Interview with Adam Oldfield

Adam Oldfield is a well known serial entrepreneur from Hamilton, Ontario. He also plays Chris Farley in the up coming VICETV series Dark Side ofComedy. He’s also running for city council. We talk about all of it.

Watch: https://youtu.be/Zl4i16exVyA

Unedited Transcript.

Jim Allan: I've been aware of Adam Oldfield for about ten years. He's well known in the Hamilton, Ontario area as the leader of FPM3 marketing and design.

Adam Oldfield: Correct.

Jim Allan: Welcome Adam. So you do all these things, so I'm going to list a few off.

Adam Oldfield: Go ahead.

Jim Allan: You appear regularly on local radio, CHML, speaking about technology. You teach at the local college on occasion, right?

Adam Oldfield: Part time, yeah.

Jim Allan: So lately you can be heard, you're expanding your empire. You're on AM640 in Toronto?

Adam Oldfield: Yes, across all the global radio network now.

Jim Allan: So you took over your father's business, VacuMan, was it your father's business?

Adam Oldfield: That's right. My dad started it in 79, yeah, and my wife and I took it over, I'm going to say now going on three years.

Jim Allan: So when my phone rings, the dinner hour, it's you trying to get me to do this.

Adam Oldfield: No one's got a landline anymore, I don't know.

Jim Allan: The phone rings, I don't answer it. So you're running for city councilor, which we'll talk about later. So you're busy.

Adam Oldfield: Yeah, I got a full plate.

Jim Allan: So dude, this is an intervention. I've tricked you down here.

Adam Oldfield: I knew it.

Jim Allan: You're making the rest of us look bad because you're way too busy. So I had a few choices when I was making the super that goes under you, but I landed on entrepreneur slash actor.

Adam Oldfield: Okay.

Jim Allan: And that's because you actually have a role in the upcoming, I guess we'll call it a documentary, kind of a docudrama on Vice, airs in August. So this is well timed for that. The dark side of comedy and you're playing Chris Farley.

Adam Oldfield: Yeah.

Jim Allan: How the heck did you get this role?

Adam Oldfield:  Great question. Well, I've always had a bit of a demeanor of Chris Farley all my life. I mean, you know, before Chris Farley was even a thing in the nineties, I was there was the Adam Oldfield. Of course, you know, between Burlington Hamilton, I was only well known as that very rambunctious, heavy set, fun guy. And how it came about was December. A friend of mine who I'm a part of the in that little list is Rotary Club of Hamilton, a friend of mine in the Rotary Club of Hamilton. He does a lot of background acting and he sent me a casting call and said, this is like, this is you. So it was it was a casting call to actual agents. I don't have an agent. I don't have, as you mentioned, I don't have.

Jim Allan: I was going to ask you. That was another question. Do you you don't even have an agent?

Adam Oldfield: No, I don't have an agent.

Jim Allan: So this is a casting call.

Adam Oldfield: It was a casting call. And when I got I saw it and I I talked to my wife because the when you look through the requirements, it was a story about Chris Farley. It's the documentary, which you're right. But it was at the time of when he passed. So the story begins from the moment he got hired at Saturday Night Live right through to his death. And so I'm not going to get my age away, but I'm not 33 anymore. And I thought, I don't know if I'm going to do this. My wife was very much Michelle just said to me, honey, you got to do it seriously. Why not? So I did. I actually turned on the cameras and I filmed the they gave you a bunch of scenarios you had to do. So one was Matt Foley. One was an interview with Jay Leno, another one with Conan O'Brien. I had to do the opening sequence where he burst into the David Letterman show and does cartwheels.

Jim Allan: So OK, so you've already shot this is coming out. So have you have you they let you see it at all?

Adam Oldfield: No, I haven't seen it. We filmed for four days in Toronto. So they called me. Got I got the part, ironically. And when I got it, I was first of all surprised. Second was honoured. Third was holy smokes. I've never done this before. So I'm horrible with scripts, Jim.

Jim Allan: Right.

Adam Oldfield: Like I mean, if you gave me a script right now and said, OK, Adam, here's what we're going to say, I'd be like, yeah, that's not happening.

Jim Allan: So I mean, I assume this was there's there's real documentary footage of Chris Farley. And then you but you actually have speaking parts?

Adam Oldfield: Honestly, I don't know. They made me talk through the whole thing.

Jim Allan: The way I understand it is I saw the trailer and the trailer. There's a glimpse of you, maybe the back of your head or something.

Adam Oldfield: So I what I was assuming was they they didn't cut real documentary footage with like sinister, shady things of, you know, behind the scenes. This is Chris, the things that cameras can't shoot, like the sinister stuff, like the drug use or whatever.

Jim Allan: Right.

Adam Oldfield: Yeah. There was there was a lot of as I understand it is there's Lorne Michaels and Chris's brother. They're all telling the story. And as they're narrating it, I'm acting it. Yes. So I'm doing the scene. So they'll speak and you'll see me do it.

Jim Allan: So you were actually acting out skits and things. You were doing the skits.

Adam Oldfield: I did skits. I played it out as if my brother and I just got the call from Lorne Michaels. We played it out that I was in a limousine with a with a ton of lovely ladies and some some nose candy at the height of his. And we drove around with McDonald's. And I I remember.

Jim Allan: So they made you eat and take drugs.

Adam Oldfield: And I was Chris Farley. I mean, I acted Chris Farley, but I was Farley. And there was a part where I was like, I don't want to be Farley anymore. Like it was horrible. There was actually a time I said to my wife, I'm never doing it. Like when we finished, I said, I don't want to do this again. So you do this as a kind of a party trick before the Chris Farley. I do a quick little.

Jim Allan: Well, your friend obviously knew that you physically vaguely look.

Adam Oldfield: Yeah, I'll do. I did it when I was in radio. I mean, going into my career growing up, I was in radio and one of my bits was I called him Ed Polanski. It was just a name I made up. And I would be hired by the radio station to go on stage and introduce bands. And I did this Chris Farley bit, which I was, I called myself head of security. So I was at Lulu's. I was at Cops Coliseum. And I did a lot of these concert venues for Canadian bands. And they would bring me in. Universal Music would bring me in. And I would do this, you know, okay, everybody, we got some rules. And I would do this whole Farley thing before the concert. And it was just a comical introduction on behalf of the station. And that was my shtick. I was not Chris. I was Ed Polanski head of security, which everyone was like, oh my God, it's Chris Farley. So I was doing these bits. And that's sort of, I guess, during the time. And it's natural for me, I guess, to look all kind of like.

Jim Allan: You've been working that, workshopping that a bit.

Adam Oldfield: Yeah, exactly.

Jim Allan: So you're a huge fan of Chris Farley. You know all the bits.

Adam Oldfield: I know the bits, but it's not because, I mean, I love Farley. I thought he was funny. But it's almost like, you know, I think I'm funny. So I don't know if Farley was around today, we'd be like, who's funnier?

Jim Allan: But I would have had you doing the famous, like when he interviewed Paul McCartney, because that would have, do you know that sketch?

Adam Oldfield: Oh, very well, yeah. I mean, one of the things when I was filming, I actually got to work with the stunt coordinator that worked with Chris. Right. And it was an honor. I was in, by the way, I was the method actor when I was doing this. And he came up to me and that was one of the things he said at the end when he was training me to fall through tables. He actually took a selfie of me and he said, I feel like I'm with Chris Farley. That's a high compliment. So this isn't a hatchet job. This is like, there's people from that world that are, they want to tell this story honestly and seriously. There's a lot of comedians that are narrating it. Loren Michaels himself was, I know, doing this. And I think the hardest part for me doing this scenario of being Chris Farley wasn't the funny fall through tables and stuff. It was trying to understand who he was as a person. That's what I struggled with. Like they wanted me to act it out.

Jim Allan: Like you asked, was there a script?

Adam Oldfield: No. But I had to be Chris off camera and I had nothing.

Jim Allan: That's your choice.

Adam Oldfield: That was, yeah. That's like method acting. Yeah. And I was, I was four days full on method acting as Chris Farley. Right. Now while I was on set, while I was, and I had to, because it was like back to back filming. So I was, I didn't come out of character for the time. So I was insecure. I was like, am I doing a good job? And at one point a director actually turned to me and he goes, are you talking to me as Chris or as Adam? Like, do you want, you're doing fine. And I'm like, okay, great. Cause you know, if you need me to do it again. Well, he's probably a lot of insecurity there too. He was. There was nothing to go off of Jim. So one of the things when I did this and they said, we want you to be Chris. And I'm like, there's no footage. All you have is everything that was recorded of Chris was Chris being a character. So I kind of went with what the stunt coordinator advised me on as to who he was. And, and then I tried to become that insecure, try to get a laugh all the time. I think I annoyed the crew cause I was doing it constantly. So there was a point where it was like, we need to get this finished. Can we stop acting and do your part please?

Jim Allan: You're going to be surprised because you haven't seen it.

Adam Oldfield: So that's the, that's the interesting. They didn't, they didn't let me see too much, but I can tell you I had a body double and, and they made me fall through tables. They made me eat. They made me do a Farley, a true Farley had a thing about milkshakes, beer and, and burgers. So in one scene I had to eat. No, sorry. Start with a strawberry strawberry shake. Yeah.

Jim Allan: Or did I serve you beer?

Adam Oldfield: No, strawberry. I can't remember. Anyway, I had this huge shake and you know, and they're filming me drinking the strawberry shake. And I wasn't really drinking it, but you know, you get in your mouth anyways. And I'm drinking the strawberry shake, put it down, grab a pint of beer, guzzled the beer or acted like it. So I'm going from strawberry to barley. And I had to do two of them. He would have two pints of beer. Womp Womp. Then they brought in this triple decker burger with pickles and mate. Like you're drinking real beer. Yeah. Oh yeah. Everything's real. Yeah. I mean, I wasn't, and I was actually thirsty. So I made the mistake of going, Oh, I'll actually drink that. Anyway, two beers. Then I had this burger. Like, and they wanted the gluttony. They were showing the real burger. It was a real burger. And I'm like, I had to stop. So they're just going for the overall. It was Farley's life as Farley would live. It's all sensory. Like there's food, there's drinking. There's there was cocaine.

Jim Allan: So were the drugs real?

Adam Oldfield: No, but I had the real drug.

Jim Allan: So real hamburger, real beer, but you're telling me the drugs for the drugs weren't real.

Adam Oldfield: But I could see why the man needed drugs because honestly I was like feeling like drained. And we filmed at seven in the morning, finished at 10. And I was like done. So me having this was a bit of a nice, how did I, I said it to somebody. Well, you know, when they were like, Oh, are you an actor now? And I said, no, I'm, I'm adding it to my portfolio of what have I accomplished in life. This is one of the best experiences that I can say, of all the things you've done in your life, what would you say you feel great about? I'm, I'm proud about my daughter. I'm proud of my wife and my marriage. And I'm proud that I got the chance to be Chris Farley. And, and those, that's something that I can now, and it does, it makes me feel good. Not because of the fame or the awareness. It's, I know everyone watching it's going to enjoy it.

Jim Allan: So, you know, do you know what channels?

Adam Oldfield: It's going to be on Crave TV, HBO and Apple TV. So it's a big show. Yeah. I don't think it's meant for Canada. It's meant for the U.S.

Jim Allan: Well, let's, let's talk about some of your other stuff, because you've got a lot going on even without this.

Adam Oldfield: Yeah.

Jim Allan: Which is pretty noteworthy. That's really what made me, okay, this is getting ridiculous. He's doing so much.

Adam Oldfield: Right. Let's, let's chat.

Jim Allan: So your main business all over all these, you know, last, what, 20 years is the marketing, the FPM3 marketing, that's how you say it, right?

Adam Oldfield: That's correct.

Jim Allan: What, what did you do leading up to the creation of that? Because it's your company, right?

Adam Oldfield: Yeah. Yeah. I began it in 2003. Radio. I was in radio for years and...

Jim Allan: Well, on air or behind the scenes?

Adam Oldfield: No, no, I was behind the scenes. I mean, I did the bits where, like I just told you, I got on stage, but it was promotion. So I started in weather and traffic back before there was Google Maps and I would collect it. And then I got promoted at a young age in the radio station at CHML Y95 at the time to traffic scheduling. I'm a computer coder. Like honestly, behind scenes, I wrote and see and assembly and all that and my coding. Ended up in the, I applied for a promotion job at the age of 20, got the job. And then while I was there, I did a promotion with the gentlemen in sales and I was pitching DIA Pepsi in Toronto against all these stations. While I was there, I did this whole song and dance. It was Q107, us, and I think it was 977.

Anyway, did the pitch. And at the end of it, we won the whole deal. Like DIA Pepsi said, we love Y95. And I did all the presentation. I did all the work. When we're driving back, the sales rep, I turned to him and I said, that was amazing. We got the whole thing. I said, how much do we make? And he was very honest with me. He was wonderful. The sales rep was great. And he goes, well, we made, I think the station got 500,000 or something for the whole campaign. And I said, what do you make Jerry? Like what's your cut on that? Like just curious as we're driving in his BMW. And he said, about 50,000, I think. And I'm like, that took literally an hour and a half to make $50,000. I make half of that as my salary in a year. And I still have to go back and work. That's when I said, I want to be in sales. I tried to get into sales, but they didn't have a position in radio. And they didn't have anything. So long story short, I ended up getting frustrated and said, I need to figure this out. I want to make that kind of money. If I'm doing the work, I want the money. And so I ended up starting up the ad agency in 2003 and a few clients from my promotion days got me started. And from there, I call myself a successful failure, Jim. I mean, when someone says, oh, hey, Adam, well, look at your success. I'm a successful failure. So I exploded, took off right away. In a matter of eight months, I grew from myself to 15 staff. In less than two years, I had accounts like Tim Horton's in Oakville. I had Sierra Lee Household, NASCAR. It was huge.

Jim Allan: Well, what's the secret to your success, do you think?

Adam Oldfield: Honest integrity, the same thing. If I'm going to tell you I'm going to do something, I have a vision. If I'm going to work on a client, I'll say, what is it you want to accomplish? I want to make more money. I want to be more aware. I want people to know who I am. So I'll come back, understand their business, regardless of what it is, and I'll say, OK, here's how I'm going to accomplish it. And it's going to cost you this much. And so in 2005, things were phenomenal. I was in a very good world. I was in NASCAR driving around with a team. Our sales were in the 10 millions, and we had a plane. I would drive to Philly. And it was so good, I put on a private concert in Edie Smith Farms and brought in Kenny G. I love smooth jazz, and literally helped finance and support this concert. Anyway, 2008, 2009, recession hits, boom. From hero to zero, I lost everything in two weeks. My marriage fell apart. Everything just collapsed on me. And I was 65 staffed to four. Looking back, if Adam could talk to Adam in 2008, it would be bankrupted. Just saying it is making my stomach turn a little bit, because every time the phone rang, it was just what now, what next? These are literally bills that cannot be paid. Almost like $1.4 million that I can pay. And these were to people like I came from the media, so like CHTV and radio stations. I literally owed them thousands of dollars on behalf of these clients. So ads. Anyway, I ended up negotiating cents on the dollar, but I said, can you help me? Let me work out a payment situation. And I did. I got through it.

Jim Allan: It's not easy being an entrepreneur, is it?

Adam Oldfield: No. I would do it again, though. I mean, as all the things they told you about, like smart now, what I do. And anyone that says to me, and that's one of the things, like I teach at Mohawk, which is part of my, I teach sales, sales and entrepreneurship, to radio and creative content program. And I love it. And I think what I try to do in my teachings is I try to teach the characteristics which you don't learn in general school. And that is, as I learned the hard way, I had a mentor. And when I started, it was a gentleman that I met back when I was in radio. He ran a nightclub. And I was intrigued over entrepreneurship, like the business side. And there's no entrepreneur school. You can get a business degree and everything. But I learned like many entrepreneurs that go through cash flows and capitals and employees and government regulations. I mean, my biggest struggle as an entrepreneur was not the business, not the ups and the downs, not the revenue, it was the regulations. And the CRA. And let me tell you, that was hard. That was very, very difficult for me. And that almost shut me down within three years of that successful moment when I exploded. The first thing that happened was the door knocked and the CRA's there going, we think you're not paying enough. And then I got audited. I've been audited, I think, 12 times in 20 years. And I've won some and I've lost some. Or I've negotiated some. But you can't get rid of them. It's not like, well, I'll do it this way and I don't have to deal with them anymore. So that's the, man, is that bad? I don't want to use the word bad. That's the struggle of an entrepreneur.

The benefit of an entrepreneur and the reason I am a serial entrepreneur is that I get great joy of knowing that I'm building it. I'm the one responsible. So I said to my wife, we've talked about bad days and she says, why are we doing this? And I'm like, because the person accountable and responsible is me. So I can't blame anyone other than myself for fixing this or causing it. So whether it's a staff problem, and we all deal with it. You can't get enough staff. You're not delivering or whatever. But it's me that fixes it. Now the agency handles clients doing e-commerce sales. And from Vancouver, we're going to be opening in Toronto probably next year. I've stepped back. I'm the founder of the company. And now I have people running it. So they're doing all the magic. But we're handling clients of online sales of 100 million to 300 million through just e-commerce sales online.

Jim Allan: And now, drum roll, I don't have any sound effects here.

Adam Oldfield: Yeah, that's okay.

Jim Allan: It's not in the budget. Drum roll, municipal politics. You're running for councilor, ward four in Hamilton.

Adam Oldfield: I am.

Jim Allan: So things are going to get serious now, I suspect. So are you sure about this?

Adam Oldfield: Oh yeah. I've been involved actively behind the scenes politically. In fact, during COVID, if you remember, there was a part where the Ontario government came up with a grant program for a lot of small businesses. I helped assist in rolling that out and marketing it to get the message to small businesses during COVID for the help. I've been involved with municipal politics with the mayor to running with different ward representatives. And I have been encouraged by my peers and my associates to say, maybe you should run for politics or maybe you should be engaged in some way. And I am a very vocal about politics. Let's be clear. If you look at my stream, if I get passionate about things, I get very, I would say vocal and take my stance and right or wrong, I get very much committed behind it. So this opportunity that came was, in my opinion, the right timing. I live in the East End. My business is in the East End.

Jim Allan: When you say opportunity, somebody approached you or?

Adam Oldfield: It was more of what was happening at City Hall. So at City Hall in Hamilton specifically, there was an opening, but it was, I mean, it's a disaster. I mean, City Hall in Hamilton has not been, in my opinion, it's bickering. It's infighting. It's no collaboration. There's, you know, we got Red Hills with people spinning out, sewer gates with people wondering where's the, how is this being, you know, operating in potholes across the city. And, you know, I just decided now is the time for myself to step in, take a, I wanted a vocal point to make a change in the city, you know, and whoever or what takes place in the city right now in Hamilton in October, I hope that I will be that choice. And there's a lot of choices in my ward, by the way. So there's a lot of good people that are going to be running. And I think it's whoever steps into the role has a lot of work to do. And I love a challenge. To me, municipal politics is where the real stuff gets done, but it's the real stuff means like, as you said, potholes and fences. So it's not necessarily glamorous politics at that level. But I'm not glamorous. Like, I mean, I don't know if I look glamorous, but I mean, like, I'm not that glamorous. I'm not looking for the fame. And it sure is. It's not about the paycheck. So it's about, I actually want to do something. I want to do something that's going to help the community.

Jim Allan: Are the citizens of Hamilton actually electing Chris Farley to council?

Adam Oldfield: No, no, they're not. Chris Farley is a bit of a bonus. I think I have a comedic side that I, you know, like you can have a laugh and you can have a joke with it. But no, what you're getting is the gentleman who ran a company in the past has grown a company, learned from the experiences of what it takes and the trials and tribulations of it, and can understand right from wrong and live by what decisions are being made and stand by it.

Jim Allan: Why should I vote for you?

Adam Oldfield: Well, that's a great question because you will have a voice. And I'm looking at it as a representative of the people, which I feel has been lost. What I've seen with a lot of city council is people are in it to get a paycheck and they're there to do, you know, hopefully keep their job. What I'm looking for is everyone. That's what council is meant to be. It's about being a voice for the people. And I've struggled with wanting someone to represent me at city council to say, what are you doing about this? What is happening? So, you know, and then when you call, you don't get the empty voicemail or the lost into the void of, well, I said my piece, you're supposed to represent me. So my trust is that why would you vote for me is the simple point of, do you want someone that's actually going to represent you and do it in a way that gives you a chance to feel like you're part of the community? That's what you're going to get with myself.

Jim Allan: It's a full-time job though?

Adam Oldfield: It is, yes.

Jim Allan: You've got the time for it?

Adam Oldfield: Well, I'm going to make the time. The one thing I'll do is I'll have to step obviously back from the radio. I've already will have to step out of the teaching at Mohawk. In regards to the agency, I've already released the responsibilities of that. I've stepped off the board. I'm a founder. So I've let the, I had a new board that's running it and they've got it established to do what they need to do. And in the furnace and duck cleaning is the same story. I'm going to be taking a bit of a step back, but I've also got a team in the board to take control of it, to run it. Now, good or bad or otherwise, I mean, you know, I can guide from a distance and give direction, but no, to answer your question, those will be off my plate. This is not me to add this to my roster of what to do and then say, okay, well now I'll put that into the 10% of the time I had, you know, where I was breathing. I'm now going to be a counselor. So my intention is to make this because it does require it. And now my intention is to run two terms. I don't want to be a political representative. I think I can make a difference. I think I can make some changes within that timeframe that are- So two terms, because things might take two terms to- Well, you know what, that's eight years. And in eight years, I should, believable, believably be able to deliver on what needs to be done.

So in my head, I've got two specific areas that I like to address. There's obviously the road safety and the neighborhood protection and what can we do about road calming? Particularly one goal of mine would be Kenilworth, which is right now just under construction, but I'd like to be able to build a little more- I want to rebuild the business down there like we've seen in different other areas. So like Ottawa Street has done way better. You've seen Lock Street. So I'd like to- My goal is to bring small business back to the ward in that specific area. My second is I'm a cyclist. My spare time when I- And so through the ward, there's trails on the outside, but to get to it is either someone painted lines along a pothole road or you got to try and find your path along a tractor trailer and some dust flying in your face. So my other goal is to create a safe path between one end of the ward to the other to get access to it. So those are my one direction on top of the other areas that need addressing and concerns.

Jim Allan: Do you think you're going to win? Is it possible?

Adam Oldfield: I wouldn't do it if I didn't think I could. I wouldn't be wasting my time because I got a lot of things I could be doing in my life if I didn't think I had a chance. And yeah, I think it is possible. I think whether or not people- and like not everybody knows me, so hopefully the time of me doing this will be able to introduce me to people that don't know me. And again, it was a very tough decision. This wasn't a light decision that I did that was like, what am I going to do today? Hey, council sounds good. It was methodically discussed direction as to where I wanted to run, why I was running in ward four specifically, and why I felt I could do something. I didn't want to be in a ward that I'm like, yeah, I got a paycheck every two- I don't need the paycheck every two weeks. I didn't feel- why I was running was an area that I work in, I live in, and I thought, okay, well, I want to do something because I get irritated many times where I'm calling going, I got a problem and no one's responding. So there was a- and I felt the timing was right. I mean, I'm not young, but I'm not old. And I got enough energy in me that I feel I can actually do something.

Jim Allan: That's a good place to end it. So you've said it all. So, you know, best of luck with all of this. Thank you. Adam, once again, so thank you. Thanks for coming.

Adam Oldfield: Thanks for having me here.