Striding, mic in hand, across a floor stained by years of mentholated soot and cheap lager, Drew Morganis an anomaly in Knoxville: a stand-up comic performing at the Pilot Light, an indie-rock club. And the differences between him and the club regulars are manifold and obvious, from his barbershop haircut and slow-drip East Tennessee drawl, to the dirty boot-cut jeans which seem to have actually faded onto his legs.
But if he’s out of place, he doesn’t know it, because he fairly commands the crowded little bar with the alpha certainty of a football coach, the fulminating zeal of a charismatic preacher.
‘That last joke was ironic, by way,’ he says to the crowd of indie kids. ‘Kind of like most of your clothes.