Discussing student media and not being afraid to suck with Maxime Simonet

Maxime Simonet is an artist and a prominent figure on Adult Swim’s online streaming programs. He is a co-host on the stream’s flagship show “Fishcenter Live” and a co-host and co-creator of “Bloodfeast.” His most recent animated project “Tender Touches” is in production for its second season. Like many artists, Simonet found a powerful resource in his college’s student media program. The Connector got a chance to speak with Simonet about his unique brand of abstract creativity and how his experience with student media informed his current artistic endeavors.

The Connector:  How did you first get involved in student media?

Simonet: I ran my college’s radio station for about four years. But, it was an internet radio station, so it was even more off-the-wall, stupid and garage. Hampshire [College] is an expensive small school, but the station never completely had all the money or attention it needed because a big part of it is people make their own majors. They do whatever the f*** they want. They’re aloof, they’re hippies and some of them suck, but a lot of the value I got from Hampshire were the resources like our media department, and cameras I could rent and the editing computers.

Just making s*** I wanted to make was a big value. I did a weekly show called “Coq talk” that was two hours every Friday night and if I listen to it, it’s cringey, it’s embarrassing, it’s me thinking I was funny. It took a while for me to understand what I like and then like myself. And part of doing that was, I made a bunch of dumb videos in college and I did this radio show and talked and tried to be funny and serious. Yurt Radio had no sustaining leadership ever. It was started in ’92 by a guy who now works as an adviser, but the student groups would always fold and then someone would start again. One of my big things was like, we are going to try and write a book and make leadership protocols and make sure this lasts because we like doing this.

This is a great resource to explore yourself and feel uncensored and despite how cringey it is, it feels like proto-“Fishcenter” in a lot of ways. It’s everything I thought I was doing, just not as good. And then I ended up doing that and it’s very funny to me that, that’s what happened.

The Connector: That’s cool that it worked out that way.

Simonet: It was an insane boon. At least for someone like me who clearly likes to talk a lot. But, I need to talk through something to get it out of my system. In a similar vein, “Tender Touches” was something that came out of doing the crossword show so much and then we had an idea — let’s improvise this thing, let’s incorporate a caller. I think I made that up almost last minute, or the day of. Let’s do a soap opera and have a caller be part of it and it was whoever called first. That’s an example of days and days of just talking through ideas and shooting the s*** live. It’s just how I process ideas a lot of the time.

The Connector: That is definitely one of my favorite parts about it, just having the room to explore different stuff.

Simonet: You really need it. You really need the room to make mistakes and have conversations and be artistically wrong and politically wrong. You need the room to completely f*** up. Because, you only find yourself by looking back and you channel yourself better the more you do it.

The Connector: So, you would say that one of the most valuable things that you got from student media was the opportunity to make mistakes and go through that trial and error of tweaking, and getting closer to your true self.

Simonet: I don’t even know if it was tweaking. I would say it was more subconscious tweaking. I remember I made this thing, and I like it enough still. They put it on the Adult Swim Facebook — it’s called “Cop Doctor.” It was kind of like “Assy McGee,” kind of like “12 oz. Mouse,” I don’t know. Both of which are shows I really like and never watched too much of, but it was kind of me doing something real cruddy in after effects with animation and that was the first time I thought, “I feel like I am going to still like this in a few years.” Not like any of the stuff I made in college, most of which I have completely deleted. It wasn’t like I even knew that I didn’t like it.

My last year at school I added an assignment to my final projects and I made a twenty minute video of sketches. They are all bad and “Tim and Eric” rip offs, but they were also me learning new techniques in directing, motion graphics and making music. It was all the s*** I still do, which is the Jack-of-all-trades actor, writer, music, director and editing thing. I don’t know if I necessarily tweaked who I was while doing it, but in retrospect I realized that the more I did it the more I figured out what I liked. Ira Glass has this great thing where he talks about if you are going to write just write, because most of what you write at first is going to suck and you need to be OK with that.

The Connector: That’s definitely something I have seen more recently, artists coming out and saying, “don’t be afraid to make stuff that sucks because you are never going to get any closer to anything good if you don’t make that leap.”

Simonet: And, it’s OK if you don’t know it sucks. Let other people tell you it sucks for them.

The Connector: That gets back to what I think is cool about “Bloodfeast.” It is different from the other shows where everyone is constantly telling the hosts what a great job they are doing, which ends up making it hard to find room for any critique because then you are just crapping on the show as opposed to how you have built the critique into the atmosphere.

Simonet: Yeah, we s*** on each other and tell each other when we aren’t funny. But, I enjoy how on “Bloodfeast” we are very much allowed through [Mike] Lazzo (Executive Vice President & Creative Director, Adult Swim) and [Matt] Harrigan’s (Vice President, Adult Swim Digital Content) support to curate whatever the f*** we want. I push the limits too hard sometimes.

The Connector: To round everything out, I wanted to ask, what would be your advice for students who want to break out into broadcasting or entertainment?

Simonet: Well, I’ve been lucky. I got an internship I didn’t think I’d get and it turned out to be the exact one I needed to get. It was for “The Onion” doing Photoshop stuff which led to me being a part of a splinter group of “The Onion.” That led me to being in the right place at the right time to be exactly what Matt Harrigan wanted and now he has been a friend and mentor.

So, I think a lot of it is you put yourself out there and you work your ass off — stupidly in the beginning if you can. If you need to be the one there who fits all the pieces together and works till midnight then do it. There are days where I worked from nine till midnight and I don’t know if that’s the right or wrong thing to do but it’s just something you have to expect sometimes.

You need to go take advantage of a lot of dumb opportunities and then eventually learn how you can work smarter instead of harder. But, you need to take the opportunities and work with people, and don’t be a diva. You’re not going to get your way. And then, people will want to work with you. If you have what they want, they will want to work with you. That’s what it is for me. I look at portfolios and if I like someone I want to keep working with them. People show initiative, or just have something to offer that makes them worth being around. That’s the only advice I can give. Be worth being around to somebody and find that person.

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