What's with the 'I am not a lawyer' billboard in downtown Phoenix? Playboy Manbaby explain

Robbie Pfeffer never had an advertising budget.

That's just not the way they do things on the DIY music scene he's called home these past 10 years. 

So when he found out he was being given money to promote the first headlining show he's done at the Van Buren since Live Nation Entertainment bought the venue?

Pfeffer did what any self-respecting goofball who's spent 10 years singing for a band called Playboy Manbaby might do. 

He came up with a truly silly way to spend those global entertainment dollars.

That's how Pfeffer came to find his photo waving at the passing cars on Seventh Avenue in downtown Phoenix on a billboard advertising Playboy Manbaby's Sept. 3 appearance at the venue. 

"I am not a lawyer," the billboard proclaims, the comic icing on a very jokey cake.

"I thought it would be hysterical," Pfeffer says, to spend that advertising budget on a billboard. 

Live Nation had other ideas.

As Pfeffer recalls, "The first thing I got told was 'Don't do that. That's a waste of money. The only people who do that are casinos. And they only do it so they can put their logo on it. It's not a billboard for the show."

So he explained the method to his madness — that this was putting money into Instagram and Facebook advertising without giving Instagram or Facebook any money.

"It's not about the billboard," Pfeffer says. "And some guy driving by it. It's about people talking about the billboard."

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Pfeffer thought the billboard fit the Phoenix cityscape 

In short, Pfeffer says, "It's the goofiest possible way you can advertise anything. In the era of you can target someone who likes the Doors' second album to sell them a T-shirt, it's the worst possible way and the trashiest way you can advertise anything."

It's also very Phoenix. 

"The visual landscape of this city is 75% billboards," Pfeffer says.

"That's what you're looking at most of the time. But it's always people that aren't us, people that aren't weirdos, people that aren't perpetually broke. No one I know is on these billboards."

Regardless of how many people show up at the venue, Pfeffer sees this as a banner day for Playboy Manbaby, whose sound is an electrifying, at times unhinged brand of art-punk dispensed with an irreverent sense of humor and emotional catharsis.

"It's still a good joke," Pfeffer says.

"It's still funny to me. And it being funny to us is half the reason we do anything. If I think it's a funny joke and we're gonna be entertained by the fact that we're doing it, that's a plenty good enough reason to do it."

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Playboy Manbaby performs for the first time since COVID-19

This is also Playboy Manbaby's first show since COVID-19 shut the door on live performance back in March of 2020 — "a multimedia extravaganza celebrating 10 years of DIY chaos," as it's being billed.

"It doesn't feel like it's been that long," Pfeffer says.

"But time is a vortex. It's weird thinking about who I was when this thing started. I was still in school, making $86 a week. And there's so much I have in common with that person. But also, it's like an entirely different person."

He's not sure how fair it is to count the first three years they played together.

"Yes, it's 10 years, technically," he says. "But the first three years, we basically played house shows and parties. It wasn't really a band until we started touring."

Those first years were formative, though, for a band that also features TJ Friga on guitar, Chris Hudson on bass, Dave Cosme on trumpet, Chad B. Dennis on drums and occasional member Austin Rickert on sax.

"We learned a lot of things that we still use, so all of it was necessary," Pfeffer says.

It wasn't long before the bandmates had arrived at the aesthetic that in many ways to continues to define them, as the singer was reminded not that long ago when he stumbled across an old performance video.

"Everything this ends up being, it's all there," he says.

"And it was just a bunch of random people. Because we basically let anyone who wanted to be in the band for the first couple years. So it was pure chaos." 

How Pfeffer came to embrace songwriting

Pfeffer says it was around 2013 or possibly 2014 that he started enjoyed the songwriting process.

"Making songs, recording songs, all of that was basically irrelevant to us," he says.

"I didn't care about that at all. The live show was the thing. That was always what the band was meant to do — to be this really, like, chaotic party. So we figured that out first and then learned how to write songs."

The songwriting has only gotten better with each passing year, the result of "everybody kind of arguing the songs to life," as Pfeffer says.

But the chaotic spectacle remains.

"That's been a theme through the entire thing," he says.

"That kind of semi-controlled chaos and … shenanigans, for lack of a better word. I like that. It's a project that kind of is whatever we say it is. There's a lot of things that we can do that a lot of other bands can't get away with." 

A "cool" band, for example, couldn't get away with acting as ridiculous as Pfeffer and his bandmates have been known to act on stage (or on a local billboard). 

"They can't be goofy or weird," he says. "It would not feel authentic to their thing. So they have to be cool. The appeal of the cool-guy band is the fact that it's like, 'Oh, man, I wish I had friends like that.'"

With Playboy Manbaby, you do have friends like that.

"It's like, 'Yeah, I know those people. They're the nerds I went to high school with.' That's always been our vibe. So we can basically do whatever we want. We don't have to worry about being cool. Being cool is a real ball and chain."

How Pfeffer started talking politics on TikTok

To Pfeffer, it seems better to invest that kind of energy and effort into the art of amusing oneself. And sometimes, that can lead to unintended side effects, like blowing up on TikTok, which is something Pfeffer did last year to take his mind off the pandemic.

"Completely amusing myself was the initial goal," he says.

"Because there was no other particular creative outlet. There was nothing. I was so depressed. I just didn't see any sort of hope for anything creatively."

And this was coming off a great year for the band, which only made it that much more depressing.

"It was like 'Wow, we were part of this really cool ecosystem in 2019, where we got to tour and all these things," he says.

They had momentum going into 2020 in a way they'd never seen before. 

"It was like 'OK, I'm really excited to see what happens in 2020," Pfeffer says.

"And then it was like, 'Whoa. You're not gonna be that excited because this is legitimately going to be the most miserable year of your life.'"

Then, just before the election, he started talking about politics on TikTok — in a way that definitely got his point across but also embodied the quirky appeal of Playboy Manbaby's best work.

"I think I originally planned, like, seven videos," Pfeffer says.

"And I'm still doing it. It's just crazy to be able to make something and see what people think about it within hours. It's almost like what I imagine standup comedians experience when they go to places to test out material."

And what's really nice is there's no pressure to succeed because it's not his main creative outlet. 

"If you don't like my songs about sandwiches, I'm not really bothered by it," he says, with a laugh.

Playboy Manbaby has unreleased music because of the pandemic

As for his main creative outlet, they've been sitting on some music they recorded before the pandemic. 

"We just haven't put them out because there wasn't any reason to," he says. "It was like why put it out? So I can not play songs to anyone? So we can not tour? It felt pointless."

Now that they can play again, he's glad they held that music back. In fact, he's thinking their next show will more than likely be a release show.

In the meantime, they've got this show celebrating 10 years of inspired lunacy. 

And that's clearly something to celebrate. 

The best part is it's given the singer "the absolute freedom to be myself, to celebrate the fact that I am a strange, eccentric person who is anxious wildly imperfect and inconsistent and impatient," he says.

"To be able to put that out there and have people respond to it? It's one of the most life-affirming possible things you can have happen as a human being. That's the magic of this band."

Playboy Manbaby

When: 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 3. 

Where: The Van Buren, 401 W. Van Buren St., Phoenix.

Admission: $25; $20 in advance.

Details: 866-468-3399, thevanburenphx.com. 

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.

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