For those who know Marc Maron only through his “WTF” podcasts you have a lot of catching up to do. Far from an overnight sensation, he’s been a hard-working standup comic and author for 25 years. Besides hundreds of live shows, he hosted programs on Air America radio, appeared on HBO, Conan, Late Show with David Letterman, Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and starred in two Comedy Central specials.
But it was his “WTF” podcasts, which featured his monologue and interviews with other comics that finally brought his career to cultural overdrive. Included among TIME Magazine’s 100 short list of the Most Influential People 2012, he has a book deal for his memoirs and completing a half-hour scripted series for IFC.
With an open yet challenging approach the “WTF” episodes have become a revealing arena for its host and guests such as Robin Williams, Ben Stiller, Louis CK and Judd Apatow. Maron expanded from the realm of comedy to include Anthony Bourdain (“No Reservations”) and musicians (Wilco and Nick Lowe).
He appeared at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival as part of a Comedy Central lineup that included Andy Daly, Jon Dore, Judah Friedlander and Natasha Leggero with Key & Peele hosting. It was filmed and aired on the network as “CC: Stand-Up: The Bonnaroo Experience.”
Doubling up his time there, he set up Alice Cooper for a “WTF” conversation and scheduled time with Jack White for another. The latter aired as “WTF Episode 289.”
The raw honesty that dominates his stand up performances is also an integral part of my talk with him. As it turns out, his discovery of simply wanting to connect with other people through conversations became the basis for the success of his WTF universe. So, it’s not much of a surprise that when I inform him that a finite amount of time was given to me by his publicist Maron quickly responds with, “I got time. Whattya need.”
JPG: I’ve been following you before the WTF podcasts. I think they were HBO specials. There was one where you talked about getting exercise shoes but all you really needed was your weed in a box at home…
MM: Thanks. (recalls the comedy bit) “Yeah, we got a day planned. What’s in the box?”…Wonder what that was on. Was that on the HBO special? (Turns out it was part of a Comedy Central special.)
JPG: I’m not totally sure but then there was the Jerry Garcia…
MM: That was definitely on the HBO special in ’95. (The bit involves him trying to deal with eating too many mushrooms while sitting around strangers at a Jerry Garcia concert and how an old hippie ended up helping out with some great advice.) “Just hang on, man!” (Maron did a revised version of the Garcia bit when he appeared at the 2012 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival.)
JPG: The crazy thing is I dealt with someone like that old hippie at the Terrapin Station reunion shows at Alpine Valley. But this person didn’t say words. Just yelled gibberish at the performers onstage. But it was the perfect thing at the perfect moment.
MM: I wasn’t a huge Deadhead but I certainly had a lot of love for ‘em. I lived with a Deadhead and I grew up with one or two of the records. I inherited this weird collection of records.
But something is not the same anymore. I don’t know what it is. See, I don’t know whether I’m just becoming an old guy or things have really changed because, obviously, there are plenty of young people that have the same type of experiences with band but there was just something about…in my mind the one that they can never replicate is the fact that you and I were closer to the source of the beginning of this shit.
Everything was different. Everything was more intimate then. People still making millions of dollars doing concerts but the experience of a band, it seemed to be on all levels a little more…pure. You were dealing with records and you were dealing with radio and that was it. There was no internet. There was nothing distracting you. In order to get ready to go to a show there was a certain amount of preparation that had to take place and excitement that seemed to be unfettered by a lot of technological clutter.
JPG: I also think that what’s taken away now is a certain amount of adventure and danger. I remember older cousins going to concerts and they’d be going with cases of beer or plug a watermelon. And then these are the same people who now come up with MADD and making things safer. It creates a different environment.
MM: Right. I was talking to [Chuck] Klosterman the other day on a live WTF and he brought up this interesting thing about the nature of twitter. He said that when we were kids you’d be at that indie record down the street and there’d be some dude in there, a few guys just talking at the counter and one dude’d be like, “Jimmy Page isn’t that great a guitar player.” And that was it. It would leave his mouth, enter the ether and have the effect it was going to effect and you could think what you wanted of that guy. But that was the end of that statement was in that record store, and it just dissipated into the air. But now, you put that on Twitter and you can get to Jimmy Page! (slight laugh) And that type of weird connectiveness is…I don’t know how to really classify its importance or lack of importance but, boy, everybody is up everybody else’s ass for music these days.
JPG: Well, how about yourself? Do you feel weird with how the internet and podcasts have brought your career to a whole new level?
MM: There’s no doubt. I’m completely grateful for the fact that I just had some cosmic timing for once in my life in terms of getting into something — a new medium — and helping to define it. I wasn’t even there are the ground floor. I came in a few years later, and it just so happened that when I started to do what I did with it that it became a possibility for a lot of other people. I wouldn’t say I’m at the vanguard of anything but certainly the growth of the medium started happening a little after me. It’s kind of exciting to be there and to be part of that. Yeah, so that’s been great.
In terms of other internet issues like Twitter, it’s just a complete lack of boundaries between artist and band and whatnot. I handle that okay. That’s just the nature of the beast. I do a boundary with podcasts in terms of who I am emotionally. So, it works out for me. It’s a little draining, and I have to learn some lessons about technological boundaries that I’m sure will be hard-learned.
JPG: Yeah, I follow you on Twitter. Once in awhile I’ll reply. Said something the other day in regards to your comment about dropping a piece of turkey and the “5 Second Rule” …
MM: Yeah, I’m sorry if I don’t get back. I don’t respond back to people, outside of my 50 or 60 manic tweets and flurry of bullshit. It’s just hard for me to just do “Thanks.” “Right on.” “Cool.” It’s still an immediate kind of conversation I’m having. I haven’t quite gotten the hang of favoriting things. Retweeting I do a little bit of but for me it’s still I’m throwing stuff out there and then whatever comes back that’s the other side of the conversation. So, I could throw more shit out there. It’s a very selfish kind of (slight laugh) gratification system.
JPG: And I follow Albert Brooks and Mort Sahl as well, and their tweets are these brilliant 140-character one-liners whereas yours are like “I’m bored and I’m going to ramble” or you just gonna make shit up or tweet back and forth with Patton Oswalt for the helluva it…
MM: …or I’m just gonna hashtag some weird shit. It’s just stream of consciousness. I have a hard time knowing whether, I was thinking about this yesterday, is it boredom or is it what we do now? I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s boredom like, “Well, I’m sitting just around…” Well, that’s what I’m doing. I’m sitting around tweeting. That doesn’t mean I’m bored. That means I’m tweeting. Is it boredom or is it something that people do now? I’m not at work but it’s part of my job in a way. I get a kick out of it. In my mind it’s part of what I do is to engage with my audience. So, I don’t know if it’s boredom.
What it really is is something that I can do too much. It’s really easy to dismiss it as, “Dude, go work on this or go work on that.” But on some level I’m performing. I’m working. (slight laugh) You know what I mean? And I’m doing it in a medium that is new and it’s challenging and I’m trying to do different things with that. I know some people think, “Hey, you don’t need to tweet everything.” Well, some days I do so shut the fuck up. Don’t follow me. You know what I mean? Is your feed that essential and golden that you can’t scroll down past my bullshit without making some sort of comment about it? I just love those people, “Dude, I gotta unfollow you, man.” Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fill up the page. You can’t scroll down…you know, whatever.
JPG: I never understood that because I also follow Ricky Gervais and he talks a lot about atheism and pisses people off and he’s always reminding them, “You can always hit the ‘unfollow’ button.”
MM: Yeah!
JPG: I’m sure I do the same with people because if you were to follow me (@johnpgatta) much of what I tweet has a lot to do with music and film but it also includes a certain amount of political content and information I don’t think gets enough attention plus some life-affirming, spiritual stuff. And I’m that the political tweets can get some folks worked up.
MM: If you want to run in that world, that’s part of the game. The game of that world is taking, inciting flack and engaging in the small boxes of words with opposing idiots. So, that’s part of that game. And I don’t want to trivialize it. Obviously, there are people that are out there doing important things and speaking truth to power but sometimes power will come back atcha. (slight laugh)
JPG: That’s something you used to do when you were on the radio with Air America and with your stand up. Not that you totally ignore that side now.
MM: I don’t do it much. It’s not in my wheelhouse anymore. I’ve gotten more self-involved. Whether it was a period I was going through…Look, I did my time in a way. Air America was a noble experiment run by fools. When I got into that I wasn’t even…I’m progressive. I’m lefty to a degree. It’s just the nature of my politics but I was not a wonky sort of person. I was a pretty classic fairly shallow politically. I certainly was anti-authoritarian and definitely wanted to help in any way to dismantle Bush or work against that Machine. So, I got into that in earnest but not really knowing much about politics other than “Fuck that guy!” That was a helluva education.
Certain things piss me off but…with the podcasts I just started to think about myself and what is making me angry at the core. Is it politics or is it some thorn stuck in my soul from some other time? I was just a pretty angry guy so I had to push that stuff aside to get down to the nuts and bolts of who I am, and speak from that place – the day-to-day frustrations of…just existential issues and being alive on the planet right now and trying to get by in your life with a job and a relationship, dealing with disappointment, shattered dreams, my own disposition which is slightly self-centered and neurotic. I just found that that was my Truth. And it seems to be a lot of other people’s. Not millions but certainly thousands.
JPG: Another reason I bring up Air America is did the idea of doing the podcast come about as a result of realizing that you were comfortable in a radio setting; being in front of a microphone as an interviewer rather than it all being about yourself?
MM: That really evolved. There’s an argument to be made that if I talk more about social issues in my monologue (which begins each WTF), some people get annoyed with my monologue. The criticism I always love is, “Hey, Maron’s podcast is genius if you just forward past his monologue. The interviews are great.” There are people who the only thing’s that difficult about the show is Maron. Well, those interviews aren’t going to happen without me but…
The interview thing evolved. It really evolved I think out of an earnest need to connect with other people for my own well being. I think that’s really at the heart of this thing. I’m not doing the interviews to plug shows or anything else. I needed to, at the point in my life I was at when I started it, I felt very alienated, very alone, marginalized by my community, by the business. Some of that is definitely true and some of it I made up, but I think it was me genuinely trying to connect with people and trying to connect with the community that I was working in. So, that interview thing was really, at its heart, at the beginning, was me sort of needing help. And I think that’s how that evolved.
JPG: It almost sounds like at that time maybe you needed someone to talk to as in therapy or did you flip that and rather than go see a therapist you used the WTF podcast as your therapy?
MM: Yeah, I guess. I generally have a difficult time when people frame it that way because I don’t know why it needs to be classified as therapy. I mean, I can see it as being therapeutic but no more than anyone having an hourlong conversation with anybody about anything. I just think that very rarely do people sit down and talk for an hour in a general way about themselves about how they see the world about what they do.
You’re doing an interview, where there’s context. I’m doing interviews as a context but all I’m trying to do is have a conversation. That connection is an authentic thing. As human beings this is real organic nourishment to what people are capable of doing. It’s the way we see ourselves.
So, I generally, outside of the things I talk about, which are sometimes in the realm of therapy, I just think that conversation in and of itself is a lost past time and has always been therapy.
JPG: When you brought up such things as needing to connect with others and feeling “marginalized,” it sounds like stuff that needs to be worked out within yourself?
MM: But also, it’s sort of like, “God, I wish I was hanging out with those people. How come I’m not hanging out with those people?” “Well, maybe you should just go over there Marc and see if they’ll hang out with you.” (slight laugh)
JPG: And it works. Saying I’m going to interview you is as good excuse as any to force them to do that.
MM: Yeah, but it’s weird. I rarely say that. I can’t remember the last time I’ve said “interview” in any way. In my memory it’s like, “Do you want to do a WTF? Do you want to come over and do the podcast? Do you wanna do the podcast?” I never say, “Can we set up an interview? Do you want to be interviewed?” It’s always been, “You know, I do this thing in my garage. Do you want to come over and do the podcast? Hangout? We’ll just talk.”
I rarely used that word [interview]. I don’t think I see them that way.
JPG: I agree. What we’re doing right now, I don’t like to see it as an interview unless it’s a real business-like type of thing where there’s only 10 minutes available to talk and I need to get specific answers to fill up a story. I’d rather have a lengthy conversation with someone because I’m just someone who needs to win the lottery and just be able to do nothing more than hang out and talk with people.
MM: Right. Exactly. That was exactly the life I chose for myself. Takes me back, as a comic I’ve never been a workhorse. When I was younger you just kinda wander around. When I lived in New York or San Francisco or anywhere I would have these rounds I would make where I would just go hang out places and talk to people. You build a relationship with the guy at the bookstore, with the dude at the record store. Go to the guitar shop for an hour. Mess up a couple of their guitars with your filthy hands with the dude over there. Go to the coffee place.
I always had these rounds that I made to fill my day with conversation. That was life at its best for me in my mind. You get up, get baked and then just head out with your notebook in New York City or San Francisco or Boston, all the places that I started out. It was sort of like, “I’m going to hang out with so-and-so. I got to go by the guitar store.” And you just fuckin’ sit around and talk about Jimmy Page for an hour. Who cares? That was the best life could be for me for a lot of years. (slight laugh) Then, try to get onstage at night…and ruin it all. (laughs)
JPG: That makes me think of what you always hear musicians talk about, the idea of how difficult it is being on the road, the traveling sucks and hotels night after night, but that hour or two onstage makes it all worth it. Is it the same thing in the comic’s world?
MM: I don’t know, I’m not traveling with a lot of gear. I’ve grown to really enjoy…oh hold on a minute. Your question is, it’s not a big drag for me. At this point in my career, dude, I’m so thrilled to get work that I don’t mind traveling, really. I don’t mind being on planes. I like sleeping at hotels. I wish I was exercising a little more. That’s about the only thing that isn’t happening.
I’m just fuckin’ grateful that I can get work and go to comedy clubs and do what I do and get paid reasonably well for what I’m doing. I’ve waited 25 years for this shit, dude. There was a period, a lot years, where I couldn’t get booked. I was going out to hardly any money. I couldn’t get work in comedy clubs, you know? Now, I’m doing a lot of comedy clubs. I’ve got people saying, “You should do small theaters” and this and that. I’ve earned these comedy clubs (slight laugh). Most comics are like, “Why would you want to go there when you can do a rock club or a place that seats 4 or 500 people?” I’m like, “Because I’m a comedian. I’ve been waiting to get work at these places for my entire career.” So I’m pretty…It’s a lot of work, I’m not a musician. I’m going to do in a weekend, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, I’ll do five shows. I’m a 48 year old guy. So, that’s a lot but I’m not complaining. It’s all good.
JPG: Well, you are branching out in many directions. You have the podcast. You’re working a scripted series and a memoir. Is the most important thing for you still stand up? If one of these other things took off in a major way would you be like, “Oh thank God! I don’t have to step on a stage again!”
MM: Oh no, no, I love doing stand up and this is really the first time in my life where I’m dealing with audiences that are familiar with me. It’s very new to me. And to have that kind of freedom onstage, at least to have the identification thing, these people know me very well if they’re podcast fans. A lot of them have never seen me do stand up. Many of them have never seen a live stand up show at all. There’s that weird thing where they’re almost too familiar with me but a lot of them experience me very one-on-one. It’s their own thing. They’re listening to me in their head at work or on the train or on the treadmill or whatever, but then they’re being in the crowd, I don’t know how it feels for them to be in a crowd with a bunch of other WTF people. But it must be kind of fun. And if I can get my brain open and make some new things happen for them up there. It’s great. I’ve never experienced it. In the last year or so it’s the first time I’ve actually performed for people that want to see me as opposed to just want to see whoever the guy is and hope that they’re good.
JPG: Do you still get hecklers at this point?
MM: Sure. A little bit.
JPG: Really?
MM: Well generally, people heckle me just to be part of the conversation. I haven’t had a real, sometimes people get drunk. Usually, it’s still about wanting to talk more than wanting to fuck me up. I don’t get a lot of, “Fuck You. You Suck.” I haven’t had that in a long time. It’s more like, “Yeah, definitely man, like that thing at the place.” I’m like, “I know it’s intimate here but I’m talking to a group of people.”
JPG: You always hear about comedians dealing with hecklers and I’m thinking how could somebody pay money, especially if it’s for someone that’s known, and then attempt to screw up the performance? Unless it’s just a matter that they’re too drunk and they’re thinking that they’re helping somehow. It’s kind of like people talking nonstop at a concert or I recall someone heckling the band even though their seat was 50 yards away from the stage.
MM:I don’t know where that comes from or why people do that. I don’t know. At my shows sometimes if people are into listening to me and they’ve had a couple drinks they just feel like they can have a dialogue, which I don’t mind. I don’t mind engaging with audience members. I’m pretty quick on my feet and it makes the show interesting if it’s not somebody who’s being unmanageable. A conversation in that context can be pretty exciting. It can really take you to a different place. And I don’t mind that. But people who need all that attention or who are spinning out on their own in the middle of your show, I don’t know where that comes from.
JPG: Yes, I agree. Back to the internet. There was a comedy boom in the ‘80s, has the internet brought about another resurgence?
MM: Yeah, definitely but it’s different. What it is now is that artists or comics or in a general sense anybody who performs has the ability to build their own audience, very specifically, if they can. The tools are there because if you think about it, like right now I’m posting as we talk. I apologize but I haven’t done it yet. I’m posting today’s show on Twitter. It’s not a guarantee but the truth of the matter is any sort of old-timey means of bringing people to shows are ineffective. What’s happened now, on some level you can complain about it. On another level there’s a freedom to it in that no one’s going to promote you but you. So, when you do a comedy club how are people going to know you’re at that comedy club if you don’t build the social network for yourself or at least have some presence in that world? Is the weekly alt-paper gonna do it? Who cares? Are they gonna post it on the club’s website? Who the fuck goes to that? Really, to maximize the possibility of people, that know who you are coming, you better have your tendrils out there. It’s just a reality.
So, in a sense how that ties in with a comedy boom is that if a comic who has some presence media wise, even if it’s small, starts to maximize their presence in a social network way they’ve got a better shot at building an audience for themselves. I think that there has been a little resurgence in attention on comedy because of the comedy nerd world and because of certain TV shows and that there seems to be a community around a certain type of comedy. There’s a little bit of a bump up in the general appetite for comedy, stand up in general, because things have been so bad. But I think that the boom has been riding on the back of comedians who have built their own audience, which is a relatively new thing. Perhaps, there’s plenty of comics that you may not have even heard of that can do alright with their people because they built that diligently through these resources that we now have.
JPG: Chris Gethard did something like that where he made Youtube videos that followed his travels from Los Angeles to Bonnaroo without money, car or phone. Speaking of Bonnaroo, did you play festivals prior to it?
MM: Yeah, a bit.
JPG: Has it worked out for you? Was it a pleasing experience?
MM: It’s alright, man. I did a live WTF at a festival. I did Sasquatch. I did the one that was in LA, the music festival.
JPG: Coachella?
MM: No, no, no. The smaller one in the city. It was pretty good. I forget what it’s called. I’ve done a few. It’s tricky, and it makes me a little nervous because you’re dealing with a tent. You’re dealing with a lot of sweaty, mid or post-tripping kids (laughs) that are trying to get laid and see a band and not vomit.
It is what it is. I’ve had good experiences and I’ve had bad experiences. I don’t know how they’re set up over there. If it’s set up nicely and we have our own space and the music’s not too loud, it’ll work out, man. It’s a show like any other show. You’ve got to forgo a little intimacy and step up to a level of that type of performing situation.
JPG: Last question: what I was originally bringing up is that you’ve been a fairly consistent comic as far as, over the years that I’ve known your work, how you deal with it. Some people maybe have changed along the way from punch lines to more stories or vice versa but you’ve always been pretty consistent in that realm. Did you develop that right away or is it just such an ingrained part of you that that’s what you’re going to do?
MM: I think that’s just the way I do it but it’s evolved. I’ve always thought about it as things I talked about. There are things I talk about it and then there are new things I talk about. So, it was just an evolution of a conversation. There are many bits that have grown over the years that I’ve added things on to. These are just ongoing conversations that I seem to be involved in.
Now, more so than ever, I just don’t have any fear anymore of the stage or of myself or of comedy. All those years where I was angrily pretending not to be afraid, that I’ve opened my heart a lot more and I think I probably talked about myself a little more but I’m more true to myself, which is important. In terms of long-form [comedy], I’ve been working hard on evolving long-form bits that I have a lot of faith in. It’s always been sort of the same. You’re right in terms of stylistically, which is a good thing. I think finally now it’s happening in a more organic way and with a lot more comfort.
