By Max Mogensen
Special Correspondent

An interview with Jake Sasseville tends to feel a little like his late night talk show: never predictable, zany one moment and heartfelt the next, and always slightly off track, despite the best efforts of everyone involved. While filming in New York, Jake filled me in on his new show and a myriad of other things. (Letterman, watch your back!)

Max Mogensen: Late Night Republic? In a soundbite.
Jake Sasseville: Like, the whole show?
MM: Well, give me the history.
JS: I guess it was when I was 14, in Maine, watching Katie Holmes on Dawson’s Creek and learning to masturbate, and it hit me that I wanted to create television that was as compelling as that for my generation. I started on local access as The Edge, and in 2003 we were syndicated by a Fox affiliate in Maine. When the show moved to New York, I analyzed, really for the first time, what worked about it and what didn’t. We self-syndicated on ABC affiliates around the country, and at the same time did the Jake After Jimmy campaign. In August, we launched the new show.
MM: New show?
JS: Yea, well, we needed a fresher name. No, but really we did want something that indicated what we’re moving toward. The show is a late night republic, really.
MM: I know you want me to get off this topic, but I have to ask what sort of evolution has this show undergone. Meaning… you’ve been in television for a while, and I want to know what sort of growth is embodied in Late Night Republic.
JS: I think that, while working on Late Night Republic, for the first time, and only through trial and error, I’m discovering my particular view on the world. And I never, before, owned my voice and let it guide the project, the show. I couldn’t. It’s only been something I’ve been able to do with the new show, which is more in line with my persona.
MM: And what is your particular view on the world?
JS: Oh, I don’t know. I’ve been called a comedian with a conscience.
MM: What do you think merits that title? Or do you think it is merited?
JS: Well we tried, and failed, many times to wrap the show into something bigger than itself. For example, the trip with MTV producers in 2006 to Africa, when I was twenty and thought I could save the world. Then I realized than no one wanted me to save the world. Trying to wrap philanthropy into the brand isn’t successful. I work in an industry that often doesn’t endorse that. But then you do little things. With the college campus tour we marry live music with aiding education in developing countries. You just do what you can. If you’re a student, you join us on the concert tour and your ticket helps build schools in southeast Asia.
MM: Let me throw you a softball: Define ‘success’ for Jake Sasseville.
JS: Success for me is measured in the amount of time I have off to explore the world.
MM: And ‘success’ in the television industry?
JS: In my particular niche of it, that’d be airing live at 11:30 five nights a week. And I guess that’s sort of success for me, too, now that I think of it. Ultimately, I believe I’m going to win in late night. Cumulatively. If Letterman is four million viewers a night, I’ll find a way to get to four point one.
MM: How busy are you right now?
JS: Extremely.
MM: You’re juggling a lot. Do you ever get confused by all those irons?
JS: I am constantly confused. I don’t even know who’s talking right now.
MM: I think it comes with the territory.
JS: Well yesterday I was on from eight in the morning to midnight. The issue for me is that I don’t know how not to be an executive producer and a host.
MM: You’ve been getting increasingly high-profile guests. Who was the most interesting person you interviewed, on or off the show?
JS: Yea, that’s a good question. Because I’ve spoken to some really incredible people. Recently Michael Ian Black came on the show and, well he basically ignored me, because he was double booked with us and this morning radio show in like Wyoming. But I’d have to say that some of the most interesting people I meet are the totally ordinary people. I love traveling the country. The folks I meet when I travel are usually more dimensional than celebrities or people trying to be celebrities.
MM: Hey, what does that mean? I’m someone trying to be a celebrity.
JS: No, just that we’re only as deep as we choose to be when we reveal things about ourselves. The ordinary folks that I meet often don’t have as much to hide. They reveal more of themselves than, say, a celebrity guest would.
MM: There isn’t an attempt to open up celebrity guests in that same revelatory way?
JS: Not really. Not currently.
MM: Would you think about just getting rid of celebrity guests on your show?
JS: No! [Laughs.] I want the ratings. Actually, the reality is we’re a talk show with almost no celebrity guests. I mean, we’ve had some big names on, which is great, but it’s got to work for us. We have talent bookers pitching this saying, we want your client to tell something not sell something. And the agents are like, are you smoking crack. For the past 50 years, celebrities have been used to sell products. So to get to the humanity, well it’s what we are saying, sometimes you have to dig to get that dimensionality. What’s cool is that I am a part of producing what will be incredible television, a talk show, with very little celebrity guests.
MM: You started shooting for Late Night Republic in early June, right?
JS: We started in the first week of June and will go to the second week of August. The show launches in the first week of August, at which point I take to the road on the Pringles Xtreme Campus Tour, sponsored by Pringles and FRS. I’ll hit all the major markets where the show airs, I’ll be knocking every door, kissing every baby, figuratively, and in general causing a massive ruckus in every city we’re in.
MM: You love traveling, and you’re already doing a cross-country tour. Would you think about doing a show purely on location, moving around the country?
JS: I would be up for that. I called New York home for a long time, and I love the energy. That’s why I still do my show here. But I’d be ready to find a new home for the show.
MM: So maybe a ‘Come To My Town, Jake’ competition among your viewers.
JS: I love it.
MM: I’m putting that in, so it’s public record that I came up with the idea.
JS: Fair enough.
MM: Lastly, why should I watch the first episode this August?
JS: The show is good. In this season I end up having a very adult conversation with a puppet from Avenue Q. Then there’s Michael Ian Black. The UN turned sixty-five this year, retirement age, so I spoke with a former ambassador about what the world can expect. And in general, we’ve got great musical guests. We’re doing something new in the way of promoting up-and-coming musicians, picking their brains and showing their music videos. Is that a good promotion?

Journalist Max Mogensen is a special correspondent for “The Shake,” a 24/7 internal news site going behind-the-curtain of “Late Night Republic.”

Photos by Anya Garrett, Late Night Republic.