Only four episodes into its third season, The Masked Singer has already sent more A-list talents away than a Hollywood nightclub on a Friday night. In Wednesday’s latest (“A Brand New Six Pack”) another well-known celebrity got the boot, although this one falls outside the usual lane of entertainers and TV types.
This week, pro skater Tony Hawk had to make that sad Uber request, unable to remain with the rest of the new competitors in Group B. While not a performer in the usual sense, Hawk has appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows (The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, CSI: Miami, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?) since he started skating as a kid in the 1980s, and of course inspired a series of video games.
Apparently game for just about anything, Hawk jumped into The Masked Singer fray singing “Friday I’m in Love” by The Cure, and though he was a fairly decent singer, his good wasn’t enough to keep him in the game. As he tells TV Guide, that might’ve been for the best: he didn’t expect to last long and is kind of glad he didn’t. Read on to see how he felt about that song, why he chose to come on and why nobody in his world is going to suspect he was on the show.
Why’d you get knocked out so early?
Hawk: I can’t deny I wasn’t the best singer in the crowd. Also, my song choice was not as exciting or as Top 40 as the others.
I thought you sounded OK! I know you’ve sung with James Corden, and there’s a YouTube video of you covering a song by The Adolescents, but do you have much experience singing otherwise?
Hawk: Only in that my sister is a successful singer. She helped me figure out [how to do some of the vocals]. She’s done background singing for Michael Bolton, The Righteous Brothers, John Denver. And my dad used to play a lot of instruments. Having that background gave me some sense of of confidence.
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So does that mean you might want to keep singing? Maybe a Tony Hawk album on the way?
Hawk: No. All that stuff is safe. I didn’t feel as much pressure in those situations. This was daunting.
Your clue package showed the drums. Do you really play?
Hawk: I think they were just trying to throw people off with that one. I got interviewed for the clue packages, but I’m not part of how they put them together; I don’t know where they got the drumming thing yet.
There was a guy voguing in the package too; I don’t imagine you have much experience with that.
Hawk: Well, for Vogue, I did a shoot with my son last year. But that’s pretty obscure, you’d have to really go deep into someone’s history to get that one.
How’d this come about? Did they approach you or you approach them?
Hawk: They approached me. This is not something I’m reaching out about. I had to watch it over a couple episodes to figure out if it was a good fit. As soon as I started talking about songs, we landed on The Cure, and that’s when I decided. The other songs I rehearsed were “Born to Be Wild” and “I Hate Myself for Loving You,” by Joan Jett and that was not my strongest. I’m almost thankful we didn’t get there.
You have kids – did you tell them you’d be on? What will their reaction be like?
Hawk: We have two at home [that] we told but we have two in college and it will come as a complete shock. The people in my office, in my foundation too. I don’t think they’d ever expect me to do something so out of the skateboard world. Everything I do is fairly close to that industry of sports and skateboarding. This is more mainstream.
Yeah, it’s not very punk. But then, it’s so not punk that it’s kind of punk, right?
Hawk: [Laughs.] Maybe.
Are you sad to be leaving so soon?
Hawk: No. It was nice to go one round, but I didn’t want to go past two. That was going to be too much pressure.
The Masked Singer airs Wednesdays 8/7c on Fox.