Oliver Anthony and Joe Rogan Talk Porn, Groceries, and a Wee Bit of ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’

Here’s the thing about being viral famous or famous for just one thing: There’s not much else to talk about. That quickly became apparent when Joe Rogan interviewed Oliver Anthony over the course of two mind-numbing hours on the musclebound talker’s podcast.

If you care about Anthony’s opinion on John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London, which Rogan raves is “the perfect horror movie,” or want to hear the pair dissect Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart,” by all means, stream away. But know that it’ll take a full 25 minutes until they even get into Anthony’s eat-the-rich-and-the-Fudge-Rounds anthem “Rich Men North of Richmond,” or offer a glimpse into the Farmville, Virginia, resident’s backstory.

And maybe that’s the point, to keep the mystery going and interest high. Anthony’s song, which repeated at Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 this week, remains a force to be reckoned with. Despite its digital downloads falling 67 percent from last week, “Rich Men North of Richmond” is still streaming consistently high, according to the data tracking service Luminate: 11.3 million compared to last week’s 13.1 million. The song is a legitimate phenomenon, and by all indications was shared organically online.

But we don’t hear much about how it exploded in Rogan’s interview. Instead we get cringe-worthy moments like Rogan and Anthony debating the merits of watching porn.

“That stuff is terrible for people,” Anthony says.

“It’s terrible for some people,” Rogan counters. “I think it’s like Adderall — some people can handle it.”

“I had to give that up. It does disconnect you from reality in many ways,” says Anthony. “A lot of the weird perversions we see…. I even reference some of it in the song… you read about a lot of the weird things people are doing that maybe wouldn’t have been accepted 100 years ago. People go down these rabbit holes with porn and they start off with the video with the milkman, and by the end of it, it’s almost like a drug, people have to keep chasing that thrill. It takes them down very destructive rabbit holes.”

Again Rogan: “It definitely can for some people.”

The back-and-forth is all kinds of awkward. And that’s before Rogan starts talking about atrazine, the chemical that Alex Jones claimed turns frogs gay. “But they are. It’s making them hermaphrodites, making them switch sexes,” the host says while Anthony giggles uncomfortably.

They dance around the polarizing Fudge Rounds lyric of “Rich Men” too, with Rogan overly simplifying grocery shopping for those in need.

“There’s a way to eat nutritious food on a budget, but you have to be diligent. The problem is fast food and food deserts, but if you have a supermarket then you can get food,” he says. “And if the supermarket has food, you can get healthy food. It’s not that much more expensive.”

We also learn from Rogan that you can go to Costco, buy a “big tube of ground beef,” and cook it, portion it, and freeze it. Scintillating.

To be fair, there are a few illuminating nuggets. Anthony, born Christopher Anthony Lunsford, dives into the origins of his stage name (it’s a tribute to his grandfather), and opens up about his mental health issues in a powerful segment. He once worried that suicide was “eventually going to be my only way out” and wrote and recorded his songs as a way to be remembered.

The biggest revelation comes in the very final minutes of the interview, when Anthony goes into at least a little detail about writing “Rich Men North of Richmond.” According to him, he rushed to finish the song at 3 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon before having to film the video just three hours later. “It was very thrown together. I was a little reluctant to even record it, because I’m not really an anthem guy,” says Anthony, who prefers his songs “Ain’t Gotta Dollar” and “Doggone.”

But in the end, the all-over-the-place conversation doesn’t reveal much at all. Fans interested in the man behind the red beard, and in “Rich Men North of Richmond” in particular, would be better served by watching Anthony’s latest direct-to-camera YouTube video instead. It’s blessedly only 10 minutes long — and features nary a mention of porn.