Pro barber is on the verge of success
Ever gotten your hair cut by a barber who you wished would just stop talking and focus on your hair? Comedian — and professional barber since age 13 — T. Murph is the opposite of that guy. He’s the guy you want to keep talking. A self-proclaimed funny guy since childhood, the Chicago comic is currently having a moment outside the barbershop, touring the country with his signature live show “Faded By T. Murph” (long a monthly Chicago mainstay), popping up on TV shows (including “Get Shorty” and “Chicago Fire”) and ( just last month) launching his first half-hour comedy special on Comedy Central.
I talked to Murph on the sidewalk outside North Bar in Bucktown, two nights before his special aired Aug. 3 as the premiere episode of the second season of “Kevin Hart Presents: The Next Level.” Despite his palpable excitement for his soon-to-air special — which filmed at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles in March — he was still hustling from stage to stage in his hometown, having made an earlier appearance at Timothy O’Toole’s for local showcase “Comedians You Should Know,” and he was about to do another set for Dave Helem’s “A Dope Comedy Show.”
“Up until two years ago, I was a professional barber,” he said. Landing the special with Hart’s production company is something he hopes “could be life-changing.” It’s a moment eight years in the making. “Eight years ago, I decided to do stand-up comedy,” he said. “I gave up a lot for this. A whole lot. And to see it all come, to see it actually become what I always envisioned it could be … it’s amazing.”
At the end of the special, in which he covers such varied topics as visiting his son at school, why ISIS won’t be attacking the South Side of Chicago any time soon and the inflation of chicken nugget pricing, he closes by telling the audience, “Y’all have been amazing” and then adding with the confidence of someone who knows they’ve done their job well, “I’ve been great.”
While his busy schedule makes him harder to catch at home these days, and “Faded By T. Murph” has been on hiatus in Chicago since April, he’s planning a homecoming show — subtitled “The Return” — at Hyde Park’s The Revival (1160 E. 55th St., www.the-revival.com) Oct. 13 during his ongoing, 65-stop “Faded” college tour.
“‘Faded’ is just basically an open forum for me, kind of like the barbershop is,” he
“When I was in the barbershop, I was great at what I did, but I loved telling stories. People would always say, ‘Hey man, you missed your calling man. You should do stand-up comedy.’ ” — T. Murph
says. “The show revolves around me, so I’ll go up and I’ll host and, unlike a traditional comedy show, I’ll do like 25 to 30 minutes up top just talking about what I’ve been going through from the previous month.” After that, a series of different comedians Murph wants to highlight will come up and do shorter sets — past guests have included Lil Rel Howery, Calvin Evans and Just Nesh.
“I just wanted it to be something similar to the barbershop setting for the people that haven’t been and the people that can’t get there,” he says.
There’s a good reason that the barbershop has such an influence on the set-up of his signature show: It was his customers who got him to try stand-up in the first place. “When I was in the barbershop, I was great at what I did, but I loved telling stories,” he says. “People would always say, ‘Hey man, you missed your calling man. You should do stand-up comedy.’ ”
Now that his career is really taking off — potentially heading for that “next level” Hart’s show alludes to — some of his customers may be regretting their encouragement. They love seeing his success, but they also still want a good haircut. “Now they’re trying to pull me back to the shop,” he says with a laugh. “They’re like, ‘Hey man, we meant do it but not all the way. We need our barber!’ ”