I am filmmaker Kamal Ahmed, you may remember me from the Jerky Boys, AMA!

How was working with Artie Lang?

Artie and I are very old friends. We've been through a lot. And for me it's always a joy and a pleasure to put a friend in a film, you know? There's really no direction because you know your friend so well. There's no communication breakdowns or anything.

That's cool. Any interesting Artie stories?

A good Artie story... I used to meet him every day after the Stern show, because he would take the Ferry home to Hoboken, and the Ferry was close to where I lived - I lived in Hell's Kitchen at the time. So we'd meet every day, and all we would do is grab a coffee at this local place, and just crack jokes on people, or on each other. And we'd get a crowd to just like hang out next to us, and listen to us crack jokes, and it was almost like we were giving a free concert or something. That's really - the best thing I could say. What we used to do. He's a close friend of mine. That was the most funnest period that I remember.

"Kamal, I'm coming down there right away. With my glasses and my shoes...so I have them. Right?" - your old pal, Saul R.

Just don't fall down the stairs, and have your shoes fall off!

Favorite jerky boys prank call?

Me personally? It's a tie. I really love "dental malpractice" and "Uncle Freddy."

Uncle Freddy Died?

Who the hell is Uncle Freddy? I think you've got the wrong party.

I'm gonna break your fucking legs, you killed Uncle Freddie!

What is wrong witchu!?!

Now you wanna kill me right?

Man I still have all the calls memorized. Back in the late 90's I had to drive 2 hours every weekend to visit my then girlfriend at her school, and all my Jerky Boys CDs made that drive more enjoyable.

Yeah... that tends to happen with our stuff.

What is your favorite beef jerky flavor?

Cinnamon honey.

Turkey jerky or beef?

It's not made out of either. It's made out of pig knuckles.

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Oh, thank you so much Strider! I really appreciate that you enjoyed the work.

Could you tell us about the origins of the Jerky Boys? Were you and Johnny friends before the act, and if so how long was pranking people happening before you made the decision to start recording and marketing your work? Also, do you credit caller ID with the death of the prank phone call? It is certainly a lost art. Thanks so much! Good luck with your film! ...And now I shall be dusting off all the old Jerky Boys albums and laughing my ass off for the rest of the day

He lived on my street. He's 5 years older, and I really knew him from playing ball, like whenever there'd be a big football game, you know how you'd call all the people, get Big Billy or Little Joe, like that, you know? And then when the prank calls - he came up with the idea to record them - we'd all hang out, and he'd play the tape with him & a friend making prank calls, and I said "Oh wow, I like making prank calls" so I made some, we put all the calls on one tape, and that's really how we started. And how we got success was I was a bouncer in the East Village, and I would give customers copies of this tape, and they would spread. We really only did it one or two times and it was all in that one tape, and after the tape spread and took off like wildfire, that's when I started to pursue a record deal for it, and that's when we started getting back together to make more prank calls. We met to make some prank calls maybe a couple of days, 3-4 days we did a whole bunch, and that was it for TWO years. And then when we realized this was famous, that's when we got back together to make more prank calls.

And no, because we used to call businesses, and most businesses didn't have caller ID, still don't have caller ID, you could still call a business with a blocked number, you know? So I just think that when JACKASS and people like that came out, the prank phone call turned into the visual prank, which is more popular now. It just evolved into the visual prank.

How much do you bench?

350 pounds baby! POUNDS baby!

How is Tom Sizemore's health? He seemed like he was in pretty bad shape a few years ago.

He's made a comeback. He's clean & sober. He's dating a nice gal. And he's getting really big offers again. And I couldn't be more happy for him, because he's a great guy, and really super-talented as an actor.

Who/what was your biggest inspiration behind the Jerky Boys series?

I grew up in Astoria, Queens, in the 1970s. You did a lot of joking around back then, pranking, knocking on doors and running away, you know? So it was inbred with me, to be a prankster. And I continued it to making phone calls (which I stopped, haha - I got serious and became a filmmaker).

Huge fan! What have you been up to lately? What's your favorite prank? Thanks! Take care

Huh? Hahaha!

Well, I'm a filmmaker now. The Jerky Boys stuff was great, when we first came out and everything, but I feel it ran its course, and I got into filmmaking, and I haven't looked back, but I really appreciate all the people we made laugh.

I guess my favorite prank was where we tricked the record company into putting out our stuff. That was a good prank.

If you never decided to get into filmmaking, what would your passion(s) be instead?

Well, I actually was studying to be a sautee chef. So who knows. Kindof, maybe, I don't know. But I'm a musician. I probably would've pursued my music. I'm a bass player.

Well now that you've revealed that you're a bass player, who are your influences?

I had a very diverse musical home. And my mother listened to opera, or Sinatra type of stuff. My father listened to Indian music, and Arabic prayer type of things. My sister was totally into disco. And I was into heavy metal, hard rock, and then later on into jazz-rock fusion. So at heart, I'm a hard rock bass player, but i dabble in all these other influences.

You kicked my dog?

There was a bit of controversy over if that was a Jerky Boys prank call or not. Can you clarify?

"You kicked my dog" is NOT a Jerky Boys call. It's a guy who obviously imitated my character, and the call, because people thought it was a Jerky Boys call, got kinda famous. But that is NOT me, that is not the Jerky Boys.

So your movie's about a hitman. How did you sketch out the plot?

Well, it's really more about a guy that has no personality and finds humor in nothing, suddenly wakes up from a coma and he finds humor in everything. It just turns out that he works for the mob in the jewel thief / hitman kind of capacity, know what I'm saying? But the story's more about that change of personality. I got the idea when I saw some authenticated cases of people having a complete change of personality after a head trauma. In some cases, people would wake up thinking they were a different nationality, or a different language or something. So I thought wouldn't it be interesting if I made a dark comedy on the subject, you know?

So is it more violent or more comic?

Definitely violent, with a little comic. It's a dark comedy. At least, that's what I intended. But some people see it and think it's a very, very violent movie. But I meant it to be a dark comedy. But I don't know if everyone perceives it that way.

Is there any chance you and Johnny could bring back Jerky Boys?

Or maybe produce it with new actors?

I'm not going to say there's NO chance, but I moved on to this new thing, and I'm really not interested at this point. We weren't actors in the Jerky Boys, we were real. So getting new people to take over what we did? I'm just not interested in it at this point.

Queens represent, Kamal tell us some stories about growing up in Queens NYC?

Well, I'm from Astoria, Queens, which is a hip area now. But it was not hip back in the 70's. It was more like a place where you grew up, you knew people your whole life, and I was there, like I was probably the first Bangladeshi-Trinadadian guy to every live in Astoria. They couldn't pronounce my name. They called me "Camel." They literally thought my name was "Camel" When they saw it spelled out! And now you have so many Bangladeshi, Arabs, living there so my name is common place. But I was the first.

So we moved there from Brooklyn when I was 3. And I stayed 'til about 15. And I spent the whole decade of the 70's, I was there from '69 - '82. I grew up with the band, Murphy's Law - they're a big hardcore band - grew up with Ditto Montillo, he's a famous director now, he was in a band called Gutter Boy - I grew up with the bands Murphy's Law, Gutter Boy...and I grew up on Crescent Street. I go by probably a couple times a month.

What's the most unfortunate bathroom you've ever had the displeasure of having to use?

The bathroom in my house.

It looks like a Port Authority bathroom, right? Like, all filthy and everything.

I'm being funny.

I owned a bathroom once in a place on 42nd once. We were renovating it, so it looked all ramshackle, and my friend used it and said "Hey, this looks like the Port Authority" bathroom - because the Port Authority bathroom is really more famous because you'd see a passed out bum, and being filthy, or something in there! I never used it. I try to stay away from public bathrooms.

How is your sciatica?

I have no idea what that means.

It's much better, though!

What's your favorite book? If you don't have a favorite what books do you recommend?

My favorite book is... do I have a favorite book? Maybe The Brothers Karamazov. By Dostoyevsky.

How friggen good was Tom Jones singing Are You Gonna Go My Way in the Jerky Boys movie?

How did you get all those guys (Tom Jones, Ossy Osbourne) to do cameos?

Well, I had nothing to do with the cameos. The Jerky Boys movie was made by Touchstone Pictures, so they got 'em. But it was a big honor for me. I grew up with Tom Jones as a fan since I was a little kid and when I spoke to him onset, I spoke at great length about his show, and he couldn't believe it, he thought i was putting him on! And then he realized I was a 100% truthful, because I grew up a big fan of his show - I used to watch it ALL the time. Ozzy was one of the greatest moments for me, because I grew up a huge Black Sabbath fan, and I knew everything about Sabbath - he's another guy that couldn't believe how much I knew about Sabbath. And i even brought my bass to set one time, to play it. I had it with me, a lot, and I was gonna play some Sabbath songs or something, and the minute he saw the bass he ran away, he went to his honey wagon or something. He didn't want to sing or anything. But he invited me to his 50th birthday party, and I went, it was at the Hotel California, in Beverly Hills on the cover of Hotel California, whatever hotel that is, the famous one, and I just couldn't believe I was there. All my heavy metal heroes were there, and just to be invited was such an honor. He's a great guy. Him and Sharon are really nice people.

Awesome dude. Thanks for answering my questions. Sounds like making the movie was a real blast!

Hahahaha! Making the movie, I was in a daze in that whole time period, I'm sure it was fun. Fame came so quickly I didn't have a second to appreciate it.