions?
Tape Face: Any questions? Nah, he’s a whole different being to me.
For Part 2 of our Interview with Tape Face with the Tape On: Click Here
