Defend Yourself! Zane Lamprey

Comedian Zane Lamprey, perhaps most renowned for his adventures in drinking on cult sensation Three Sheets, has set off for adventure once more in Drinking Made Easy, a brand new 24-episode series chronicling Lamprey and company’s trek across the USA. Lamprey gives us his take on Beantown’s brew scene, interactive TV, and stuffed monkeys.

So, filming Drinking Made Easy took place over the course of a 53-city tour?

Yeah, we did a 53-city tour over the summer, so we were gone for three months. We shot 24 episodes of D.M.E. in that time— it was a very full schedule of working (or at least drinking) every day. Right after we finished that tour, I decided I wanted to go out on tour with my music, and I’m just now getting off of that tour. It’s been a very busy year with a lot of traveling and a lot of shooting.

And Pleepleus accompanied you on tour?

Yeah, Pleepleus, our mascot of the show, or rather my drinking buddy, he joined us for the tour with Drinking Made Easy. He’s both a small stuffed monkey, and a big, 6-foot, 300-pound guy who wears a Pleepleus costume. One of the rules of the show’s drinking game is when people see the monkey when they’re watching at home, they have to take a drink.

So he’s your drinking buddy… do you tell him any of your deep, dark secrets?

Pleepleus knows everything, yes. He’s the only living being who’s privy to all my details.

According to your Twitter feed, someone stole Pleepleus in Seattle?

Yeah, the last tour we did was called the Sing the Booze tour, which is drinking songs and some comedy. Anyone who came to the show would see a two-foot version of Pleepleus that would swing through the audience at several points, at which point the audience could drink along. That Pleepleus doll was stolen in Seattle when we were doing the live show, just about a month ago. At the end of the show, I was out back signing autographs and taking pictures, someone jumped onstage, nabbed the two-foot Pleepleus and took off. He has not revealed himself yet.

I hope he isn’t being coerced by Julian Assange’s cohorts to WikiLeak your secrets to the world…

There’s a lot of theories to where he is now… maybe he just needed a break from me?

What are some of the highlights of your time in Boston?

We hit up some really great locations, and I think anybody from Boston would admit we did well in choosing them. Obviously it’s only a half-hour episode and we only had a few days, so we weren’t able to do all the great places. We did the Sunset Grill & Tap; we actually sampled a bunch of different meades. We did Boston Beer Works and I tried their blueberry ale. Then we went to the Bleacher Bar, the Bell In Hand (which was Sam Adams’ first account), Harpoon Brewery, and of course we’d be remiss if we didn’t at least make one quick stop by Cheers [aka the Bull and Finch Pub - Ed]. It was a good episode and we had a lot of fun shooting it… I love Boston.

Sounds like a great trip. You really can’t go wrong with those destinations.

Yeah, Sunset Grill, what a great thing for you to have nearby. Not only do you have access to all those different beers, but he’s got like, thirty different kinds of mead. Most people out there haven’t even tried mead, and he’s got probably one of the best selections in the world. We could’ve spent an entire episode just talking about all the beer he has there, but we decided because we’ve tasted a lot of beers in our travels, it’d be good to highlight mead.  Boston Beer Works had a lot of amazing brews, too.

Drinking Made Easy is billed as a TV drinking game — how does it work?

At drinkingmadeeasy.com, we’ve got a list of all the rules for people that want to play along. It’s interactive television, which is really the way television is headed. It gives people the chance to sort of live vicariously through our journeys. What’s also really cool is we have the recipes, all the beers, all the drinks featured in the night’s show listed on our web site the day the episode airs. We’d like for people to drink along with us, and drink what we’re drinking when we’re drinking it. It’s very difficult to go out there and drink wonderful things, when you can’t really explain the taste you’re experiencing, so we encourage people to drink along with us and go out to the places we check out and try the things we tried.

I have to ask -- in your experience, where is the absolute best place to drink in this great country of ours?

I know it’s a totally cliché answer, but I think it’s Bourbon Street. It’s such a unique place to our country, and really to the world… I mean, I was down there in that episode, and I had a hurricane, a hand grenade, a voodoo punch, Abita beer, Sazerack, and absinthe, and it was all within walking distance. It’s great to just go to Bourbon Street, stumble home, sleep the hangover off, then go out and do it again the next day… it’s really one of the most remarkable places to drink. I think anyone who’s been there knows it’s just very unique, and it has a lot to do with drinking.

Drinking Made Easy airs on HDNet Wednesdays at 8:30PM. The Boston episode airs this Wednesday, 12/15.
Comcast channel: 783
DirecTV channel: 79
Dish Network channel: 362
FiOS channel: 569