Las Vegas Weekly

February 12, 2010 · 6 AM

After a few stops, Andrew Dice Clay settles in at the Hilton

By Robin Leach

Andrew Dice Clay at Sushi Samba's SugarCane Live! in the Palazzo.

Photo: Scott Harrison/Retna/www.harrisonphotos.com

He has one of the funniest mouths in comedy, and also one of the filthiest, with his four-letter-word-laced tirades against society’s stupidities. He’s one of the only comedians who dare say what others only think. Now the outrageous Andrew Dice Clay is set to call Las Vegas home with a long-run residency at the Las Vegas Hilton.

Dice came here during the recession’s bleakest moments and hit box office success at the Steve Wyrick Theater in Planet Hollywood that closed. Then at Sushi Samba in the Palazzo that had to suspend cabaret shows because of lease complications. Then he went to the Riviera in mid-summer for nearly half a year, where his customers came from other places.

So I started by asking Dice if this was a big deal to wind up at the Hilton. He said: “It is a big deal to jump. I liked that room at the Riv, and I got comfortable there, but now I can’t wait to start the Hilton run. It is just a whole different animal. I sure got here from one disaster after another. And I am up from, let’s see where did I come from? The Wyrick Theater. My plan always was I wanted to come when this recession started.

“I wanted to prove that I could sell tickets anywhere. I wanted them to go, ‘You know what? We want him here. We need him here. He brings people here and sells tickets!’ I’m totally different from what’s here already. I look at Vegas almost like it is its own Hollywood. They could literally take a street bum if they want, put some music around him and put some midgets on bungee cords, and they would have a show and people would come into town and go, ‘Have you seen the midgets on bungee cords with the homeless bum?’

“By the time you start looking from the airport to the hotel, if you have never heard of this person, you do now. I used to kid about it with Danny Gans. Outside of Vegas, Danny Gans really wasn’t known. When you flew into Vegas and you saw the little advertisement Danny Gans, you go, ‘Oh, I wonder who that is?’ Now you are in baggage claim, now the woman is looking at her husband going, ‘Oh, is he a singer. I wouldn’t mind seeing him.’

“Now you are in the cab going to the hotel, in the cab that has another sign of him on the cab, you are looking at Danny Gans, ‘I almost can’t believe, we’re in town, and Danny Gans is here.’ You see a giant billboard at The Mirage, ya know, Danny Gans, the husband’s going, ‘Honey, you want to go get something to eat,’ and she’s going, ‘No, no, no, first go get the Danny Gans tickets, I don’t know if he is here just for the night, but I got to get in.’ That’s what Vegas does.

“Now you’ve got me almost full time! Vegas has this thing where you come in for two nights and then you aren’t here again for another eight months. I didn’t want that. I wanted the nearly full-time gig. It’s a great-sized room, and we are really getting behind it.”

Here’s the remainder of our conversation, and I began by asking Dice while he’s here for 35 weeks if he’d live here or hop back and forth to home in L.A.

Andrew Dice Clay: I am not sure exactly how many weeks. I am doing it in between two and three weeks a month. I get home, I see my kids. Certain months I will be in Vegas for three weeks at a stretch. So that’s the only tough thing, being away from the boys, but they can also come and visit when they are off. It’s also nice that they have hit certain ages that I can be away a little. I have wanted to make this move for a long time, as you know.

And I am lovin’ it. I do the drive, I don’t fly it. I just like the drive instead of the plane. It is just fun. We always look forward to it, just get in the car and make some stops. It’s fun. I will drive in, do the Hilton show, which is what I love about it. I just drive, turn the key, get dressed and go over. It is just great. I am really psyched for it.

Robin Leach: What is the magic of Vegas for a comic with your act and standing?

ADC: It’s the image of Dice that has always fit with Vegas. Just the name alone. Andrew Dice Clay, I mean just like the slogan I had, “Putting the sin back in the city.” The image and the kind of act I have, it is almost like people who wouldn’t come see me if I came to their hometown, when they come to Vegas, it is almost like they could sneak out and see me. So, you know, you get those kinds of people, those kinds of fans. I am like the dirty little secret that you don’t tell your wife about, unless you are stupid enough to bring her to my show. That’s Vegas.

Plus I got history with the Hilton. I have done that big room a bunch of times, through the years, and so it is nice to go back there and make it like a home now. At least for right now. I think it is going to get too crazy.

RL: When is the last time you were there?

ADC: Years ago, at least six or seven years ago. Because the last big hotel I played was the Mandalay Bay, which was like four years ago. So the Hilton is a nice coming home. I just love the vibe. It is a beautiful hotel, but it still has the old school feel, and it is full of people, which is what you need for a show. We will draw from the other hotels. We will be all over Vegas. They are giving us more digital billboards. They gave me that big thing at the airport, where (Barry) Manilow’s thing was in the airport, at baggage claim. It is unreal.

Every performer has an ego about themselves, but I saw that and was like you are really turning Vegas into your thing. Plus, I have another plan of doing a big tour later in the year, because this is going to be the 20th year anniversary of The Adventures of Ford Fairlane.

So I want to do the 20th anniversary tour and use people like Billy Idol (Las Vegas residents Wayne Newton and Vince Neil also starred in the movie along with Priscilla Presley, Gilbert Gottfried and Ed O’Neil). People who were involved with the film, Morris Day, Sheila E, and do like a big arena size tour. It is an idea that people are really responding to. It is music; I call it rock and comedy. Comedy slash rock. You know that movie had such a following, such a controversy behind it. I think it could really wind up being a tremendous tour.

Billy Idol has already shown interest, Sheila has already shown interest. We are thinking about even Prince, and he had nothing to do with the movie. Just this great show that I would do a whole bunch of these arena-type places. That would blow up the whole Vegas thing again. Priscilla Presley might want to come out and just introduce the show. I mean what a great night of rock and comedy. Nobody has really done that with a theme behind it. You know when that video came out, it sold close to 400,000 copies at a hundred dollar price, before DVD. So this would be the moment to move on that, too.

I want to do something big again, that’s it. Do some big stuff, ya know. I’ve had an amazing 32-year run since my first gig on Sept. 18, 1978. Now all this new stuff is happening. I have always been the type, I can get down on myself, like anybody. What do I need it for because it has been an aggravating career. Too controversial, there was no reason for a lot of the B.S. that went on. I had the entire media against me at one point, and there was no way to answer them back.

There was no Internet then. So when they would come after me, it was like a gang. I was only one person. No way I was going to win. Now it’s just like too many people want to see Dice, even in Vegas. Vegas crowds have got excited all over again with that whole Dice, Dice, Dice thing. I am, like, ‘You know what, do it again, stand toe to toe with some of these big audiences again.’ That is how I am. I am that kind of fighter and a performer.

I am not some oh woe is me kind of guy. Things aren’t good for me, I don’t pull that whining stuff. If I feel that way, it is for a couple hours, and then it is like I have an idea. Next week, I start this whole Ford Fairlane thing. This could be something incredible, this could be something so big. It could knock all the tours on their ass. You don’t do it for a long time, you do like 20 to 30 shows, you just thrill the country at a time where something needs to thrill them because, people, this ain’t no recession.

I go when people are losing homes and jobs and have no money in their pockets, they are depressed, they are not recessed. Recess is something you have in grammar school. This is f------ depressing. Only in America they try to lighten the load or whatever. Nobody gets an operation today, they get a procedure. I go, ‘A procedure? The guy is getting his leg cut off. I call that an operation.’ Why do they try to lighten everything?

RL: You are going to have a field day in Vegas with those kind of straight-out outrageous observations.

ADC: I sure am. I cannot wait!

Dice is at the Hilton next on Monday through Feb. 21 and March 1-7.

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

Follow Robin Leach on Twitter at Twitter.com/Robin_Leach.

Follow Vegas DeLuxe on Twitter at Twitter.com/vegasdeluxe.

Follow VDLX Editor Don Chareunsy on Twitter at Twitter.com/VDLXEditorDon.

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