Nate Bargatze: Comedy's newest superstar hails from Old Hickory

Editors note: This story was originally published April 12, 2023.

The zip code for Old Hickory, Tenn. is 37138.

If you knew that already, we’d guess you live or work in the Nashville suburb – or you’ve seen Nate Bargatze’s latest comedy special.

“How I was told to remember it was ’37 plus one equals 38,’” he deadpans during “Nate Bargatze: Hello World,” which premiered earlier this year.

“…I don’t know who does zip codes, probably the government. But when they drove through Old Hickory, they (said), ‘Let’s go easy on these people!’”

Those people can take it in stride, however. Bargatze is one of them.

In fact, the 44-year-old Old Hickory native is probably now the second most-famous person to be associated with the neighborhood. In the same special, he recalls telling a reporter about his hometown’s namesake.

“The guy stopped me, and he was like, ‘You know, Andrew Jackson was a bad guy.’ I was like, ‘Oh…we didn’t, like, know him or anything like that.’”

Bargatze has been telling jokes on stage for more than 20 years. In 2004, he moved to New York City and worked his way through the standup scene, starting as a “barker” who’d hand out fliers on the sidewalk in exchange for stage time.

Over the next decade, Bargatze became a respected name on the national circuit, occasionally landing a TV commercial role and making annual visits to Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight Show.” Not a shabby spot for your career to plateau, all things considered.

But in the past five years, we’ve seen he was nowhere near his peak.

Thanks to a string of homespun, self-deprecating, and profanity-free comedy specials for Netflix and Amazon, he’s enjoyed a sudden surge of fame decades into his career, not unlike Rodney Dangerfield and Louis C.K. before him.

On stage, Bargatze slips immediately into his persona: he’s a simple, soften-spoken guy, a husband and father who’s often quietly confounded by the world around him.

Unlike many modern standups, he rarely cracks a smile at his own quips, instead offering a stoic stare as he lays out, for example, what a bizarre hassle buying ice at the gas station is: “It’s either not enough, or the most ice I’ve ever seen in my life.”

This Saturday, he headlines Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena – a venue that’s been on in his sights even in the lean years. The sold-out show, part of the annual Nashville Comedy Festival, is titled “From Old Hickory to Broadway.”

“Whenever I let myself daydream about success, it was playing Bridgestone,” Bargatze says.

'They're gonna think I quit'

His career path wasn’t completely unexpected. Bargatze’s dad is local magician Stephen Bargatze, who also worked as a clown when his son was growing up (providing no shortage of on-stage material). After high school, along with a couple of short-lived stints at college, his many jobs included working as a host at the Applebee’s on Thompson Lane, where he met his future wife, Laura.

He later worked as a water meter reader in Mt. Juliet, where one of his buddies also expressed an interest in pursuing comedy. The two moved to Chicago in 2002, enrolling in classes at The Second City, the improv comedy troupe that has served as a springboard to “SNL” for many performers.

After an eight-week course, Bargatze traded improv for standup, taking a comedy class and performing at open mics in Chicago for the next two years. His move to New York in 2004 was partly inspired by the 2002 documentary “Comedian,” which shows Jerry Seinfeld returning to comedy clubs to write a new act.

He’d built a modest amount of steam by the time he and his family moved to Los Angeles in 2012. Two years later, they quietly – very, very quietly – moved back to Nashville. Bargatze kept it a secret from everyone in his business.

“My biggest fear was, 'They're gonna think I quit,’” he recalls. “So I just didn't say anything. When I (would travel) to L.A., my manager knew, but I didn't want somebody to not want to meet with me because I didn't live there.”

The breakthrough

That wouldn’t be a concern for long. In 2017, Netflix launched a series called “The Standups,” with each episode featuring a 30-minute set from a different comedian. His was the very first episode.

At his next gig the following week, Bargatze could tell things had changed.

“I remember I did some jokes, and then they didn't hit as much as they usually do,” he recalls. That was because his audience had already heard them.

“I was like, ‘Wait, are you all here, like, because of me?’ They're like, ‘Yeah.’ lt was the first sign of panic, where you're like, 'Oh, I gotta write new material. People are coming.”

Count Netflix among the converted. In 2019, Bargatze had his first dedicated special on the streamer, “The Tennessee Kid.” He even worked up enough material through the pandemic to film the socially distanced follow-up, “The Greatest Average American,” in 2021 – complete with unplanned breaks to wait for passing helicopters.

Each new special, including the latest, finds him getting better and better at making stand-up look effortless. It’s not. He says this year’s “Hello World” was the hardest one yet, because now he doesn’t just have fans coming to his shows – they’re following him across the country.

“When I played in the Pebble Beach Pro Am, I met a caddy,” says Bargatze, an avid golfer who probably doesn’t mind opening an anecdote with that line. (“Hello World,” in fact, is a nod to a Tiger Woods quote.)

“He said he's been to 20 shows. You write an hour for the tour, and then you kind of change it up, but don't change it up every show…when the new tour started (this year), I had people fly to Jonesboro, Arkansas, to watch the beginning of the tour.”

Fans have gotten used to a steady drip of new wisecracks from Bargatze in recent years. Four months into the pandemic, he launched the “Nateland Podcast,” which finds him shooting the breeze with friends and fellow Nashville comics Brian Bates, Dusty Slay and Aaron Weber.

All three will take the stage at Bridgestone – Bargatze’s taking a cue from Adam Sandler, who invited him backstage at his show at the venue in February.

“I'm a giant, giant fan of what he does,” Bargatze says. “I want to create the world that he created with his movies. That's what we're trying to do with Nateland. He's a huge inspiration to me.”

Goals don't get much loftier, but on the other hand, he's come a long way from the water department — which he says you can expect a joke about on Saturday.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nate Bargatze: Comedy's newest superstar hails from Old Hickory