‘HOW DID WE GET WEIRD?’ — AN INTERVIEW WITH JONAH & VANESSA BAYER

For seven seasons on Saturday Night Live, Vanessa Bayer made audiences laugh with her unforgettable characters, impressions and impeccable comedic timing. Her brother Jonah Bayer has spent years making people laugh and think in a different way through his work as a musician, journalist. (He has now pivoted works in private practice as a therapist!)

Together, the Cleveland-area siblings have found perhaps their most natural creative outlet in How Did We Get Weird?, the nostalgia-fueled podcast that has turned their shared childhood memories into a surprisingly hilarious family affair.

Vanessa and Jonah elicit many laughs on their podcast. What is not funny? Technical difficulties with the Zoom audio recording that left this interviewer with more than half of the audio from a conversation with the Bayers missing. Fortunately, enough of the conversation survived to reveal exactly why How Did We Get Weird? works so well: Put these two siblings together, give them something from their childhood to obsess over, and eventually the conversation is going somewhere funny.

That sibling chemistry is at the heart of How Did We Get Weird? The podcast, which launched in 2021, finds Vanessa and Jonah looking back at the things that shaped them growing up — from toys, trends and childhood obsessions to music, television and the peculiar memories that somehow remain lodged in the brain decades later. They also invite guests from the worlds of comedy, music and entertainment to join them in exploring their own formative experiences.

Although both siblings have built careers outside Northeast Ohio, their upbringing here frequently becomes part of the conversation. The podcast has provided them with a way to revisit the world they grew up in while looking at those memories through the considerably stranger lens of adulthood.

For Vanessa, that journey comes after a career that took her from Cleveland-area roots to one of television comedy’s most recognizable institutions. She joined Saturday Night Live in 2010 and remained with the show through 2017, earning an Emmy nomination for her final season. Since leaving SNL, she has continued working across television, film and comedy, including roles in projects such as I Love That for You and Single Parents.

Jonah’s path has been considerably different but no less eclectic. A longtime musician and journalist, he has played in punk bands and worked in podcasting before becoming a therapist. His previous podcasting experience helped provide some of the technical and creative foundation for How Did We Get Weird?, while his musical background has also given the show a natural connection to the alternative and indie music world.

Recent episodes have featured guests including Jason Isbell, Julia Steiner of Ratboys, Kate Shellenbach of Luscious Jackson and Jonah Matranga of Far and onelinedrawing. The show’s format gives those guests an opportunity to talk about themselves in a way that feels considerably more personal — and considerably weirder — than a standard promotional interview.

Now, for the first time, that sibling dynamic is leaving the podcast studio and coming home.

On Friday, September 25, Vanessa and Jonah will bring How Did We Get Weird? to Cleveland for the podcast’s FIRST-EVER live show, giving fans the opportunity to watch the Bayers recreate the experience that has made the podcast such a hit — only with an actual audience sitting in front of them.

And for anyone who has ever wondered what happens when two siblings who know each other extremely well are handed a microphone and an audience, there’s really only one way to find out. (Hopefully with better audio than the Zoom call!)

In their botched phone call, Vanessa and Jonah were asked what (shameful) folks who have never listened to the podcast:

WHAT CAN THE UNITIATED TO ‘HOW DID WE GET WEIRD?’EXPECT FROM THE PODCAST (AND UPCOMING LIVE SHOW)?

I guess it’s technically listed as a comedy podcast. I would say it’s also considered kind of nostalgia based.

Jonah

The podcast taping isn’t the only highlight of the siblings return to Cleveland! On Saturday, September 26, Vanessa and Jonah will be be inducted into the Orange High School, the alma mater for both. Having two prominent events on their return “home” this weekend.

WILL THE ENTIRE WEEKEND SEEM SURREAL TO THE BAYER SIBLINGS?

Yes, it does. The answer is ‘yes.’ It does feel very surreal. Our parents still live in Cleveland, so we get back there once in a while, but obviously we both grew up there. I lived there also as an adult in my early 20s. I think we’re really excited. I remember when the House of Blues in Cleveland opened 22 years ago, and I’ve seen so many shows there, so it’s so amazing to be able to do our first live podcast there. I think we have some old friends and some family coming out we haven’t seen in a long time. And then the High School Hall of Fame is also very exciting. It kind of started as something Vanessa and I were talking about in the podcast, and then it has morphed into this actual reality happening in the world. I think between those two events, I think it’s going to be a really very surreal, but really fun weekend.

Jonah

I was going to say the same thing! It’s really cool to get to do this live show at the House of Blues, especially being from Cleveland and getting to be performing at such a cool Cleveland kind of spot. When we started talking on the podcast about how we should be in the Hall of Fame, the fact that they took us seriously is really amazing and really awesome.

Vanessa

For this interviewer….I love both of my sisters. They are two of my best friends. But, would I ever want to work with them? HELL NO!

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS TO WORKING WITH A SIBLING? CONVERSELY, WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES?

A lot of people have kind of said that to us, like, ‘I can’t imagine working with my sibling even though I get along with them.’ I find it to be pretty easy, and I think part of it is we don’t do a whole lot of research for the podcast. It doesn’t really feel like that much work because it’s usually people we know or it’s a topic we’re kind of familiar with. there’s not necessarily a lot of labor that goes into it outside of the actual recording. We’re on a network, so they handle a lot of the marketing and the editing and stuff. it’s just fun to be able to get on the call and talk about this stuff from our childhood with a guest or on our own. I think it would be very hard to maintain that and also kind of strange to maintain that every week, unless it was going towards a creative project.

I would say the challenge really. I think a lot of it is just the logistics or the scheduling. Vanessa can get really busy when she’s shooting a project and I’ve been really busy with building my practice, so I think sometimes it can just be challenging finding the time, especially when there’s a guest involved, but we always figure it out

Jonah

What’s so nice for me personally is that I get to talk to Jonah for this concentrated time at least once a week for the podcast, because we both used to live. The entire time that I lived in New York, Jonah was there and we used to get to hang out all the time because we were both in New York. And then we both left New York around the same time. So now getting this time with Jonah is so fun, but there’s also this thing that we’ve done organically for years, which is we will text each other. The most recent example is Jonah texted me to see if I remembered the game Don’t Break the Ice, but we’ll text each other kind of these nostalgic things and be like, “Do you remember this thing? Do you remember this person?” Whatever. And now to get to do this podcast where we sort of have made a job out of talking about these nostalgic things that we both kind of get very obsessed with is really fun as well. Challenges would be, I think sometimes in a sibling way, we’ll be starting a podcast with someone and we’ll be like, “Okay, Jonah, are you recording?” “Yeah, I’m recording. “”Okay, I just want to ask you.” We’ll have little sibling fights, which is very funny.

Vanessa

Before the recording truncated, Jonah and Vanessa were able to discuss how Northeast Ohio helped shape the careers that they have found success in.

HOW DID GROWING UP IN CLEVELAND INFLUENCE YOU AND HELP YOU DEVELOP YOUR TALENTS?

I think for me, just having a lot of the freedom in Cleveland to explore different things. I wasn’t necessarily doing as much comedy or acting in high school as I started doing later in college, but I always felt very supported in Cleveland, and it was just like we had a lot of room and space to kind of work on our own stuff and I would do a lot of impressions of my teachers, not necessarily in front of them, but for my friends and just try out different. It was just sort of like a great place to learn things.

Vanessa

It was a huge influence on me getting into music. I took guitar lessons in Cleveland and Solon. I saw so many amazing shows in Cleveland growing up. My mom took me to see Guns N Roses at Richfield Coliseum in ‘91. I would always go to shows at Nautica, and the Euclid Tavern, and Peabody’s, and the Agora, and House of Blues, obviously. It’s a huge influence on me getting into music and being able to see all of these national touring bands coming through in high school and as a young adult. I interned at Alternative Press in college; ended up getting a job there as a music editor when I was 22. That was obviously a huge impact. I was writing, going to shows all the time and that’s kind of where I developed a lot of my journalistic voice. I think Cleveland was huge for both of those things.

Jonah

For the Bayers, How Did We Get Weird? has become more than an excuse to revisit the strange little details of growing up. It’s a reminder that the things we thought were insignificant at the time — the music we obsessed over, the movies we watched too many times, the embarrassing phases we hoped everyone would forget — have a funny way of sticking with us. And when you have a sibling who remembers those things just as clearly, there’s really nowhere to hide.

That makes the podcast particularly well suited for a live setting. There’s something different about watching two siblings work through memories in real time, especially when neither one is quite sure where the conversation is going to end up. With the Bayers promising surprises and plenty of Cleveland-specific material, the September 25 show should feel less like a traditional podcast recording and more like being invited into one of those conversations where you keep thinking, “Wait, you remember that too?”

Cleveland will get its chance to get weird with the Bayers when How Did We Get Weird? Live! comes to House of Blues Cleveland on Friday, September 25. The show begins at 7 p.m., giving local fans a chance to see the siblings bring their shared history, comedic chemistry and questionable childhood memories to the stage. Just remember: if you leave the show suddenly convinced that your own sibling is the weird one, Jonah and Vanessa have probably done their jobs.