Daniel Eachus Puts His Foot in All the Doors

If you’ve ever watched those TV seg­ments that fea­ture extreme­ly pre­co­cious chil­dren, you’ve prob­a­bly expe­ri­enced that unique­ly strange mix­ture of amaze­ment, jeal­ousy, and a splash of self-dep­re­ca­tion. (How come I didn’t have the peri­od­ic table mem­o­rized when I was four years old, Mom?) Well, lucky for our col­lec­tive self-esteem, our guest Daniel Eachus made no such claims of child genius in his inter­view, but he was clear­ly a young talent.

Thanks to an ear­ly (fifth grade!) start at gui­tar, Eachus was in a rock band by the sev­enth grade. (Why didn’t I pick up an instru­ment in ele­men­tary school, Mom? … What’s that? Because I chose to do choir instead? Oh, right. Okay, I got­ta go, Mom, I’m writ­ing an arti­cle.) By the time he was in high school, Eachus was itch­ing to get even bet­ter gui­tar chops, so he joined the jazz band. At the risk of sound­ing like a Dis­ney Chan­nel Orig­i­nal Movie, Eachus relents that they were ​“a rag­tag group of kids in high school who did­n’t know any­thing about jazz and just want­ed to get better.”

And get bet­ter they did, win­ning first place in com­pe­ti­tions all across Cal­i­for­nia, play­ing at Dis­ney­land, and even get­ting to make a CD. And though he did not real­ize it quite yet, these per­for­mances were plant­i­ng the seed that would ger­mi­nate into his illus­tri­ous com­e­dy career. Eachus reflects, “[Jazz band] taught me that some­thing that I wrote in my bed­room could be per­formed on a stage and peo­ple would enjoy it.” 

Eachus was also on the dai­ly bul­letin in high school. (Why didn’t my high school have a dai­ly bul­letin?) But halfway through his junior year, he was get­ting some major dai­ly-bul­letin ennui. He pitched to his teacher the idea of being a field reporter instead; he’d report on absurd, sil­ly, unim­por­tant things and turn them into news. Essen­tial­ly, Eachus found a way to do sketch com­e­dy and get school cred­it for it. Between jazz band and the dai­ly bul­letin (and land­ing the lead role in a comedic play), stand-up just began to make sense. So, he went out to a local open mic, right? … He went out to a local open mic, right? (Please tell me you’re pic­tur­ing the Clue­less Padme meme.)

Actu­al­ly, his first stand-up per­for­mance was at a going-away-for-col­lege par­ty in his friend’s back­yard. So, he prob­a­bly per­formed for around five min­utes, right? Try 45. Hav­ing only ever seen hour spe­cials on TV, he sim­ply assumed that’s what stand-up was. Most promi­nent­ly, Eachus recalls how he made all their par­ents laugh that night. That small vic­to­ry was every­thing. He recalls think­ing, “‘Maybe there is some­thing to this. Maybe I can do this.’”

Once he went to Long Beach State and attend­ed his first open mic, he real­ized what an over­achiev­er he’d unknow­ing­ly been. But with 45 min­utes of mate­r­i­al to draw from, he had a leg up at putting togeth­er his first tight five. Eachus began to study up, too, watch­ing local com­e­dy shows and read­ing come­di­an auto­bi­ogra­phies from his local library. ​“I felt like that taught me way more than any­thing else could have … just [to learn] how all these famous peo­ple got into [com­e­dy], and what their strug­gles were.” He was espe­cial­ly impact­ed by Steve Martin’s Born Stand­ing Up. An alum of Eachus’s own Long Beach State, Mar­tin described writ­ing jokes on his way to class­es, and Eachus felt as though he was stand­ing in Martin’s shoes. Doing stand-up didn’t feel so fan­tas­ti­cal or far-fetched. It felt real, tan­gi­ble, attain­able. ​“I could do this. Steve did this exact same thing,” he recalls think­ing to himself.

And a lit­tle luck helped him along the way: When he went home to Fres­no for the sum­mer, he thought he’d be forced on hia­tus by the dearth of com­e­dy there. But, inci­den­tal­ly, local restau­rant Thai Palms began putting on com­e­dy shows, and the des­o­late com­e­dy scene turned in his favor: Because every­one was com­plete­ly green, three-months-in Eachus was con­sid­ered a com­e­dy vet­er­an. And as Thai Palms grew into its own com­e­dy club of sorts, Eachus start­ed get­ting fea­ture spots for L.A. head­lin­ers. ​“It grew me like crazy,” he says.

Inspired by the biogra­phies he’d devoured in col­lege, Eachus even­tu­al­ly felt it was time to turn the page to his next chap­ter, so he released his com­e­dy album, fol­lowed by a Dry­Bar Com­e­dy spe­cial the fol­low­ing year. When asked about his choice to do clean com­e­dy, Eachus first men­tions his grand­ma, who didn’t seem to like his stray cuss or two in his per­for­mances. He chal­lenged him­self, then, to write clean­er. Not out of moral objec­tion, but rather to dis­till the jokes, mak­ing them stand on their own with­out reliance on swears. Plus, Eachus states, ​“I’ve always pushed myself to try to be uni­ver­sal and try to find a way to make every­body laugh.”

His most recent chap­ter was a bit of a sur­prise. While clean­ing his house dur­ing quar­an­tine 2020, he found some comedic short sto­ries that he had writ­ten ten years pri­or. Tak­ing it upon him­self to tight­en them up, he start­ed to get even more ideas, lead­ing to around 50-odd sto­ries. He then brought a tal­ent­ed friend on board to illus­trate the sto­ries, and they self-pub­lished A Day at the Zoo in 2062. ​“I was deter­mined to do it in 2020. So actu­al­ly, [it] was New Year’s Eve night … [I] press[ed] send on [the] order form to get all these books ordered, because I was deter­mined to say that I wrote a book in 2020.”

Most of all, Eachus attrib­ut­es the mate­ri­al­iza­tion of his many accom­plish­ments — from his stand-up, to act­ing, to writ­ing a book — to his out­look. ​“I’ve always just had the men­tal­i­ty of, ​‘you have to put your foot into a mil­lion doors, and let’s see what stays open,’” he explains. As for what he might do next, it’s intrigu­ing­ly open-end­ed (with maybe some big the­atri­cal projects in the works). At the heart of it, Eachus asserts that he’s sim­ply ​“a fan of com­e­dy.” He con­tin­ues, ​“I’ve nev­er felt … pigeon­holed to [only] do this one thing … Any­thing that I feel like I could adapt to what I like, I’ll do it, [whether] it’s act­ing or writ­ing a book. All of it.”

We are excit­ed to see what Eachus will write into his cur­rent and future chap­ters. (And we’ll try not to feel too bad about our­selves when his auto­bi­og­ra­phy describes his pre­co­cious childhood.)

Want to know more about com­e­dy in Los Ange­les, California?

Daniel’s rec­om­men­da­tions for comics to check out from LA include: JC Cur­rais, James Frey, and Samuel J Comroe.

If you’re in LA and you’re read­ing this, you already know that LA is one of the biggest com­e­dy scenes in the coun­try — there’s some­thing for every taste. In fact, Daniel sug­gests get­ting a bit out of the hub of LA and head south to Orange Coun­ty which has a lot of great shows to offer with a lot of young up and com­ing comics. La Cave in Cos­ta Mesa, The Rec Room in Hunt­ing­ton Beach, and the Irvine Improv are des­ti­na­tions to check out. As he tells it, Orange Coun­ty is where you go for stage time and LA is where you go to net­work and meet people.

Fol­low Daniel

• Web­site — DanielEachus​.com
• Twit­ter — @daneachus
• Insta­gram — @daneachus
• Face­book — Face​book​.com/​D​a​n​E​achus
• Youtube — Youtube​.com/​D​a​n​E​achus // Youtube​.com/​B​i​g​f​o​o​t​C​h​asers
• Twitch — Twitch​.tv/​D​a​n​E​achus

Daniel can be seen, heard and read:

• Dry­bar Com­e­dy special
• Album — ​“Car­ry the Pil­lows” (Label: 800 Pound Gorilla)
• Book — A Day at the Zoo in 2062
• Youtube Videos — ​“Big­foot Chasers”
• Film/​TV — ​“Up Next” (Com­e­dy Cen­tral); 14 nation­al com­mer­cials; Hulu’s ​“Laughs”