As his new CD From Heaven attests, comedian Todd Barry is funny. But his subdued style and dry speaking voice—his 2001 debut is called Medium Energy—belie the almost obsessive perfectionism he puts into being Todd Barry, Comedian. That vigilance isn't just reserved for the stage: Barry favors e-mail interviews, so he has time to craft appropriately amusing responses to questions. During the 33 minutes The A.V. Club spoke to him on the phone, he frequently worried that he sounded boring—anxiety that only grew after the interview, when Barry persistently requested follow-up conversations to spice things up. So, to try something new, The A.V. Club decided to let the 43-year-old comedian—whom much of the world knows as Todd, the bongo-playing third wheel from Flight Of The Conchords—punch up his own interview. He spoke to The A.V. Club about e-mail interviews, bad audiences, and MySpace awkwardness.
[Todd's notes: DELETE all mentions of me saying that I might be "boring." If you leave those in, the readers will be looking for me to be boring, and it will be one of those self-fulfilling prophecies.]
The A.V. Club: How did you end up working on Flight Of The Conchords?
TB: I know those guys—I met them in 2004, I think, when I did a festival in Australia. We sort of crossed paths a number of times in different festivals, and when they came to New York and when I went to L.A. We just became friends. I auditioned for another role a while ago. I didn't get that, or they cut that part out, or whatever. Then they said, "We have something better for you," and they wrote this thing. I said, "Wow, that's a pretty big part." A pretty big, annoying part.
[Todd's notes: Nice, lean, informative answer. Leave as-is, (LA-I)]
AVC: Did you get recognized a lot more after the show?
TB: Yeah, I have. It's interesting. Some people think that I'm a cast member. Last time I was in Chicago, just walking, someone yelled at me out of a bar. "Like, how did you process that in like an eighth of a second of me walking by?"
[DELETE AND REPLACE WITH "Yeah, I actually had a guy follow me into a Laundromat. He tapped me on the shoulder and said something like "Where are your bongos?" That's a true story, and a bit spicier than the Chicago story.]
AVC: That raise in profile usually involves lots of Internet debate, which you used a while back for your solo show Icky. Has your reaction to people slamming you online changed over the years?
TB: I don't know; no one's said anything overly awful lately. I guess it's worse when someone saw something and they're right—like if you saw a bad show, and you're like, "Aww, oh damn. That was a bad show." I think some people write these things as if they're just sending an e-mail to their friends. I mean, every comedian I know has a Google alert set up for themselves, to torture themselves with.
[Phenomenal answer. LA-I]
AVC: One interviewer described you as "blogger-friendly." What does that mean?
TB: Yeah, I remember that. I don't know what that means, actually. I don't ban bloggers from my shows. I have a separate line: VIP seating for bloggers.
[DELETE AND REPLACE WITH: "Yeah, boyee. I luv to get krazee wit da bloggerz after da show."]
AVC: You do tend to do a lot of e-mail interviews.
TB: I prefer that. I had a guy recently for some small show I was doing. And he e-mailed me, he goes, "Hey, can I interview you for the show?" It was a small show where I was doing like, 10 minutes, and was getting a small amount of money. He writes back, "I really prefer to do it over the phone." Well, guess what? I prefer to do it over e-mail to craft my answers. Some people will ask "Who are your influences?" and I can't not be boring. I hope that wasn't your next question.
[UNDO italics on "do" in the question. It makes the question seem confrontational.]
AVC: From Heaven is your third album. How has your approach changed?
TB: This one I kind of—I hope it doesn't show—but I wasn't ready to record it when I booked the shows that I was gonna record. It was just to kinda kick myself in the butt to write some more.
[This answer is so brutally honest it would be tragic to change it in any way. I guess what I'm saying is: LA-I.]
AVC: So did you have to do a writing binge?
TB: I did a little bit. I realized I'd been sorta been coasting a while. No matter what you've done on TV or what you put out, it seems like always, the majority of the people haven't seen 99 percent of it. So if most of the people haven't seen most of it, you can pretty much get away with [it]. It's just about being lazy [and] trying not to be lazy.
[What's with those brackety things you put around "it" and "and"? That tells me and the reader that you cut something out—probably something crazy-funny or interesting, too. Find out what you cut out and put it back in.]
AVC: Was there a lot of untested stuff on there?
TB: No. Really, I just don't think I had another 45 minutes when I booked the shows. I book them few months ahead of time. I just ran around and did as many shows as possible.
[Another brutally honest/massively interesting answer. LA-I]
AVC: What's your writing process like?
TB: It's really thinking of an idea and working it out onstage; there's very little sitting down and writing it like a script. I think of something, and oftentimes I think, "Oh, that's gonna be funny. I'll write it down later." And then of course I forget it, or I'll write in a way that I can't even remember what I was thinking of: "the party." I'll think, "Fuck, what was I gonna say about 'the party'? Something happened at the party?" I think of something, and then I try to talk it out and do shows over and over again. Because quite often, it comes out in the heat of trying it out onstage, and you didn't have any idea it was gonna come out.
[DELETE AND REPLACE WITH: "If you want to know about my writing process, do a Google search for the last 50 interviews I've done." Yeah. I'm saying that was a lame question.]
AVC: Do you record your shows?
TB: When I first started out 20 years ago, I used to. I started in Florida. I would record the show and actually get excited about popping the tape into my car stereo and listening to it on the hour drive back from wherever I was doing my open-mic. Now I don't know if it's just getting jaded, but listening to myself is torture. I recorded three shows this time when I usually record two, which I guess is different. I guess the problem is, I'm sort of obsessive in that sort of situation, and I get very perfectionist-y, which I think is probably a good thing. You listen to three hours of your stuff, but it's fucking brutal. Sometimes there's rambling bits where you just go off. Because I always record in a small space, for a number of reasons. It's a little easier to stray from the script if you have a small room, for me it is. So bits like that, I want to see if I can make them funny. So there might be editing, and then, "Do I include that? Is this gonna transfer?" Is this a boring interview I'm doing so far? I feel like I'm being boring.
[ADD THIS SENTENCE AT THE END: "Maybe some better questions would be helpful. Ask me something that will get my juices flowing, like maybe 'So why small rooms?'"]
AVC: No, it's fine. So why small rooms?
TB: Well, first, I want a room that I can definitely pack out. I don't want to sweat that part, "Am I gonna have enough people?" So I usually pick like a hundred, a relatively small room. Also, I'm looser in a small room. I don't want to record an album in front of a thousand people, not that I could draw a thousand, but I just want a room that I can really work back to front. That's just a very comfortable place for me to be loose.
[A fascinating look into "the process." LA-I]
AVC: Do you tend to have more audience interaction in those situations?
TB: I do, but then I listen and go, "I remember this being funny when I was there—is this gonna be funny if someone's listening to it? Or is this kinda a had-to-be-there kinda thing?" And it's probably "You had to be there," but then they put it on the album anyway.
[Are you sure I said "they put it on the album anyway?" They? I probably said "I" put it on the album anyway. NO ONE TELLS ME WHAT TO PUT ON MY ALBUMS.]
AVC: Speaking of audiences, you've said that sometimes an audience is just bad. But what about the argument that if the audience isn't laughing, it's your fault, not theirs?
TB: There are some people who just go, "That was the audience's fault." I mean, I've seen comics storm offstage, "Those people suck." Well, actually, you kinda sucked. I don't say that out loud, but what were you expecting with what you just did up there? Sometimes you're just mad that it didn't work out, so you just lash out. But there are also a lot of times an audience is really quiet, but is actually having a great time. I've had shows where you think, "Is this going well? I can't tell," and then you say goodnight and you get this ovation. They're sorta like a theater audience. I've learned that much; that they're not always going to be doing backflips—but I'll never figure it out. Because sometimes you walk up there, and they're so excited, and then other times, it's just… But sometimes an audience is bad, and you can tell them they're bad, and that sort of breaks the ice a bit.
[DELETE AND REPLACE WITH: "It's never my fault, asshole. You're pissing me off. If this wasn't a phone interview, I'd fuckin' walk off. I'm tempted to have my personal assistant book a flight to Chicago right now, where I'll do something that will be my fault."]
AVC: "Bad" meaning—
TB: Like, "You guys kinda suck." You sorta have to finesse that. But sometimes they're all collectively thinking, "Wow, we're kinda a shitty audience," and then if you point it out, it's kinda like, "Hey, I know what's going on. We know what's going on up here. Or what's not going on. And I'm letting you know that I know. And now we can fix this."
[DELETE AND REPLACE WITH: "'Bad'" as in…you know what the fuck the word "bad" means.]
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