Comedian Tom Hearn on his new album, Gay Garbage, and his inspirations and aspirations

Tom Hearn is an award-winning sketch comedian, actor, drag performer and director living in New York City, originally from Hampton, New Brunswick, Canada. His impressions of Ina Garten, Martha Stewart, James Corden, Rachael Ray, Sister Wives’ Kody Brown and more have amassed over 577K followers on social media and over 11 million TikTok likes. 

Since 2021, Tom has been putting out hit videos on TikTok and Instagram. In addition to his impressions of Reba, Rachel and Martha, he parodies shows like Below Deck: Niagara Falls and the House Hunters series and has created dozens of original characters and videos satirizing queer culture. In 2022, Tom launched his “Ina Garten” series which has gone viral time and time again leading him to be recognized as one of “The Best TikTok Creators To Follow In 2023” by ET Canada. With over 100 million views, Tom’s impressions have been featured on Delish, NBC’s Today Show and the BBC.

Tom will release his debut sketch comedy album Gay Garbage on June 20, 2025 with Howl & Roar Records in honor of Pride Month. Gay Garbage features ten tracks featuring his award-winning sketch comedy, cheeky innuendos, over-the-top characters, iconic impressions, and fabulous musical numbers. In addition, Tom will be taking his show on the road in the coming months.

We had the chance to chat with this hilariously talented performer about the new album and his inspirations and aspirations in our exclusive interview.

 I discovered you on social media doing Reba McEntire, which is my absolute favorite thing you do.

Thank you. I always love to hear what was the hook? What drew people in? Reba’s been high on the list for a lot of people lately. So good to know.

Yeah, definitely. So, congratulations on the album. I got to listen to it and it’s amazing.

Thank you! You’re one of the first people to listen to it in its entirety other than me, so that’s good to hear.

It was a real treat. I didn’t know what to expect and I was pleasantly surprised for the whole thing because I love your Reba and that’s kind of a visual thing, so I was curious to see how your comedy would translate to an album, but it was really, really good.

It was interesting to figure out how to take impressions that are naturally visual as part of them and really rely on the voice of the characters as well. So yeah, that was an interesting hurdle to climb.

How did you get your start in comedy?

Well, I think like a lot of kids, I was a drama kid. I kind of towed the line between doing sports and drama for a long time, and around that high school time is when I decided to switch to doing drama and not focusing on sports. And, because I did that, I started doing improv and improv is a really big catalyst for a lot of the things that I do.

Starting in that world in high school led me to Second City and led me to Toronto where I worked for 10 plus years, grinding as a comedian. I like to say that the drama element is also part of my album. I talk about the drama teachers in my life. I think that’s definitely what started me on my journey as a comedian.

I mean, when I first moved to Toronto, I didn’t necessarily move there for comedy. I actually moved there to do musical theater. It was just like kind of a bit of a pace shift for me switching from the theater world to that comedy aspect full time.

Who were your comedy influences?

Oh my gosh. Okay. How long do we have? Big influences for me are the 90s and early 2000s SNL casts. Molly Shannon and Rachel Dratch were huge for me. I loved Molly Shannon and the movie Superstar. I ran that tape into the ground and I think that that whole story is like such a theater kid’s fantasy, like I’m gonna be this superstar and Molly Shannon, bringing that to life with like her physical comedy is just so amazing. Chris Farley, Mike Myers, you know, SCTV, Kids in the Hall. Lots of like big character performers are the people that I tend to connect with the most.

How did you bring your characters to life on social media?

It’s funny because a lot of people think when they first meet me that the social media came first and then the live stage – because I think that’s kind of the process that people have now. But I’m the other way, bringing that live stuff and figuring out how to put that on video.

I think with regards to the impressions, it started with Ina Garden. I was like, I’m going to put this impression up of the Barefoot Contessa. I had never done anything like that before. At that point online, all I had been doing was just little silly videos around my house.

During the pandemic. I was doing some impressions of Canadian politicians, but nothing like major like Ina. I think the thing that I found with Ina and then kind of bleeds into all the other characters that I then brought on to online is like the same as being on stage is following that fun first.

So, when I put the Ina video up, I didn’t think anybody was going to care about that at all. I was like, oh, this is just fun for me, I guess. Like whatever, break up the time of being locked at home. And it really resonated with people and I think that’s what I’ve noticed with all my impressions and characters that I bring out – if I’m having a good time, then the audience is going to be able to relate to that and I think that’s what’s important. I think we kind of miss that in the online world because we’re like, oh, well it just exists online. It doesn’t really matter. But I think you still have to make that connection with an audience. It’s really important.

How did you put the album together?

The album is based off of Gay Garbage, a show that I toured for about two and a half years. I wrote for about a year and a half. The first thing I wrote for that show was actually the Plastic Cup Sketch because originally the show was going to be called “Tom Petty” and it was going to be a bunch of sketches about me being petty. And then Gay Garbage came to be because a woman at the bar literally was like, “your comedy is gay garbage.” She meant it as an insult and I was like, huh, interesting. So, I kind of ran with that idea of what is gay garbage? It’s nonsense. It’s over the top. It’s following the fun versus having to deal with trauma on stage constantly.

So, I kind of started writing from that place of like, what’s fun on stage? What can I do? And that process took me about a year and a half and multiple versions of the show before we kind of landed on what ended up being recorded. A lot of the, a couple of the things that are actually on Gay Garbage are actually part of the show that I’m doing right now, but I just loved so much that I was like, I want to put them in this show, so I kind of massaged them a little bit and put them into Gay Garbage.

I know it’s like picking your favorite child, but do you have a favorite character or bit that is on Gay Garbage?

Ooh, that’s really hard. I mean, obviously I love the Ina versus Martha Stewart roast battles. That just tickles all my favorite things. It’s joke heavy, it’s impressions. I really love that. But I think there’s a special place in my heart for, “What’s His Name?” – my song that’s in the middle of the album. I just love musical comedy and I love singing, so the more that I can do that, the better.

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I think those are kind of my two standout pieces that I hope people really enjoy those ones. And Plastic Cup always holds a little spot because it’s just so crazy. What a way to start the album with just me screaming at people.

What do you enjoy the most about performing on stage?

I love audience connection. There is nothing sweeter in this world than hearing a live laugh, a live reaction to a character or a joke or an element of performance. That’s the thing that I miss so much when I’m doing the videos and all that online content, which I love doing.

But I am born to be on stage. I love being out on stage and I just love that connection. I love improvising with my audience. When you see a Tom Hearn show, you’re going to get to interact with Martha Stewart, you’re going to get to interact with Reba and I love the freeness that comes with that audience connection.

The drama teacher bit, is that character actually based on somebody you know?

Yes, that’s a combination of two people that are very near and dear to me in my life. I wish on the album I could somehow let people see a physical representation of what I look like at that point, because I am dressed as one person who is a prominent figure of my life and I’m acting like another one.

So yeah, that’s very real to me. It’s a real thing that I would experience backstage. I like to think of those like locker room hype ups that a coach would give right before you’re going to go on stage, like that same level of intensity right before you’re about to put a bunch of kids out on stage to perform The Sound of Music is just so funny to me.

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What are you hoping that audiences and listeners will take away from listening to Gay Garbage?

I hope they leave knowing that gay people can just have a good time. They don’t have to trauma dump on you constantly. That’s not what all of our art has to be. Those pieces of art are very important – and I love them so much – but we can also just have joy. We can be nonsensical, we can be silly, and that can be the extent of it.

There doesn’t have to have be a statement or a proclamation behind everything. Many of the things that I do have those things and there are elements of that in this album, and I think that’s what makes it more impactful. But that’s not the intent of it. The intent of Gay Garbage for me was for me to put those things aside and for me to have fun, so I hope that the person listening to it also takes away having a good time and having fun.

You’ve accomplished a lot. Are there things that are still on your bucket list that you’d like to do?

100%. There are things that I want to do. I would be crazy to say that I don’t envision myself being on Saturday Night Live. I’d be crazy to say that I don’t envision myself getting one of the first solo sketch comedy specials. Those things don’t exist. Those types of opportunities don’t really present themselves for the type of comedy that I do. You know, the world is really set up for standup comedians to really succeed, and I love standup and I have elements of standup on my album. That’s never going to be the main type of comedy that I want to do. I want to do all of it. I want to do improv, I want to do sketch, I want to do musical comedy. I’ve really focused a lot of time on carving out a niche area for myself and I envision sharing that with even more people on larger platforms.

Gay Garbage will be released on June 20. Pre-save it now on Spotify. Follow Tom on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and check out his website for tour dates and more.