Another Brian Regan interview

Are you ready for another Brian Regan interview? Who isn't? The guy is simply the best. And what a pro. I assume a fella at his level wouldn't need to do the endless press he seems to do, but he does it and he does it willingly and politely. A real gentleman. I spoke to him in December. I didn't get to see his show here in January, but he rolls through town every year or two so I'll catch him next time, I hope. Here's our latest conversation.

Brian Regan

December 17, 2014

"It feels like the people that have helped push me along have always been other comedians. The entertainment media in general, I always feel like they just kinda had a blind eye towards me."

– Brian Regan

GM: Hello?

Brian Regan: Hey, this is Brian Regan calling for Guy.

GM: Hello, Brian.

BR: How are you?

GM: Good thanks, how are you?

BR: I'm great. Our next interview in a series of a few, so thank you.

GM: And a podcast.

BR: Yes, and a podcast, which I enjoyed doing with you.

GM: Thank you for that.

BR: Yeah, absolutely.

GM: I was just thinking how for years and years I knew of you but you never played Vancouver. And now you're a regular.

BR: Yeah. I was looking at this little list here. I've done 2007, 2010, 2012, and 2013. I'm liking including the Canadian experience in my shows. Vancouver's a fun place.

GM: What do you mean by the experience? Onstage experience? Are we that different?

BR: I mean the onstage experience. I was thinking about how you can make all kinds of metaphors about comedy but one is I like when the comedian builds half the bridge and the audience builds the other half of the bridge. I always find Canadian audiences are very, very willing to do their part of the construction work, you know? They build their half of the bridge. Sometimes they'll build even more than half. And it's nice. That little meeting point in the middle is the laughter. American audiences, as much as I love them, sometimes they're not as willing to build their half of the bridge. They're like, 'We're sitting here and you complete the entire span until reaches us.' So it's fun to be on stage and feel like, wow, the other half is working.

GM: It's because we all wear work boots. Part of you becoming a regular here is that comedy's really opened up in the last however many years, where we get so many more touring comics and it's more in our consciousness. Do you find that?

BR: Well, comedy's this ever-evolving thing. What's interesting lately is it can take so many different forms now. With the internet, it's not confined. It seemed to be with standup comedy, you were either on stage as a standup comedian or you would get a sitcom. Those were your two outlets that were available to you. Now you have podcasts and Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and YouTube clips and little sketches. There's all different kinds of ways to be funny. I think it's kinda opening up the game a bit.

GM: Yeah, it used to be just the Evening at the Improv-type shows and other than that just a late night talk show set. That's where we'd see comics.

BR: Even Evening at the Improv was still standup comedy. It was standup comedians on stage doing standup comedy. I love standup comedy. It isn't like I want that to go away but it's interesting to see that different things have morphed off from it, you know?

GM: You recently did your 26th Letterman. Do you do the other talk shows, too, or are you exclusive to Dave?

BR: Well, I just did the 27th about a month ago. That show has been very kind to me over the years. I feel like they like what I do or else they just keep giving me more and more opportunities to finally make it right, I don't know. It isn't that I don't want to do other shows; it's just I'm on Letterman, like, every nine months. I've got a good thing there so I kind of stay in that track lately.

GM: Is it hard to pick four minutes, or however long you get on a late night set, and to go in cold like that?

BR: It's definitely challenging. It's thrilling, but it's also very challenging. When I'm performing out on the road, I have the luxury of performing in front of a bunch of people who are holding a ticket that says Brian Regan on it, you know? They already know what I do or else friends have said, 'Hey, you gotta go check this guy out. He's kinda funny.' But when you go to do Letterman, or something like that, those people aren't sitting in that audience to see me. They're there to watch Dave Letterman and a TV taping and you just happen to be on it. And they might know who you are or they probably don't know who you are. At least me. So I have to go out there and very, very quickly, but without looking like I'm being frenetic, establish who I am, establish a theme, get a roll going, and be done in four-and-a-half minutes. It's a lot more challenging than people might think because you're trying to make it look effortless when it's anything but.

GM: In a theatre show, you can really ease your way into a bit or get to know the audience a bit.

BR: Yeah. And that's part of the fun in it, seeing how quickly you can get people hooked in and that sort of thing. I remember years ago, before I even did a TV taping... I'm pouring coffee so if I'm slowing down, it's because I'm not capable of talking and pouring coffee simultaneously... Alright, anyway, coffee's poured. I can get back to my normal speech... So I remember hearing a comedian talking about doing The Tonight Show and he said it's very important to expect the first joke to not work. He said the first joke is going to be a foul ball and if you expect it to be a foul ball, you're in much better shape than if you're expecting it to get a good laugh. Because if you're expecting it to get a good laugh, and then it doesn't, it can throw you. And I'm glad I heard that years ago. So I approach every set that way. So when I go out there, it feels comforting to already giving yourself a foul ball.

GM: That's a good life lesson, too. Keep your expectations low.

BR: Yeah. And then when you go out there and the first joke doesn't get a good laugh, you go, 'Well, this is what I was expecting all along.' And if it does get a good laugh, well then that's even better.

GM: Bonus. Do you remember who said that?

BR: I don't want to attribute it to the wrong person. I have a feeling that it was David Sayh but I'm not a hundred percent sure.

"I love the standup comedy world and I've kind of resigned myself over the years to the fact that, for whatever reason, it's probably not going to branch out beyond standup comedy."

– Brian Regan

GM: Now you're a master thespian. Congratulations.

BR: (laughs) Yeah, these last couple of months – I mean, I did the thing a year ago – but the last couple of months since it's been in the process of coming out and the premiere have been so strange and so weird and so different for me. But I'm enjoying the heck out of it. It's a completely new experience. It's just weird the way it's all shaken out, you know? I mean, I went from two months ago thinking I was cut out of a movie to realizing not only am I in the movie, they're using me in the trailer and they're using me in the ads and I'm getting some pretty decent buzz about it. I'm like, wow... It's just really fun.

GM: I haven't seen it, but I did see the trailer. You joked on Letterman that that's basically the whole thing. How much are you really in the movie?

BR: It's just that scene but they've broken it into a couple of parts. It's kind of hard to explain. Chris Rock's character is a comedian-slash-actor. He's going around doing promo. He's going around doing radio interviews. I play a radio engineer who's asking him to do a liner and when he does it, I just keep telling him to try to make it a little bit funnier. I know what that's like. I can relate to that. So he gets increasingly upset with me. So we start with that, and then in the scene he goes and does all these other interviews, and then they concluded by coming back to me, like as a callback, continuing with getting him upset about me telling him to try to make it funnier. It was a very fun scene to do. I just could relate when I read the script. Like I know this guy inside and out because I've lived it, you know? It was fun to do.

GM: You did it really well. It was believable and funny.

BR: Thank you. I appreciate it. I'm not patting myself on the back because I'm not an actor. I don't know anything about that world. I didn't even feel like I was acting. I just felt like I've experienced this guy so many times in these radio stations, I know what the vibe is. So I felt I just had to be that. Be the guy that I would be upset at. So I just became that.

GM: Was that your first movie?

BR: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

GM: How great is it that it was with Chris Rock and it's getting all this buzz? Your first movie could easily have been some dud.

BR: Yeah. It's weird. I've been at this for years. I love the standup comedy world and I've kind of resigned myself over the years to the fact that, for whatever reason, it's probably not going to branch out beyond standup comedy. But the planets just lined up. Chris Rock came and saw my show. I was performing at a theatre in New Jersey and I was told he was in the audience. Then afterwards he came back and said hello. He didn't say anything about a movie. Then a few weeks later I get this call that they want me for a scene in a movie that he's making. I'm like, whoa, okay. Next thing I know, I'm in New York and I'm doing this scene. And it was about a year after that that the thing finally started coming out. And I swear I thought I was cut from the movie because I went to that imdb thing and it says 'Cast'. Then it says 'Full Cast'. So I click on Full Cast and it says, like, 37 names or something. I scroll down and I'm not in there! (laughs) And I'm like, 'Oh, man.' But then it just turned out there was a goof-up on imdb, I guess.

GM: Again, you keep your expectations low and then you're surprised.

BR: (laughs) Yeah.

GM: When you knew he was in your audience, did it affect you at all?

BR: Nah. I've had so many situations where there were important people or auditions or family members that you learn not to let that affect your show one way or another. I mean, I was honoured that he was there but I don't think it affected my show any.

GM: Is this going to lead to more acting?

BR: No, no. Getting back to the keeping expectations low, nothing I've ever done has led to anything! (laughs) I mean, beyond what it is. I do the Letterman spots. I never get a phone call the next day from NBC or CBS. I have my standup comedy following and that's great and all that sort of thing. So I'm not expecting Steven Speilberg to see this and give me a call. Because that kind of thing just doesn't happen my way.

GM: You've had such integrity with standup. Your goal is to be the best you can be at that and then other things fall into place. Sometimes comics that maybe aren't as committed to the craft branch off and do these other things and they're sort of half-assed at everything.

BR: I don't want to be derogatory about somebody else. Standup to me is my thing. If something were to happen from this, I'd be open to it but I certainly don't expect it.

GM: I see you've joined the fraternity of arena comics.

BR: I have this huge following in the Mormon community so I did the Energy Solutions Arena, which is where the Utah Jazz plays. I did two shows there. Two nights, Friday and Saturday, a few months back. Man, that was other-worldly. That was just something else. It was a blast and an honour to have that size of an audience come out to see what you want to do, so that was pretty cool.

GM: Is it like what you told me about occasionally getting a private jet and making you realize the regular plane is like taking the bus?

BR: That would be a weird thing to get used to and feel like you can't do anything less than an arena. I knew going in that that was going to be an unusual experience. I forget the next show but I did a show soon after that in front of... It was a smaller town with a much smaller kinda theatre and I remember thinking, 'This is weird. I'm in a theatre and I feel like it's tiny.' I mean, I would never tell that audience that because you want to give your all no matter who you're performing in front of. But it was just weird size-wise. It was like, 'What has happened to my career where I feel like this is small?'

GM: Did you have to change anything you do for the arena? Or back to the theatres?

BR: I just had to be cognizant of sight lines. I was on the big screen and I realized a lot of people that are higher up are probably watching that even more so than me on the stage. So I wanted to be aware of that and also make sure I'm walking around enough and facing different directions. It's challenging playing quote "in the round" even though it was a big square stage, because a lot of my jokes are visual and they're like a little play. It's me and another character and sometimes within a joke I'm setting up a situation. Like, it might be me talking to a person at a check-in desk at a hotel or something like that. And once you've created this visual, even though there's literally not a desk there but you're suggesting it, in the middle of a bit you have to be careful and go, 'If I turn now so more people can see me, have I just blown the visual?' You know what I mean? So all those kinds of things are going on in your head while you're on stage going, 'Should I commit to not turning for this entire bit because I've established a visual here? Or is the bit too long and if I don't turn then people are going to feel like they're left out?' You're constantly making decisions while you're on stage.

GM: So you were in the middle. I've seen arena shows where it was at one end and they just took out the seats behind the stage.

BR: Yeah, I've done those, too. I did one at a college and it was in the basketball arena. My stage was where the backboard and net would be and facing away from the court so it was like maybe a third of the basketball audience. Two-thirds of it was just dark seats. This was when Dane Cook was hot. I walked into the theatre and the college kid who was in on the show goes, 'You know, we had Dane Cook in here a couple months ago.' And I say, 'Oh, that's cool.' And he said, 'Yeah, when his tickets went on sale, all of these seats' – and he pointed to the ones for my show – 'they all went in about ten minutes so we had to move the stage to halfcourt. And then those all sold out in another ten minutes so we had to move the stage all the way back here. So he ended up selling out the whole thing.' And I was like, 'Oh. Okay.' (laughs) But for me it's fine right where it is, huh? It was funny because I knew it didn't even dawn on him that this might not be something I'd interested in hearing at the time. Nothing against Dane Cook. I'm happy for his success. But it was just weird that he was matter-of-factly telling me that the guy drew five times as much as I did!

GM: Last time you were here, you had done the Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee episode. We talked a bit about it. But I didn't realize when you shot yours, none of them had been released yet so you didn't know how to approach it.

BR: Correct.

GM: So now that you've seen them, would you have done anything differently?

BR: I don't know. I don't know. That's a good question. I'm kinda glad that I hadn't seen any. I had no choice but to just go, 'I'm going to make this a conversation. Let him lead the way and I'll just follow.' It's hard to say how it would have affected me if I had seen some. Maybe I would have felt a little more performance-oriented. The thing I liked about it was that we taped for like four hours and they only used 12 minutes. There was plenty of stuff that wasn't funny. I didn't feel any pressure. It was just two guys hanging out and they kinda clip it down to the funnier moments.

GM: Did you see his hour-long interview with David Letterman?

BR: No.

GM: It's online. It wasn't on Letterman's show. Letterman interviewed him specifically about Comedians in Cars. He talked about how they film for hours. They showed some raw footage and all these dull moments. Then they showed the edited version. It was great to see.

BR: It was a lot of fun to do. What's weird is when you're in the car and you're just talking. I never forgot that we were being filmed but you get kinda lulled into you're just having a conversation with a friend. Then you're at a red light and a van pulls up with a 30-guy film crew hanging out of the side of the van! And you're like, 'Oh, I forgot about that for a moment.' You realize, oh, this is all being filmed! Strange.

GM: Did it get a great reaction for you?

BR: Yeah, I've gotten some nice comments about that. It was a very cool thing for me. It feels like the people that have helped push me along have always been other comedians. The entertainment media in general, I always feel like they just kinda had a blind eye towards me.

GM: Not me.

BR: No, you've been great. There've been a handful of people who've been great and I appreciate it. But just in general I always felt like nobody seems to care, you know? But then when you have somebody like Seinfeld basically patting you on the back – I mean, I was in his first group that he did and who knew if there was ever going to be a second group? He only did like ten comedians. The fact that he picked me for that was a huge honour. And I think that's the kind of thing that makes people take notice. Like, 'Well, Seinfeld likes the guy; maybe we should give him another look.' And the same thing with the Chris Rock movie. It was another comedian who's putting me in a movie.

GM: A really well-respected comedian.

BR: Yeah. These people like what I do. They're the ones that have kind of helped me make some headway where I might not have otherwise been able to make headway.

GM: It's kind of like high school. When the cool kids tell other people you're funny, then everyone starts thinking that way.

BR: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, he's making the football players laugh. Yeah, I think there's an aspect to that. So I have such a strong kinship, feeling – I don't know if that's grammatically correct – I like being around comedians. Seinfeld recently was talking about that. I don't know if you saw his Brian Williams interview. Did you see that?

GM: No, I didn't.

BR: He said that he thinks he's on the autism spectrum.

GM: I read that, yeah.

BR: And he said one of the reasons is because of this social awkwardness that he has. He says he only feels comfortable around comedians. I don't take it that far. I mean, I am capable of being comfortable around other people, but I do have a strong comfortability around other comedians because I feel like it's something we all share. It's kind of hard to put into words.

GM: You have a shorthand with each other. You know how their brains are going to react to what you're saying. They're not going to think you're strange.

BR: And also what's weird is, it's comfortable being around people that you feel like you don't have to be funny around. Comedians know that comedians are not always funny. So when you're around other comedians, you feel comfortable not being funny. Sometimes if you're in a party situation or somebody just finds out you're a comedian, sometimes that takes a very odd turn where they don't know what to do with you at that moment. They think you're some kind of clown on display and it gets kind of strange.

GM: Or the worst is when they laugh when you're not even being funny because they're expecting you to be funny.

BR: Yeah. I love after a show when people come up and say, 'Where are you tomorrow night?' And you say, 'Uh, tomorrow night I'm in Cincinatti.' And then they laugh for a minute. And you go, 'Wow. I didn't realize that was a joke.' They're so sucked into the cadence from the previous hour they've seen, they just assume you're being funny. 'Yeah, I'm in Cincinatti tomorrow.' 'Ha ha ha! Cincinatti!'

GM: And you're thinking, 'I should write that down!'

BR: Yeah, I didn't realize that was a big funny joke.

GM: Are you doing 100 weeks a year? No, wait. There aren't 100 weeks in a year.

BR: (laughs) Well, I'm that good when I do 100 weeks of comedy in a 52-week year.

GM: You have a Gallagher 2 type of situation maybe.

BR: (laughs) No, I do about 100 shows a year.

GM: That's what I meant. Over how many weeks?

BR: I try to work half the weekends of the year. I do 26 weekends out of 52, give or take. And then I do four shows each weekend, Thursday through Sunday.

GM: So after your show here, you're jetting off to the next place.

BR: We were just trying to do travel. That's going to be a very strange week. I'm in Eugene, Oregon, Thursday. Vancouver Friday. Then we gotta get to Anchorage for Saturday. And then back to Edmonton for Sunday. And it's proving to be much easier to write on a calendar than it is to actually book travel for.

GM: Really? It seems logical. The last time you were here, you played Alaska the next night, too.

BR: Yeah, but that concluded the week. Trying to get back and do a show in Edmonton on that Sunday, we're trying to figure it out. It's going to require some flights that are hopefully not delayed.

GM: Good luck with that.

BR: Yeah, thank you.

GM: And great, as always, talking to you.

BR: I appreciate it. And I appreciate the support you've given me over the years. It really means a lot to me. So thank you.

Podcast episode 325ish: Brian Regan

Brian Regan is a busy man, jetting all over the place doing theatre gigs. He was in California the night before he came to Vancouver a few weeks ago, then the following night was off to Alaska. And still he made time for What's So Funny?! What a guy! Okay, we didn't get the full hour but we'll take it. Regan invited us backstage just prior to his show and we snuck in an extra four minutes. Over the course of 34 minutes, we talked about his pre-show rituals, his experience on Arsenio, unintentionally borrowing from Dennis Wolfberg, his multiple university degrees, and an idea for an invention. Interspersed throughout are clips from his standup act. If you're a Regan fan, you've heard all these routines before. But if you're a Regan fan, you can listen to these bits over and over again and laugh each time. I suppose if there were a real clamouring for it, I could always release the interview uninterrupted.

As always, you can click here, download at iTunes or check us out at PodcastLand.com. You've got options.

Sept. 29: Brian Regan

Got a real special episode airing tonight. I got a chance to speak to Brian Regan when he was in town a few weeks ago. I've interviewed him via telephone a few times over the years for the Georgia Straight, but this was the first time we met. He agreed to sit down for What's So Funny? for half an hour backstage prior to his show at the Chan Centre. What a great guy. My challenge was not to tread the same old topics he always gets asked about. Sure, you might have heard some of this before, but maybe there's some new info to put into the world, too.

Since we spoke for only 34 minutes, I decided to intersperse the conversation with clips from his act to fill up the hour. I tried to make the clips semi-relevant to the conversation, too, so I think there's a nice flow to it. (As an added bonus, there's even a short excerpt from the late Dennis Wolfberg, who we spoke about.)

We were given a very echoey room next to his dressing room so we sound like we're speaking from on high, but you'll get used to it.

As always, we hit the air at 11 pm (or minutes thereafter) on CFRO, 100.5 FM in Vancouver. You can also streamline it from any point on the globe at coopradio.org.

Brian Regan interview 2012

With Brian Regan playing the Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts tomorrow (Mar. 17), I thought I'd get you ready by sharing the transcript to the phone interview I did with him a couple weeks ago. The story I wrote from this interview runs in the Georgia Straight this week and online forever here. As always, there's so much more I couldn't get to in the article than I got in the interview. So enjoy. I did.

Brian Regan – February 20, 2012

 "I think my comedy is glom-proof because people tell me that they tried to tell my joke at a party or somewhere and everybody just stared at them. I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or not. I’m like, alright, well, maybe you need the whole thing. Maybe it’s gotta be me saying it or else it just kind of falls flat. So that makes it glom-resistant." – Brian Regan

Guy MacPherson: Hello.

Brian Regan: Hey, this is Brian Regan for Guy MacPherson, please.

GM: Brian, hello.

BR: Hey, how are you?

GM: Great. How are you?

BR: Good.

GM: I say ‘great’ but I apologize in advance for any hacking cough or sneezing.

BR: Aw, man. Well, I wish you the best.

GM: Thank you. I imagine you have to perform sick, right?

BR: I do sometimes, yeah. It’s not fun, you know?

GM: What’s the sickest you’ve been on stage?

BR: I’ve had two experiences that come to mind. I get laryngitis sometimes and I had to do a two-show thing in one day where I could barely speak. It didn’t hurt that much doing it. I was okay; I just couldn’t talk that well. And the poor audience was like, “I think we’re here to understand and hear comedy clearly.” So it wasn’t the best show I can put out there, the best two shows. So that wasn’t fun. 

But then there was another that I did, I forget where it was. I normally don’t get headaches but I had this incredibly bad headache, the kind that ebbs and flows. And I had to muscle through the show. Oh man, it was horrible. Sometimes it would come right on punchlines but I had to have this happy exterior. I can’t let on to the audience that I’m in agony up here (laughs). I’m trying to give this illusion that, hey, man, isn’t this all fun? Aren’t we all having a good time? Maybe they were having a good time but it was horrible for me.

GM: Where was that?

BR: I forget. Norfolk, Virginia, comes to mind. It was in that part of the country. I can’t remember if it was there or not but it was in that area.

GM: The show must go on.

BR: Yeah. I don’t get that. (laughs) Where did this old adage come from and why do we have to subscribe to it? Why can’t I just say, “I’m not going out there; I have a headache”?

GM: I suppose you could… I’ve interviewed you twice before. The challenge for me this time is I’m not going to mention that you’re a clean comic because you must be sick of that. And I’m sick of writing about it.

BR: (laughs) Hey, you know what? I re-read the article that you wrote last time and I really liked the way you wrote about it. And I appreciate it.

GM: Oh, thanks. I’ll have to go back and look. I don’t remember.

BR: You touched on it but you mentioned it was something that I do but that I don’t tout necessarily. I think you captured it very clearly.

GM: Oh, good. I appreciate that. I’m a bit of a comedy enthusiast and I like all styles. I don’t get when somebody will like a comic just for the fact that they’re clean or just for the fact that they’re edgy. There’s gotta be something more to it.

BR: Yeah. I agree. I feel the same way. To me it’s like shock jock radio. I don’t mind somebody being a shock jock but are you funny? The shock in itself isn’t really hard to pull off, is it? And clean itself is not hard to pull off. I could sit down with somebody in ten minutes and tell them how to do a clean show but they might not get any laughs: “Just get out there and talk. Just go out there and say whatever comes into your mind. Just don’t hit that f-word!”

GM: That’s right! It’s a little harder to teach the “Be funny” part.

BR: Yeah, exactly.

GM: So we better stop talking about this otherwise you’re going to give me a great quote that I’m going to have to use… I interview lots of comedians and you always hear the names – and I don’t know if it’s true or they’re just parroting each other – Carlin and Pryor as big influences. I don’t know that I know yours.

BR: I never heard of either of those two comedians.

GM: (laughs)

BR:  Um… well, it’s interesting. When I wanted to do comedy, when I realized that’s what I wanted to do, I was going to Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio. Before computers. It was hard to get satellite TV in there. This is before the wheel. Before fire. And so there was nothing to be influenced by. At least my beginning thoughts of being a comedian. I mean, of course it wasn’t like I lived in a cave and didn’t see TV when I was home on spring break and stuff like that. But I think I was kind of fortunate in that I had to come up with some quirky thoughts on my own. There were comedians that I liked. When I was in high school, Steve Martin… I remember laughing in a different way at him than other comedians. I just found him absurdly off the tracks. But if you really analyze it, there was a smartness to it, you know? Sometimes I think you gotta be smart to be that stupid. The character, I mean. I remember laughing at him in a way that was, like, really interesting and fun, going, ‘Wow, this guy thinks in a very bizarre fashion.’ So he may have been one of the people who opened my eyes to the fact that you can be way off the beaten path and still make people laugh.

GM: It’s kind of like the rodeo clown. You have to be really good and accomplished before you can act stupid out there.

BR: Yes. One of my favourite scenes is in The Honeymooners when Ralph Kramden is on the roller skates and the character doesn’t know how to roller skate. When you’re watching it you go, ‘This guy clearly knows how to roller skate because he wouldn’t be able to look this bad unless he were really good.’ It was just a brilliant scene.

GM: You’re an influential comic now. I don’t know if you go out and watch comedy on a regular basis anymore, but there are guys coming up who sound like, you know, Mitch Hedberg or you or Bill Hicks or somebody like that. It’s like there are these templates and now you’re one of them. Do you ever see it or notice it?

BR: I do, a little bit. I don’t really do the comedy clubs anymore but it was interesting sometimes going to a comedy club and there’d be like a couple of younger comedians that I’m following and I’m thinking, ‘I think I’m following myself tonight!’ But it was very flattering. There’s a difference between being influenced and stealing, so I have no problem with somebody kind of adopting a little bit of this or a little bit of that. That’s how we all learn. But it’s when you’re blatantly glomming onto stuff, that’s a whole different animal. But yeah, it’s interesting to know that, or flattering to know that somebody might like my comedy enough to want to tap into it a touch.

GM: You haven’t been the victim of any glomming onto, have you?

BR: (laughs) I think my comedy is glom-proof because people tell me that they tried to tell my joke at a party or somewhere and everybody just stared at them. (laughs) I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or not. I’m like, alright, well, maybe you need the whole thing. Maybe it’s gotta be me saying it or else it just kind of falls flat. So that makes it glom-resistant. (laughs)

GM: It seems like the so-called alternative scene has really moved into the mainstream, with the Louis CK, David Cross types. What do you think of that scene? They have a very personal style. With you, we don’t learn as much raw information about you as we do with these guys.

BR: That’s correct. And I think about that from time to time. Sometimes I wonder, ‘Is my comedy less valid because it’s not autobiographical?’ But then I get off that real quickly because I look at a Mitch Hedberg. There was no autobiography in his stuff; it was all conceptual. It was a fun way to look at things sideways. I’m not trying to say I do his type of comedy but I just use that as an example of it’s okay to just make somebody look at things at a weird angle and it doesn’t necessarily have to be about something from an autobiographical place; it can just be something about the world. So I like to think that my comedy is just as valid as anybody else’s; it’s just different, you know?

GM: I totally agree. For anyone who says comedy has to be truthful or autobiographical, there are a ton of exceptions. You could point to Mitch Hedberg or Zach Galifianakis or Demetri Martin that don’t do it that way. So anything is valid.

BR: Yeah, I agree. I don’t have anything profound to follow that with so I’m going to submit the ‘I agree’ and leave it at that.

GM: Okay. It’s tabled. I always feel we do learn about you and comics like Hedberg and the others of that ilk because we’re learning about the way you think, the way you see the world. It’s just not personal information.

BR: Yeah, it’s interesting. I felt that way doubling back to Steve Martin. There’s two ways of looking at it: His character, if you will, was just incredibly naïve and dumb but the way the comedy was put together meant that the comedian was incredibly brilliant. So you’re getting a double-barrel effect. So as an audience member I’m laughing at both simultaneously. I’m laughing at the dumb character but I’m laughing at the brilliant guy who created it and I’m enjoying the whole experience. So I’d like to think, if I’m on stage and people are laughing, that they don’t just see the dumb guy that I do sometimes and be like, ‘Wow, that’s just a goofy dumb character that he does.’ I’d like to think if they’re listening to it, don’t they realize that there has to be some kind of craftiness to it? But then you can risk over-analyzing it and worrying about stuff. I guess what’s frustrating is when you do a whole show, you make people laugh, you like to think through some concepts, and people after the show go, “I love it when you cross your eyes and hunch over!” You go, “Wow.” (laughs) I could have done that for an hour! I guess I didn’t need to say anything.

GM: Do you consciously avoid talking about yourself or revealing stuff about yourself, or do you just think you can’t make that as funny as the other things?

BR: Well, you know, I always tried to tinker with the formula, the ratio of what is autobiographical and what is not. In my last CD that came out, I have a couple of bits about my kids in there. I try to think of them as examples of just anybody that has kids themselves or just hangs out with kids. Just using mine as an example. But it always felt a little weird for me going, ‘This is me talking about my life.’ And my daughter, my sweet little girl, in the most beautiful way said that she loved my jokes but she felt a tad uncomfortable about the ones about her. And I haven’t told one about either of my kids since.

GM: How old are they?

BR: My boy is twelve, my girl is eight.

GM: So you won’t talk about your kids. Are there other topics you won’t discuss? You don’t really get into pop cultural stuff too much. I know you don’t get political. Are there topics where you just go, ‘Nah. Not for me’?

BR: At this point in time, yes. But I don’t like to make absolute rules because I think comedy is like a growing organism. You keep changing. Look at George Carlin. He did the hippy-dippy weatherman and then he came into somebody that was much more socially conscious. I don’t know what I’ll do in the future so I don’t like to say I would never talk about religion or I’d never talk about politics because I’m finding more and more that that kind of stuff interests me in my regular life and maybe that will creep its way in. I like to keep the doors open.

"The closer people are to you who like what you do, the more meaningful the compliment. When other comedians like what you do, that’s the ultimate compliment. The second level is making a comedy club waitress laugh because they have heard it all. I remember being on stage one time and seeing a comedy club waitress down in the front trying to hand drinks off looking up at me and she was laughing so hard that she almost couldn’t put the drinks down. I felt like saying, 'Folks, I don’t know if you guys realize what has happened here but I feel like I’ve just been knighted.'" – Brian Regan

GM: When I spoke to you when you first came here a couple years ago, that was I think your first time in Vancouver. Now you’re coming back more regularly. I see you’ve been to Victoria. Has the internet helped open the doors to other markets?

BR: For Canada, yes, because the television exposure… It used to be you had to have more television exposure than not to be able to seen. A lot of the shows that I was on in the United States I don’t think were necessarily up in Canada. The Letterman show, maybe some Comedy Central things. So I just thought that Canadian audiences weren’t as aware of me as United States audiences. But I think the internet, as you say, has changed that world somewhat. More and more even people in the U.S. say that they first got interested in me from YouTube. It’s flipped to that degree where people more often than not tell me that they first saw me on the computer than on television.

GM: And you’re okay with that because they’re coming out to see you.

BR: Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, absolutely. I’ve only seen a positive effect from it. The numbers are still good when I go to places. They keep increasing here and there so it’s like I don’t want to mess with it, you know?

GM: Yeah. As long as keep hunching over and making funny faces.

BR: (laughs) Yeah, exactly. That’s right, another reason to do that. That’s the way they used to do the I Love Lucy shows. They would come up with the silly thing first and then go, ‘Make it happen. We gotta get Lucy on stilts!’ They’d write some reason why she’s on stilts. So maybe I learned something in this phone call. (laughs) Maybe I should just go, 'There’s got to be some other ways when I can cross my eyes and hunch over!'

GM: (laughs) You released your CD on your website. Did you do this before Louis CK did?

BR: I’m not even going to come close to trying to claim anything like that. I mean, downloads were around before I did my download. I just came out with mine about a year ago or something like that. The one thing that Louis CK was able to do that I wasn’t able to do was pull in a million dollars in a day! (laughs) He broke the ground on that!

GM: It’s funny since that made the news all these young comedians are thinking, ‘That’s what I gotta do! I just have to release my CD on my own website.’

BR: Right. Like his talent and his abilities and his following didn’t have something to do with it.

GM: You are revered by lots of comics of all different styles, even if they’re filthy or edgy or whatever. They tend to look down at a lot of comics outside their clique, but you’re still the guy. That must feel good.

BR: Absolutely. I mean, the closer people are to you who like what you do, the more meaningful the compliment. When other comedians like what you do, that’s the ultimate compliment. The second level is making a comedy club waitress laugh because they have heard it all. I remember being on stage one time and seeing a comedy club waitress down in the front trying to hand drinks off looking up at me and she was laughing so hard that she almost couldn’t put the drinks down. I felt like saying, “Folks, I don’t know if you guys realize what has happened here but I feel like I’ve just been knighted.” How could I possibly get through to a comedy club waitress, you know? Anyway, I kind of got off track there, but people that are in the comedy world, that know the nuts and bolts of it, they’re going to see through façades, so if they like what you do, it means something. It makes you feel like maybe I’m on the right track here.

GM: I heard you on Comedy and Everything Else. Have you done other podcasts?

BR: I’ve only done a handful. I’ve done Greg Fitzsimmons, Tom Rhodes… I’m trying to think if I’ve done another one… Oh, Come to Papa. That’s actually not a podcast. He’s got an hour show on XM-Sirius. But those longer, hour-long forms of interviews, I haven’t done a lot of them but it seems to be the way things are headed so I’ll probably do a handful more.

GM: The only one that I listen to religiously is WTF with Marc Maron.

BR: Yup, yup.

GM: I don’t know if you’ve heard any of those shows or heard about them.

BR: I’ve heard a lot about them. I’m not a real podcast listener. I just don’t really do that, you know? But I know Marc Maron and I had an opportunity to do it but I haven’t been able to get the planets lined up to do it with him but I would be honoured to do his podcast, especially with all the good he has. I always like when somebody finds the vehicle that utilizes their talents. Marc Maron has been around for a long time and has always been a comedian that other comedians liked. He might not have had the following that he deserved but it’s nice for him to fall into this way of presenting his comedy, which is more conversational. It’s cool when people hit a vehicle that just takes them to the top.

GM: Is your brother still doing stand-up?

BR: Yes. He was writing for The King of Queens TV show, when it was on, obviously. Since then he’s back into the stand-up world exclusively. I think he would love to get on another TV show because he’s a very good writer and that sort of thing. He and I used to work together once a month but now he’s just kind of doing his own thing and loving it.

GM: Who was funnier as a kid?

BR: (laughs) Well, we have another brother who doesn’t do stand-up who was funnier than both of us put together.

GM: Older or younger?

BR: Our oldest brother Mike. I used to say to people you could ask my brother Mike a yes or no question and it wouldn’t matter whether he said yes or no, you would laugh. So in some cases it comes from attitude, you know? Yeah, he’s very funny. Everybody in my family is funny.

GM: I remember hearing Mike Myers saying that he was the least funny person in his family.

BR: (laughs) That’s funny.

GM: I know you haven’t had any regular TV exposure. Do you ever sit around and get jealous and go, “Why not me?” Or are you just happy with the career you’ve had?

BR: I used to get more envious. I don’t know if ‘envy’ is the right word because I never begrudged anybody hitting big if I felt they deserved it. And most people that would get a TV show, like Seinfeld or Ray Romano, I’m just completely happy for them. Kevin James, you know what I mean? These guys are strong, they’re good, and they deserve this. So I never was envious like, “Why did they get that?” But I used to feel that that is what represented whether or not you were a good comedian. So it used to bother me that I didn’t get that because I felt it was a quarterback who never won the Super Bowl. It’s like, “Well, I guess you’re a pretty good comedian but you never did get a sitcom so you can’t be one of the best.” So I used to want that feather in my cap just so it could represent that I had reached a certain level. But I don’t feel that way anymore. I have enough of a following and I think I’m respected pretty well, so I’m cool with just being a stand-up at this point.

GM: It’s more of a perception thing. People will go, “How good can he be if he’s never had a sitcom?”

BR: Yes, yes.

GM: How many weeks a year do you work?

BR: Roughly half the year. What I do is I’ll do four nights in a row on a weekend: Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And then I take the next week and a half off. So it’s 26 out of 52. It doesn’t exactly work out that way because I work a little less in the summer than in the other three seasons. So it tends to be three out of five weeks in those other seasons and maybe one out of five weeks in the summer. But for the most part it’s every other weekend.

GM: That’s a lot of press hours.

BR: Yeah. I recently have shied away from doing radio. I just kind of backed off that and I’m just doing print. I never felt like I was one of those guys that just really sparked on the radio so I started to lay low on that.

GM: Yes, the press is a cut above! But you must get some really stupid questions.

BR: (in an exaggerated radio voice) “For people who aren’t familiar with your comedy, what can people expect if they come out to your show?” I feel just like hanging up the phone: “Okay, the interview has to be over. Because clearly you don’t know anything about me.” And for me it’s an impossible question to answer to the point where you’re going to satisfy anybody. You can’t really do a bit after that question: “Well, here’s one of my jokes!...” It’s just going to fall flat. And the other way to answer it is to give a scientific answer. So I told my manager I’m tired of that question and similar questions so can we just lay low on the radio?

GM: But print guys can be just as bad.

BR: No, no, no. Print is clearly different, and I’m not just saying it because this is a print interview. Print is a half-hour interview and the people have to do a little bit of research whereas radio – and I’m not saying all radio hosts, but some radio people just wing it. Like, they’ll throw the press sheet in front of them two minutes before the interview starts and they’re just going in and not necessarily asking anything interesting, you know?

GM: I appreciate you talking. It was great.

BR: The next question on your hit list wasn’t, “For those people not familiar with your comedy…”, was it? That was going to be his closing question and I just riddled it to pieces!

GM: “Where do you get your material?”

BR: (laughs) Yeah, that’s right. There’s a place in K-Mart, a lot of people don’t realize that there’s an aisle in the back and you just go there and you just pick up what you need.

GM: (laughs) And then hunch over.

BR: (laughs) Yeah. Alright, Guy.

GM: Great, thanks a lot, Brian.

BR: I thought you were done. I would not cut you off.

GM: No, no. Yes, I was. I mean I am. But thank you.

BR: (laughs) Well, if you were, then how come we’re still talking?

GM: I don’t know. Well, let’s say goodbye then.

BR: Alright, man. Well, I appreciate it very much. I liked the last one you wrote. It felt like you were on it in terms of at least the way I look at things so I appreciate it.

GM: Oh, great. Thank you very much.

BR: Alright, Guy. Bye.