You can take the boy out of the trailer park, but
you can’t take the trailer park out of the boy… stand-up comedian Dusty Slay
grew up on Lot 8 of a mobile home neighborhood in Opelika, Alabama, with a love
for both classic country and rock and a career history peppered with jobs like
waiting tables and selling pesticides. Now the Alabama native with the “We’re
having a Good Time” attitude is hitting cities all across the country playing
comedy clubs and selling out theaters filled with fans eager to imitate his
signature Wave.
The trucker hat, long hair and mustache, flannel
shirt and oversized glasses aren’t affectations to cultivate a stage persona as
the B-side of a 1970s Bob Seger track—it’s just Dusty. As a young boy,
growing up in a trailer park, Dusty never felt like he was poor. He didn’t even
know folks were better off than him until he went to school and was the only
kid whose home address said “Lot 8 Moore’s Trailer Park”. In his comedy
he reflects, “We never felt poor, we just didn’t have everything growing up.
Like instead of ice cream, my mom would just pour milk into a bowl and then
she’d call us in the room and say ‘welp, you’re too late!’” Raised by a
single mother with two daughters from a previous marriage, Dusty’s unique
family home was never lacking for warmth or love. His father, always present in
his life from the very beginning, made sure to show him the simple joys of
boyhood adventure. “We never had real pets growing up, we just had prisoners of
nature. A dog would wander up, we’d chain it to a tree. Now he’s ours.”
As he came of age and started joining the
workforce, Dusty had many jobs. He had multiple stints as a dishwasher and
waiter at restaurants and food chains like Papa Johns, Jim Bob’s Chicken
Fingers as well as a couple tours with Western Sizzlin’ and the historic
Hyman’s Seafood. He spent 8 years as a pesticide salesman selling to
hardware chains like Lowes and Home Depot. “A lot of people would come up to me
and ask weird questions like, we want something that’s gonna kill the insects
but not harm the environment. I’d say well, ‘How bout a shoe’. Cause I’m
selling pesticides here.” In 2001, Dusty bought back his childhood home,
the trailer that he grew up in. At this time he made plans to join the
army, but an untimely arrest for marijuana possession disrupted those
plans. Later that September terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in
New York and months after the country was at war. “Everything happens for
a reason” says Dusty. After a few years of improv classes, in 2008 Dusty was
inspired to try his hand at stand-up comedy where he found his true calling. He
won the Charleston Comedy Competition and was named Charleston City Paper’s
Stand Up Comedian of the year in his then hometown two years in a row. In 2014
he made the move to Nashville and made Comedy a full-time gig touring comedy
clubs all across the country.
The Nashville scene welcomed Dusty with open arms
and at age 36, Slay became the youngest comedian at the time to ever perform on
the legendary Grand Ole Opry stage. To date he’s logged dozens of appearances
in front of “his people” on the historic stage in the last few years fully
embedding himself in the country music scene and having been asked to host some
of the biggest events across the subculture, including Hangover Fest at the
ACMs in Las Vegas in 2022 and CMA Fest’s Forever Country Stage with the likes
of Scotty McCreery, Dustin Lynch, Lainey Wilson and some of the most iconic
names in the genre.
It wasn’t long before his comedy caught the
attention of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon where he’s since performed 6
unforgettable late-night sets, firmly establishing himself as a crowd favorite
and bona fide star on the silver screen. His breakout performances launched him
into the Netflix family featuring as one of six comics in season 3 of The Stand
Ups, highlighting the brightest new comedians at the top of their game in
½-hour stand-up comedy formats. Dusty made his solo Netflix debut January
2024 with his first one-hour special, WORKIN’ MAN, celebrating his many years
as a “road dog” comic, and the material he’s honed and crafted, reflecting on
his trailer park upbringing, the hilarious nuance of hourly shift work and the
amusing idiosyncrasies of everyday life.
WORKIN’ MAN opened to tremendous success on the
Netflix platform paving the way for partnerships and collaborations with iconic
brands like Cracker Barrel, Lugz and Field & Stream. Appearances on
Hollywood Squares with Drew Barrymore as well as trending podcasts like This
Past Weekend with Theo Von and Kill Tony have continue to raise Dusty’s profile
from Nashville legend to mainstream comedy hero. In the summer of ’25, Dusty
released his latest Netflix special WET HEAT, a love letter to the south sharing
his experiences traveling the country and getting into mischief in the hot and
muggy regions he’s always called home.