Dusty Slay: The Neighborhood Guy

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 Lowe's 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 Standups, highlighting the brightest new comedians at the top of their game in ½-hour stand-up comedy formats. Dusty made his solo Netflix debut in 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 continued 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.