After a week off, Jon Stewart is back in the anchor chair at The Daily Show tonight, and for the first time in the six weeks since he returned to the show, he’ll be welcoming a celebrity guest instead of a journalist.
Musician Gary Clark Jr. is expected to both sit down with Stewart for an interview and perform the song “Habits” from his new album JPEG Raw.
Clark was recently interviewed by the Austin American-Stateman, which asked him whether his album is political.
Clark explained that he originally wanted to make a party record, having recently won a trio of Grammys, but then the pandemic changed the album’s vibe, forcing him to acknowledge that life wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.
Perhaps Stewart will prod the singer-songwriter to further explore the idea of being forced to maintain a certain image as a rockstar while suffering in private, and what it means to open up and share that pain with the public.
“I choose to have an image, to put out a brand to help sell music. But sometimes it’s not all badass rock stars. Sometimes I have a tough day,” said Clark.
“It’s being a part of the human condition, [and] just acknowledging that [shit] exists,” he continued. “If we don’t, we push this narrative of unicorns, fairy dust, meadows, rainbows, [and] if that’s where you’re pushing the art, and that’s what all the movies are about, and that’s what all the music is, you’re not getting any grit. There’s no representation of, like, ‘Hey, it’s [shit] over here.’ I get that y’all are partying and it’s all Candyland and all that, but it’s not really like that for us. It’s not really like that for most people.”
Musical performances were something of a rarity for The Daily Show under Jon Stewart’s watch. Over his 19 years hosting the show, only about a dozen artists performed, including Coldplay, Justin Bieber, Ringo Starr, and Bruce Springsteen (who performed at the end of Stewart’s final episode in 2015).
