As Dave Hill strolls around New York City’s quaint West Village with his sweet boxer-pitbull mix Luci, it’s clear that the comedian/musician/author/radio host/artist/fashion designer is in his element. “I always think of New York as the biggest city in America, but it always seems like just a bunch of small towns,” he says. Proving his point, numerous people greet him in a neighborly way as he expertly navigates the confusing jumble of streets. He’s lived here since 2006, and his long-term resident status means he’s having a hard time picking out only a handful of special places in the area to show me today.
Soon, though, he’ll have to leave this idyllic corner of the world as he undertakes yet another globetrotting adventure. For one thing, he continues to promote his latest book, The Awesome Game: One Man’s Incredible, Globe-Crushing Hockey Odyssey, which came out in October. In it, he talks about his love for hockey—an infatuation that began during his childhood in Ohio. In fact, earlier this year he performed heavy metal versions of the national anthems of both the US and Canada at an NHL game between the Anaheim Ducks and Toronto Maple Leafs, causing amusement and fury on both sides of the border—and he clearly relishes either reaction. And now, Hill is releasing Shadows in Paradise, his fifth album with his band Valley Lodge, in addition to touring with Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy as a solo venture mixing music and comedy. He also has European tour dates lined up for May alongside Tenacious D.
But as we stroll through NYC, Hill seems content to spend this mild winter afternoon with his idea of a perfect day in his beloved neighborhood. His first stop is the airy, elegant Terry’s West Village Wines & Spirits where, he says, he normally buys red wine—though today he’s more interested in the Japanese whiskey. He’s frequented this shop for 10 years, and he and the clerk, Geoff, chat amiably while Geoff gives Luci a dog biscuit. “A good thing with this store, aside from the wonderful staff and selection, is that they give treats to Luci, which leads to me buying more because Luci will drag me in here,” Hill says. “I wasn’t thinking of buying any wine, and then I end up buying wine.”
Next up, Hill goes just up the street to Rosecrans Florist & Café, a popular shop that looks like a fairytale garden inside. He orders a large black coffee and settles at a table outside so he and Luci can enjoy the sunshine. This is another place he likes because they’re kind to his dog: “I pretty much won’t go anywhere, with the exception of restaurants, where I can’t walk in with her, because she’s my best buddy.” As he sips his coffee, Hill talks about The Awesome Game, which is his fourth book. “I wanted to write a love letter to hockey—a life of playing it and being a fan of it and connecting with people all over the world about hockey,” he says.
In one especially hilarious and heartwarming chapter, he talks about traveling to Kenya to meet that country’s only hockey team, the Ice Lions. “It was an amazing experience,” Hill says of that trip, which marked his first visit to Africa. “I saw a baboon steal a loaf of bread from a bunch of schoolchildren. It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen in my whole life. The funniest thing, definitely. The kids were all adorable, and I see this baboon and I’m like, ‘What’s this guy going to do?’—because my baboon access has been limited. Then he grabbed the loaf of bread and started running away, and he’s looking [back at the kids], and he’s like, ‘Oh, I’m getting away with this!’ Then he starts taunting them.
“At the other end of the parking lot,” Hill continues, “there’s three other baboons, jumping up and down—they think he’s going to share the bread. But then he just blows right by them and they’re like, ‘What the fuck? I thought we were going to have bread, no?’ He just ran off and I guess he ate all the bread by himself. I saw that and I was like, ‘There goes the next President of the United States right there.’ Amazing confidence.”
Next, Hill heads to Carmine Street Guitars, a tiny store crammed to the rafters with custom-made guitars. “All the wood [for making the instruments] is salvaged from New York buildings and dumpsters, so the guitars these guys build, the wood is already aged,” says Hill. The owner, Rick Kelly, chimes in: “It’s all old growth, too. A lot of the trees were, like, 1,000 years old, and they built the whole city out of it.” He points out a guitar he recently made out of a 1906 Steinway piano.
Hill started playing guitar when he was 13 years old. “I think sometimes if people only know me as a comedian or writer or whatever, they might assume that I’m not good at guitar, but I was doing that first,” he says. He often demonstrates his mastery of the instrument in comedic clips on social media, and he’s also been in a few bands—most notably, since 2004 he’s fronted the power-pop group Valley Lodge. “Most people know us from our song ‘Go,’ which is the theme song to Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on HBO, though most people probably don’t realize that’s our band,” he says.
Hill carefully takes a guitar down from a hook on the wall and points to its intricate floral pattern. “I painted this top, painted all these flowers—I just did it for fun,” he says. That same kind of patterning shows up in the designs Hill creates for his clothing design line, Bunny. So far, he’s created dresses, men’s shirts, and women’s robes, all in limited edition runs of 100 items each.
“I always think of New York as the biggest city in America, but it always seems like just a bunch of small towns.”
Hill reluctantly tears himself away from the guitar shop and heads up Sixth Avenue to grab a snack at Yamadaya, which offers an extensive selection of Japanese groceries, as well as home goods, gifts, beauty products, and more. “I guess you could say, on some level, I’m a Japanophile, even though I’ve not been there in over 10 years,” Hill says. “I just really am into every aspect of the culture—especially the food, but also the art and music.” This fascination was inherited from his father, who’d lived in Japan when he was in the Army, then worked for a Japanese company.
He buys a pack of dark chocolate Kit Kats (Japan has many more flavors of that treat than are made in America), but then decides he wants to eat something more substantial. He heads to the nearby Italian restaurant Gene’s, where they greet him like a prodigal son. “This is one of my favorite places—everything is good,” he says. “It’s very old-school New York. It’s over a hundred years old. I would say you can’t not be the youngest person at Gene’s. Normally it’s an older crowd, which I like. Every time I see someone under 40 in there I complain to the manager.”
So he can keep Luci with him, he settles at a table on the sidewalk outside the restaurant and orders espresso, oysters, and caprese salad. Then he settles back and reflects on his comedy career, which frequently brings him to stages around the world. “It sounds overly simple, but I just do what I think is funny, and then hopefully people will think it’s funny,” he says. “If they don’t, then I just don’t say that thing again.”
He says he tries to use this same don’t-overthink-it approach with all of his endeavors: “I make what I want to see exist—the music I want to hear, the jokes I want to hear, art I want to look at, stuff I would want to read,” he says. “And then you hope that there’s other people out there that might be interested.” FL
