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William Melvin "Bill" Hicks (December 16, 1961 – February 26, 1994) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, and musician. His material largely consisted of general discussions about society, religion, politics, philosophy, and personal issues. Hicks's material was often controversial and steeped in dark comedy. In both his stand-up performances and during interviews, he often criticized consumerism, superficiality, mediocrity, and banality within the media and popular culture, describing them as oppressive tools of the ruling class, meant to "keep people stupid and apathetic".[1]
Hicks was 16 years old when he started performing stand-up comedy at the Comedy Workshop in Houston, Texas, in 1978. During the 1980s he toured the United States extensively and performed a number of high-profile television appearances. It was in the UK, however, where Hicks first amassed a significant fan base, packing large venues with his 1991 tour.[2] Hicks died of pancreatic cancer in 1994 at the age of 32. In the years after his death, his work and legacy achieved acclaim in creative circles. In 2007 he was voted the fourth-greatest stand-up comic on the UK's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups on Channel 4, and appeared again in the updated 2010 list as the fourth-greatest comic.[3]
Contents [hide]
1 Early life
2 Career
2.1 Beginnings
2.2 California and New York
2.3 Early fame
2.4 Hicks and Tool
3 Controversy
3.1 Censorship and aftermath
3.2 Denis Leary
4 Comic style
5 Cancer diagnosis and death
6 Legacy
6.1 Film and documentary
7 Discography
8 Bibliography
9 References
10 Further reading
11 External links
Early life[edit]

Born in Valdosta, Georgia, Bill Hicks was the son of Jim and Mary (Reese) Hicks and had two older siblings: sister Lynn and brother Steve. The family lived in Florida, Alabama, and New Jersey, before settling in Houston, Texas when Hicks was seven. He was raised in the Southern Baptist faith, where he first began performing as a comedian for other children at Sunday School.[4]
Hicks was drawn to comedy at an early age, emulating Woody Allen and Richard Pryor, and writing routines with his friend Dwight Slade.[5] Worried about his behavior, his parents took him to a psychoanalyst at age 17 but, according to Hicks, after one session the psychoanalyst informed him that "...it's them, not you."[4]
While at high school, Hicks came to question his family's religious beliefs. Biographer Cynthia True described a typical argument with his father: "The elder Hicks would say, 'I believe that the Bible is the literal word of God.' And Bill would counter, 'No it's not, Dad.' 'Well, I believe that it is.' 'Well,' Bill replied, 'you know, some people believe that they're Napoleon. That's fine. Beliefs are neat. Cherish them, but don't share them like they're the truth.' "[6] The older brother of his friend Dwight, Kevin Slade, introduced Hicks to Transcendental Meditation and other forms of spirituality, taking Hicks and Dwight to a TM retreat, the "Residence Course," in Galveston over a Thanksgiving weekend.[7]
His mother described Hicks's early interest in comedy on the Late Show with David Letterman on January 30, 2009:
He always said up until the time he got interested in comedy that he was going to Texas A&M to be a vet. He loved animals and that's what he wanted to do. And then he got interested in watching Johnny Carson and he read books about Woody Allen, so he got interested in that. He said that he saw Johnny Carson on TV and he thought, "You mean you can make a living doing that?" So he decided that's what he would do.[8]
Career[edit]

Beginnings[edit]
Hicks was associated with the Texas Outlaw Comics group developed at the Comedy Workshop in Houston in the 1980s.[9][10] Once Hicks gained some underground success in night clubs and universities, he quit drinking. However, Hicks continued to smoke cigarettes. His nicotine addiction, love of smoking, and occasional attempts to quit became a recurring theme in his act throughout his later years.
California and New York[edit]
By January 1986, Hicks was using recreational drugs and his financial resources were badly dwindled.[11] His career received another upturn in 1987, however, when he appeared on Rodney Dangerfield's Young Comedians Special. The same year, he moved to New York City, and for the next five years performed about 300 times a year.[citation needed] On the album Relentless, he jokes that he quit using drugs because "once you've been taken aboard a UFO, it's kind of hard to top that", although in his performances, he continued to extol the virtues of LSD, marijuana, and psychedelic mushrooms.[12] He fell back to chain-smoking,[13] a theme that would figure heavily in his performances from then on.
In 1988, Hicks signed on with his first professional business manager, Jack Mondrus.[citation needed] Throughout 1989, Mondrus worked to convince many clubs to book Hicks, promising that the wild drug- and alcohol-induced behavior was behind him. Among the club managers hiring the newly sober Hicks was Colleen McGarr, who would become his girlfriend and fiancée in later years.[citation needed]
On the track "Modern Bummer" of his 1990 album Dangerous, Hicks says he quit drinking alcohol in 1988.
In 1989 he released his first video, Sane Man.[citation needed] It was reissued in 2006.[citation needed]
Early fame[edit]

Bill Hicks at the Laff Stop in Houston, Texas, 1991
In 1990, Hicks released his first album, Dangerous, performed on the HBO special One Night Stand, and performed at Montreal's Just for Laughs festival.[14] He was also part of a group of American stand-up comedians performing in London's West End in November. Hicks was a huge hit in the UK and Ireland and continued touring there throughout 1991.[15] That year, he returned to Just for Laughs and filmed his second video, Relentless.
Hicks made a brief detour into musical recording with the Marble Head Johnson album in 1992. During the same year he toured the UK, where he recorded the Revelations video[16] for Channel 4. He closed the show with his soon-to become-famous philosophy regarding life, "It's Just a Ride". Also in that tour he recorded the stand-up performance released in its entirety on a double CD titled Salvation. Hicks was voted "Hot Standup Comic" by Rolling Stone magazine in 1993. He moved to Los Angeles in 1992.[citation needed]
Hicks and Tool[edit]
The progressive metal band Tool invited Hicks to open a number of concerts in its 1993 Lollapalooza appearances, where Hicks once asked the audience to look for a contact lens he had lost. Thousands of people complied.[17]
Members of Tool felt that they and Hicks "were resonating similar concepts".[18] Intending to raise awareness about Hicks's material and ideas, Tool dedicated their triple-platinum[19] album Ænima (1996) to Hicks. Both the lenticular casing of the Ænima album packaging as well as the chorus of the title track "Ænema" make reference to a sketch from Hicks's Arizona Bay album, in which he contemplates the idea of Los Angeles falling into the Pacific Ocean. Ænima's final track, "Third Eye" contains samples from Hicks's Dangerous and Relentless albums.[18][20]
An alternate version of the Ænima artwork shows a painting of Bill Hicks, calling him "Another Dead Hero," and mentions of Hicks are found both in the liner notes and on the record.
Controversy[edit]

Censorship and aftermath[edit]
In 1984, Hicks was invited to appear on Late Night with David Letterman for the first time. He had a joke that he used frequently in comedy clubs about how he caused a serious accident that left a classmate using a wheelchair. NBC had a policy that no handicapped jokes could be aired on the show, making his stand-up routine difficult to perform without mentioning words such as "wheelchair".[21]
On October 1, 1993, Hicks was scheduled to appear on Late Show with David Letterman, his 12th appearance on a Letterman late-night show, but his entire performance was removed from the broadcast—then the only occasion where a comedian's entire routine was cut after taping.[22] Hicks's stand-up routine was removed from the show allegedly because Letterman and his producer were nervous about a religious joke ("If Jesus came back he might not want to see so many crosses"). Hicks said he believed it was due to a pro-life commercial aired during a commercial break.[23] Both the show's producers and CBS denied responsibility. Hicks expressed his feelings of betrayal in a letter to John Lahr of The New Yorker.[14][22] Although Letterman later expressed regret at the way Hicks had been handled, Hicks did not appear on the show again.[22][note 1]
Letterman finally aired the censored routine in its entirety on January 30, 2009. Hicks's mother, Mary, was present in the studio and appeared on-camera as a guest. Letterman took full responsibility for the original decision to remove Hicks's set from the 1993 show. "It says more about me as a guy than it says about Bill," he said, "because there was absolutely nothing wrong with that."[24][25]
Denis Leary[edit]
For many years, Hicks was friends with fellow comedian Denis Leary. But in 1993 Hicks was angered by Leary's album No Cure for Cancer, which featured lines and subject matter similar to Hicks's routine.[26] According to American Scream: The Bill Hicks Story by Cynthia True, upon hearing the album "Bill was furious. All these years, aside from the occasional jibe, he had pretty much shrugged off Leary's lifting. Comedians borrowed, stole stuff, and even bought bits from one another. Milton Berle and Robin Williams were famous for it. This was different. Leary had practically taken line for line huge chunks of Bill's act and recorded it."[27] The friendship ended abruptly as a result.[28]
At least three stand-up comedians have gone on the record stating they believe Leary stole Hicks's material as well as his persona and attitude.[29][30][31] In an interview, when Hicks was asked why he had quit smoking, he answered, "I just wanted to see if Denis would, too."[32] In another interview, Hicks said, "I have a scoop for you. I stole his [Leary's] act. I camouflaged it with punchlines, and, to really throw people off, I did it before he did."[33] During a 2003 Comedy Central roast of Denis Leary, comedian Lenny Clarke, a friend of Leary's, said there was a carton of cigarettes backstage from Bill Hicks with the message, "Wish I had gotten these to you sooner." This joke was cut from the final broadcast.[34]
The controversy surrounding plagiarism is also mentioned in American Scream:
Leary was in Montreal hosting the "Nasty Show" at Club Soda, and Colleen [McGarr?] was coordinating the talent so she stood backstage and overheard Leary doing material incredibly similar to old Hicks riffs, including his perennial Jim Fixx joke: "Keith Richards outlived Jim Fixx, the runner and health nut. The plot thickens." When Leary came offstage, Colleen, more stunned than angry, said, "Hey, you know that's Bill Hicks's material! Do you know that's his material?" Leary stood there, stared at her without saying a word, and briskly left the dressing room.[27]
Comic style[edit]

Hicks's style was a play on his audience's emotions. He expressed anger, disgust, and apathy while addressing the audience in a casual and personal manner, which he likened to merely conversing with his friends. He would invite his audiences to challenge authority and the existential nature of "accepted truth." One such message, which he often used in his shows, was delivered in the style of a news report (in order to draw attention to the negative slant news organizations give to any story about drugs):
Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration—that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves. And now, here's Tom with the weather.[35]
Another of Hicks's most famous quotes was delivered during a gig in Chicago in 1989 (later released as the bootleg I'm Sorry, Folks). After a heckler repeatedly shouted "Free Bird", Hicks screamed that "Hitler had the right idea; he was just an underachiever!" Hicks followed this remark with a misanthropic tirade calling for unbiased genocide against the whole of humanity.[36]
Much of Hicks's routine involved direct attacks on mainstream society, religion, politics, and consumerism. Asked in a BBC interview why he cannot do a routine that appeals "to everyone", he said that such an act was impossible. He responded by repeating a comment that an audience member once made to him, "We don't come to comedy to think!", to which he replied, "Gee! Where do you go to think? I'll meet you there!" In the same interview, he also said: "My way is half-way between: this is a night-club, and these are adults."[37]
Hicks often discussed conspiracy theories in his performances, most notably the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He mocked the Warren Report and the official version of Lee Harvey Oswald as a "lone nut assassin." He also questioned the guilt of David Koresh and the Branch Davidian compound during the Waco Siege. Hicks would end some of his shows, especially those being recorded in front of larger audiences as albums, with a mock "assassination" of himself on stage, making gunshot sound effects into the microphone while falling to the ground.
Cancer diagnosis and death[edit]

On June 16, 1993, Hicks was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that had spread to his liver.[38] He started receiving weekly chemotherapy, while still touring and also recording his album, Arizona Bay, with Kevin Booth. He was also working with comedian Fallon Woodland on a pilot episode of a new talk show, titled Counts of the Netherworld for Channel 4 at the time of his death. The budget and concept had been approved, and a pilot was filmed. The Counts of the Netherworld pilot was shown at the various Tenth Anniversary Tribute Night events around the world on February 26, 2004.
After being diagnosed with cancer, Hicks would often joke that any given performance would be his last. The public, however, was unaware of Hicks's condition. Only a few close friends and family members knew of his disease. Hicks performed the final show of his career at Caroline's in New York on January 6, 1994. He moved back to his parents' house in Little Rock, Arkansas, shortly thereafter. He called his friends to say goodbye, before he stopped speaking on February 14.[39] He died of pancreatic cancer on February 26, 1994, at age 32.[40][41] Hicks was buried in the family plot in Leakesville, Mississippi.[citation needed]
On February 7, 1994, a verse Hicks had authored, on his perspective, wishes, and thanks of his life, to be released after his death as his "last word", ended with the words: "I left in love, in laughter, and in truth and wherever truth, love and laughter abide, I am there in spirit."[38]
Legacy[edit]

Arizona Bay and Rant in E-Minor were released posthumously in 1997 on the Voices imprint of the Rykodisc label. Dangerous and Relentless were also re-released by Rykodisc on the same date.
In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, fellow comedians and comedy insiders voted Hicks #13 on their list of "The Top 20 Greatest Comedy Acts Ever".[42] Likewise, in "Comedy Central Presents: 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time" (2004),[43] Hicks was ranked at #19. In March 2007, Channel 4 ran a poll, "The Top 100 Stand-Up Comedians of All Time", in which Hicks was voted #6. Channel 4 renewed this list in April 2010, which saw Hicks move up 2 places to #4.[3]
Devotees of Hicks have incorporated his words, image, and attitude into their own creations. By means of audio sampling, fragments of Hicks's rants, diatribes, social criticisms, and philosophies have found their way into many musical works, such as the live version of Super Furry Animals' "Man Don't Give A Fuck". His influence on the band Tool is well-documented; he "appears" on the Fila Brazillia album Maim That Tune (1996) and on SPA's self-titled album SPA (1997), which are both dedicated to Hicks; the British band Radiohead's second album The Bends (1995) is also dedicated to his memory.[44] Singer/songwriter Tom Waits listed Rant in E-Minor as one of his 20 most cherished albums of all time.[45]
Contemporary comedians David Cross,[46] Russell Brand,[47] and Ron White have stated that they were inspired by Hicks.[48] In a British TV documentary about John Cleese's all-time favorite comedians, he singled out Hicks and a clip was shown as an example of a comedian Cleese liked.
The British actor Chas Early portrayed Hicks in the one-man stage show Bill Hicks: Slight Return, which premiered in 2004. The show was co-written by Chas Early and Richard Hurst, and imagined Hicks's view of the world 10 years after his death.
On February 25, 2004, British MP Stephen Pound tabled an early day motion titled "Anniversary of the Death of Bill Hicks" (EDM 678 of the 2003-04 session), the text of which reads:
That this House notes with sadness the 10th anniversary of the death of Bill Hicks, on 26th February 1994, at the age of 33 [sic]; recalls his assertion that his words would be a bullet in the heart of consumerism, capitalism and the American Dream; and mourns the passing of one of the few people who may be mentioned as being worth [sic] of inclusion with Lenny Bruce in any list of unflinching and painfully honest political philosophers.[49]
Hicks appeared in a flashback scene in writer Garth Ennis's Vertigo comic-book series Preacher, in the story "Underworld" in issue #31 (Nov. 1997).[50][51]
Film and documentary[edit]
A documentary entitled American: The Bill Hicks Story, based on interviews with his family and friends, premiered on March 12, 2010, at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas.[52]

Russell Crowe announced in 2012 that he will direct a Bill Hicks biopic.[53] Crowe was originally thought to be playing the comedian, but Mark Staufer, the actor's schoolmate and writer on the film, has suggested the part is now open for casting. Production is expected to start next year.[54]