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Danhausen: Out Of Character Interview! AEW, Influences, Curses, Conan O'Brien
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Danhausen (@DanhausenAD) is a professional wrestler currently signed to AEW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss his rise in popularity on the independent scene, his debut on AEW Dynamite, cursing William Regal and what happens when someone is cursed, being out of action with a torn pec, not being on TV in 2024, breaking character for interviews, how he comes up with nicknames for wrestlers and more!
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"If it's a wrestling event, yes. I've been actually recognized once at a GNC, this is gonna sound like a lie. I walked in, the guy said hello and I went, hello, then he went, Danhausen! And I went, what? And he goes, I recognize the voice. I was so caught off guard."
"I don’t. I think there's hints of it there, especially now. It's kind of like The Simpsons effect, sort of where Dan Castellaneta sounded much different in the earlier episodes, where he was doing the voice, and now I feel like he probably just sounds more like himself doing the voice. So it's probably morphed a little bit into just being me. But he's like, Oh no, I study voice acting, and it was like he knew instantly, it was crazy. I didn't have a full sentence with him or anything, which is hello, he had to have been a wrestling fan, obviously. But yeah, it was just weird."
"I enjoy doing it still, yeah, I feel like it could very easily not be fun or be turned into something that's a chore, and sometimes it is. Then I just have to remember old jobs that I had and where I go I just have to put on makeup and make someone smile, that's so much nicer. I don't want to say nicer, because I used to be a nursing assistant, do 12-hour shifts. They were very hard. Usually they were long. I've done 12 days in a row of that stuff, and I try to remember those where I go this is much, much, much more lax and easier, and I don't have to clean up puke or bodily fluids. So I'm like this is good. That was rewarding, but this is also rewarding."
"That came from my dad, because Halloween was very big in our house. He would do my makeup every single year. I'd be a zombie with glass out of my head. But he sent me to school like this, first and second grade, probably third grade he'd do full makeup on me, send me to school and they'd be like, 'Oh, that's a it's a little extreme, don't you think?' And I’m like, 'I'm a zombie, my dad did my makeup.' But he worked in haunted houses as I was growing up. So he's super artistic. He'd paint comic book stores and things like that. He painted the Hulk and Spawn and everything on the walls. He'd make my costumes. We did a Kane one year where he took a Jason mask and he painted it and melted it and used like, hot glue and stuff, because I don't think they were selling Kane masks at the time. So he took a sweat suit and pleather and made me the red and black Kane suit. So there's a photo of that somewhere. It's been posted somewhere on Twitter and probably Instagram and everything. But there's that. There's the zombie, this Dracula, that slowly just has always been in the back of my head. So that's always been there of wanting to do that, like the horror character, or including the horror stuff into it, but not knowing how, because it's usually not great. There's a few examples where it is, but generally it's always kind of you're either the tough guy or you're the horror character or whatever. So, yeah, that eventually got there."
"So I think he uses acrylic, which is like normal painting. I use wolf makeup, which is a theater-based, water-based makeup. I think it's just a higher quality so it doesn't come off. But if it's like sauna hot in the arena or wherever we're at in the hall or the gym, or wherever I'm at that week it will get sweaty underneath and then the moment someone puts me in a headlock, it's just off. But only in that section, though, it's not draining down my face."
"So I was scheduled to wrestle Effy, and that was when he was also getting some notoriety, because we did Florida indies together. When we first started at Fest Wrestling, we wrestled I think, every single show for some reason, which was 2015 or something. But we had Black Label Pro, and we were supposed to have an eight-minute match or something. And they're like sorry guys, people went long you have, I think it was four minutes. And we're like, okay, and that's where I did the teeth for the first time. Because I was like well if I could do this weird stuff that I kind of want to experiment with, Effy is the guy to do that with. So that's what I did, I used them like thumbtacks for that match and I just poured them out. I think we did a superplex as the finish on the teeth. Yeah I took that four minutes or five minutes, whatever it was, and we got a little bit of buzz off of that, because people were like teeth, that's weird. Then I just rolled with it and kept putting out stuff and more and more and more. I try to tell this to people who are coming up and who have had some success. I'm like you have to just continue with that momentum no matter what, just roll with it, keep it going up as much as humanly possible because you don't know when it's gonna end."
"So I was signed with the broken leg. I'd been talking to them a little bit, I would say, within the last week or two before that. Then I showed up because I think I messaged Brody [King], and I was like, 'Hey, you're kind of close. I'm just sitting at home with a broken leg, am I able to come just say hello to people?' And he goes, 'Wow, I'll ask.' I think that was just, yeah, that's fine. Then just, you know, you go through the motion, you sign up, just so they know who you are and everything. I was there, I think that was the day where Cody asked, and he goes, 'Hey, are you doing something tonight?' I'm not dressed as Danhausen at this point. I'm just probably in one of my boots or something. I was like, I mean, I always have my stuff, just in case, but I got a broken leg, and I don’t work here so I don't know. He goes,' All right. Well, let me know. We'll get you something if you're not.' I was like, Oh, wow. So I think Cody was going to do something with the Sammy Guevara match, which I think wound up being his last match for the TNT title. So I think they were gonna pull me out on a ladder if the thing with Orange and Adam Cole didn't happen, he was just gonna figure out a way to get me in his match to get me on and I was like well that's awesome. But we wound up doing the Adam Cole Orange Cassidy spot, which was similar, but same thing. All that I could really do was I could curse him. I can't really do anything. I can't run, I can kind of hobble around."
"I wish I had been able to do more with him on screen because he was also a guy I took a lot of my facial expressions from. I don’t know why people don’t [realize]. He's one of the best comedic wrestlers wherever he was, all of that stuff with Tajiri, he's just making faces constantly. The match with The Big Show, I see the clip all the time now where he hits him with the brass knuckles and The Big Show falls back and then falls on him, just things like that. He's a great straight man but he's also plays a great comedic heel. Same thing with Christian. I remember I was in the gym and Christian walked in. I usually don't want to bother people, but I was like hey, can I ask you something? You don't usually, I don't think, get asked about this specifically, but you are a great comedic heel who also could just win matches. I think that's the key is you have to be taken seriously when it's time to be taken seriously. He was Tag Team Champions while he was wearing giant sunglasses and hats and kazoos and doing five second poses. But also he was a legitimate Tag Team Champion at the time, him and Edge. Stone Cold Steve Austin is kind of in that same category, put a tiny cowboy hat on. He's swimming in milk. Yes, Stone Cold Steve Austin is like a badass wrestler. But also he is swimming in milk and beer and doing comedy things all of the time and it's amazing. Same thing with The Rock."
"I think just being authentically weird. I throw in these little bits of Conan [O'Brien] and The Simpsons, but I make it my own thing. Pee Wee [Herman] and obviously, there's some stuff where I just do it. But I think they go, Oh, I liked that as a kid, this guy's doing all that weird stuff that I liked as a kid. Or it's very similar so I'm connected to that now. Or the horror movie stuff you got the horror fans, because they go, Oh, his makeup looks like it's inspired by The Exorcist. Well, it is. So then they go well now I like you. There's even just stuff where they'll make connections that aren't necessarily there, but that's fine, because they're connecting to something with me, and that makes them happy."
"Hopefully it works. Hopefully they're superstitious enough to where something happens to work for them. [Have you cursed MJF?] Not on screen, I stole a scarf off screen that was at a comic con. I may have at New York Comic Con done something I don't think I've cursed him though, I agree it probably needs to be done. He does deserve it."
"It's The Ass Boys finishing move, which is the pop up flat liner. When I come down, I landed a little bit more like this, instead of this. So the way that I came down Colton lifts me, and then it's like a reverse Rock Bottom, for people who don't maybe know. Austin is a thick boy, his chest is thick. So I don't know if it's a combination of me coming down half in a push-up position, but also ricocheting off of Austin while ricocheting off of this side of Colton. So I think it just landed weird, because obviously a bunch of people have taken this move and they're fine. But yeah, I'd come down and I think I watched it, and it went like this, and then this part snapped off. I didn't know I tore my pec, because I thought, when you tear your pec it's like Cody. I didn't as far as I knew, I had gone to the back, and we thought it was just a shoulder thing, because they tested my strength and all that. They're like, yeah, it doesn't seem like you did anything serious to it, because you're able to do a bunch of presses and pushing, and it was fine. I was like, Oh yeah, I think it just jammed my shoulder. Then the next morning, I woke up, and I think this whole piece was missing, but I hadn’t noticed probably because it was swollen at the time, or something like, from immediately happening. Luckily, that was the finish of the match."
"I did the Halloween segments. I was like, I want to do something fun for Halloween. I didn't come back from this probably, I think it was fine in October, but it was still kind of like give it another month. So I was like, well we could air these Halloween 3 style, annoying commercials until I come back and I was like, cool, and then it kind of just didn't happen. So I think that kind of sucked the air out of the return a little bit, in my opinion, at least for me, it did. It was built for Halloween, and then I could have came back the next week, and I just didn't. Then it took a little bit more time, and then I think I did come back on Thanksgiving, so it's like three or four weeks later, but I come out and I want to wrestle. Because I don't know if non-wrestlers might not know this wrestling hurts, but it also hurts less if you do it more. So your body gets callous to it I guess. So if you're wrestling once every couple months, or once every other month, or whatever it is, it sucks every single time. It feels like the first time of going to wrestling school, where it's the worst. Then also your body is more susceptible to getting injured because you're not used to that weird getting slammed or weird movements or whatever it is. So I'd prefer to wrestle at least once a week, whether it be a dark match or whatever, just let me go out there for the crowd, do something. So that way, if you need before TV, I'm fine, I'm ready to go. Then it's not like, oh sh*t I haven't wrestled in three months, all of a sudden, I have to wrestle. I'm not in ring shape anymore. I don't have a wrestling ring near where I live at all."
"Yes, just keeps me sharp. It keeps me, I don't wanna say creative, because there is still some creative lull in indies because you're not doing storylines, generally. So, it is just more so matches. So I have to have my creativity outlet be the promos that I do leading up to those, and then figuring out ways to do the match different, have fun with the crowd and try to make them participate in everything. But yeah, that's why I do two to three a week so I can stay in ring shape and not, knock on wood, get injured. Because again, it's like a weird middle ground you have to hit. Because if you're doing it too much, you'll probably get injured because your body is getting destroyed. But also, if you don't do it enough, your body is not used to it, so then it's more susceptible to getting destroyed."
"Well for a long time I was there I just wasn't doing anything, if you don't have anything for me, that's fine, but I feel like we need to find something for me. [So you’d just be backstage?] Not for all of 2024. At some point, there's you can just stay home. I'm like, okay, cool. That's great, because I appreciate that, because then I'm not just getting brought out to like, whatever. Then they were letting me do the Indies and doing the conventions and it just helps me again, stay sharp, which is in turn for them. Also, still, I always looked at that as I'm still representing the company in a way, because I'm on these shows. So that's better than me just not being seen on the show. I'm still at a convention with Sting, or whatever, taking pictures with Sting and posting pictures of Sting, doing that. All I can say was, when people were like, Oh, when you coming back? and I go, I don't know you should ask. Because the more people are vocal, maybe the more there's the chance of I got something."
"It's like, what are you gonna do? We live in a world, I do it [stay in character] probably more than most people, then every once in a while I think it's important to do something like this to remind people this is a real person, just every once in a while. I don't do it constantly. I don't do it weekly, we did the interview four years ago. I did Conan. Someone was like, why didn't you do the make-up? Because I'm not blowing that by showing up in makeup and not telling them. Because that's how that would have had to go. They did a screening process before, which I didn't know. That's what it was where I met with one of the producers, and they didn't tell me what it was for, then they had told me the day before you're gonna be on Zoom with Conan. I was like well I could show up in character, but also that risks getting kicked off and them going, we didn't agree to this. This is weird. So I was just like, No, I will just be me, and then hopefully I'll get another opportunity with him at some point to do a skit or something with Conan."
"Chris Jericho has the Judas song, so he's Chris Judas. Pepsi Phil, he's got the Pepsi logo tattooed on him. I think some people call him Phil, and I do. At the time I think it was a thing of you don't call him Phil. If you don't know him, don't call him Phil. And there's like always Pepsi Phil and I thought it was funny. So as an annoying idiot I'd call him Pepsi Phil. Trying to think of who else there was, obviously The Ass Boys. Billy Ass, that one's, self-explanatory. That's his last name. What other names was there? Rock The Dwayne Johnson. Which, I swear, I don't know it's in my head. It's some type of Mandela Effect. I swear someone on the news accidentally called him that. I was at work, and I just happened to [catch it]. I was like did they just call him Rock the Dwayne Johnson on accident on air? I can't confirm if that actually happened or not, because it was just one of those things that was there and gone. And I was like well I'm gonna call him that."
"I think me with I think a six man with me and The Outrunners would be fun. I think I could do something fun with those guys. I would still really, really like for The Ass Boys to fully embrace the ass and team with me. I would love to do something with “Timeless” Toni Storm. I know she's retired, who knows? I think that would have been a fun because I used to do the 1920s Danhausen black-and-white version for old wrestling. I was like, that could easily just either whether it's me teaming with someone else to fight her and someone else, or me teaming with her to fight someone. I really, really wish I could have teamed with Darby and Sting. It almost happened. I think there was, like a hint of it, and then it just didn’t."
"My wife, my best friends and my family."
