Interview Eddie Ifft

Confrontational, dark, smart, and (most importantly), hilarious, Eddie Ifft is one of the most underrated American stand-up comedians around. But weirdly, he’s only really ever been underrated in America.

For years, Ifft has toured the world as a headliner to a great deal of success, particularly in Australia, where he’s one of the more popular acts on the circuit. The international success and endless touring have raised his profile in America over time, along with a string of specials and TV appearances on late-night talk shows and Last Comic Standing. Ifft currently co-hosts the cripplingly funny podcast Talkin’ Shit with the equally offensive Australian comic Jim Jefferies and the unemployed idiot, Jason Auer, who lives on their couch. The show figures prominently on iTunes whenever it isn’t being banned for content violations (which, in theory, only kind of exist on iTunes, but more on that later).

Ifft is bringing his funny filth to Toronto Oct. 13 for a set at 36 Chambers, and The A.V. Club got a chance to chat with the comedian about stand-up, podcasting, performing in the Middle East, and his work-in-progress documentary.

The A.V. Club: Do you prefer performing outside of America? 

Eddie Ifft: Yeah. Hmm. I prefer the crowds outside of America, yes, but I don’t like the travel. If I could just be beamed into other countries, I would constantly perform in other countries. I mean, in America, I like New York, L.A., San Francisco, and that’s it.

AVC: Do you feel like you have to change your act much outside of America?

EI: Not much, not much. I feel like with globalization everybody knows the same shit. We all watch the same things, and we all hate the same people, so I’m good.

AVC: You used to tour in the Middle East—

EI: Yeah, yeah I did a stint over there for a while. When I was living in London they would ship me over there to do some shows, and it was pretty scary because it was around the time of my heaviest drinking period, and you can break laws very easily in the Middle East. Just having a beer in public is illegal, and—I don’t know why, but when I get drinking I get cocky, and I think that everything is fine and nothing is going to happen. That’s fine in America where you can find lawyers and you, you know, have rights, but when you’re in the Middle East it can be a problem. We got a phone call one day from the person taking care of us, who was like, “All right, no more swearing in front of women or drinking alcohol in public. No more this, no more that, or you guys are about to all get thrown in jail.” It’s not good to mix four comedians, a healthy dose of alcohol, and women in burqas.

AVC: How free were you allowed to be onstage there?

EI: The only rule was no jokes about Islam. You could make jokes about terrorism, you could make jokes American/Middle Eastern relations, but you couldn’t touch Islam at all. I did not break that rule. They told us there were spies. This was in the UAE, and they said that the Emirates would send spies to watch us perform, just to make sure that we didn’t cross the line. After one show, I met this crazy drunk girl who wanted to get fucked. I’m in the bathroom pissing, and the way that works there is than men stand over a hole and pull up their dishdashas to piss, and I think they shit in there as well because there’s also a hose to clean yourself off. So there’s a guy standing there cleaning himself with one of those, and I’m standing over my hole, when this chick comes into the bathroom telling me she wants to fuck me and trying to do it. In any other country, time, or place, I would have been like, “This is awesome,” but I was like, “Get out now!” All I could do was picture myself being in a Midnight Express prison for the rest of my life.

AVC: Is there anywhere that you’d never perform again?

EI: Yeah, Middle East. [Laughs.] I had some problems at customs that scared me enough to never go back.

AVC: How did you become so popular in Australia?

EI: I went over about seven years ago, just to see the country. No one knew me there, and I got a friend of mine to contact his agent and set up some gigs. While I was there, they got me on this TV show, and it went well, so some other TV show called and said, “We want him to do our show now.” It turned out that show was the equivalent of their Tonight Show in the ’80s. Half the country watched the show and, because I didn’t know that, there was no pressure. So I went on and actually did well, because I wasn’t nervous. Then my tour sold out, and it just went from there.

AVC: So was that how you ended up becoming friends with Jim Jefferies?

EI: No, weirdly enough, Jim and I never met there. When I first went to England to tour, it was different than America in that the comedy clubs turned into nightclubs after the shows. We didn’t have that in America, and after those shows you could just stand at the bar, and girls would be so drunk that they’d come up to you and say, “You’re the comedian.” And then you’d be getting blowjobs in the green room. I’d never experienced anything like that before, so I took full advantage of it and thought it was the greatest thing ever.

Every night I was in a new town, excited, and couldn’t believe it was happening. Every comic I met would see me doing this, and they weren’t as into it as I was, but, based on that, every one of them said, “You’ve got to meet this guy, Jim Jefferies. You two will get along very well.” [Laughs.] Apparently—I can’t validate this, but I’ve heard it a lot—there was a list at one major chain of U.K. comedy clubs. They had 23 clubs, and headquarters would give this list to the manager of every individual club. It was a list of comics that the waitresses should stay away from. Jim and I were apparently at the top of that list. We were the kings of that one. I never really met him until one day he gave me a ride home from somewhere because we had the same agent. He kept doing Homer Simpson impressions, and I wanted to punch him in the face. But then we got reunited down in South Africa. We were doing a tour of South Africa and really hit it off down there and became really good friends.  

AVC: Now that you two have the podcast [Talkin’ Shit With Jim Jefferies & Eddie Ifft], are there moments when you book two porn stars and a little person to come to your house as guests and feel like life is finally as it should be?

EI: You know what? It’s like anything else. It’s like getting too much pussy. You stop appreciating it after a while. If there was a midget in my house 10 years ago, I would have been bouncing off the walls and calling friends. Now I’m like, “Meh, it’s a midget.” Porn stars, same thing. I wish this had hit when I was 20 years old, because that’s when I really would have appreciated it. Now, I’m like, “Really? I gotta talk to porn stars tonight, ugh.” But, we know it makes for a good show, and I know it makes Jim perk up. Jim’s always funniest when there are women in the room.  

AVC: How did you meet your endlessly abused co-host, Jason Auer?

EI: I used to go to this coffee shop every day, and Jason was the “barista,” as he likes to call himself. He would try to talk to me every day. He’d be like, “Hey man, how you doing?” And I’d be like, “Good, can I get my coffee?” Then while he was making it he’d be like, “What do you do?” And I’d be like, “Stuff.” I would just ignore him, or at least try to. Then I always take my dog out to walk him on the beach, and every night Jason would stumble over with his dog. I would try to ignore him, but our dogs started playing together, and so he started talking to me, and it was always weird shit. One night I looked at his eyes, and they were so glazed over that I went, “Are you fucking high all the time?” He said, “Yeeeeah.” So, suddenly, he made a lot of sense. I found him funny, and we struck up a friendship. He started watching my dog for me when I toured, and then when his wife left him I took him in and all that sort of shit.

AVC: Do you ever worry about pushing him too far, or does he just enjoy being on the show so much that it doesn’t matter?

EI: Well, he’s pretty much off the grid, like he says, and he’s committed to never getting a job and never doing anything. So we kind of realize that the only way he’s going to make something of himself is probably through the show. It’s almost like having a child and we’re responsible for him. The other day Jim and I took his dog to the vet and paid for his dog to get fixed because it had hot spots. We sang a song on the show, “Put Him Down,” about putting the dog to sleep, but we actually helped out. So we joke about him a lot, but then we go and take care of him. We care about him a lot. A lot of people think I’m really mean to him, and they don’t realize that it’s like having the worst kid ever. You take care of him, you do everything for him, you feed him—and then he just fucks up constantly. So you’re allowed to beat him.

AVC: How have you guys gotten the podcast banned from iTunes multiple times? I didn’t even know that was possible.

EI: I didn’t either, and you know, I have a gag order on Jim right now for no Steve Jobs jokes so that we don’t get kicked off again. I think initially they got mad at my iPancreas joke. Someone at Apple must listen to our show, and every time we say one thing wrong they’ll find a reason to ban us. We get these e-mails, and they’re like Nazis. They write me letters without signing their last name. It’ll be “from David in podcasting,” and then there’s no phone number. There’s no way to talk to them. They’re good at returning e-mails now, though. For a while they wouldn’t do that, but now they do. We’d just get a little email saying, “You’ve been removed from iTunes,” and we’d be like, “Wha-wha-what?” The first time was because our name was Talking Shit, so then we changed it to Talking Sh*t. Then they removed us because we didn’t mark “explicit” on the podcast, and then they removed us because we titled one episode, “I’m going to eat this dude’s cunt.” The newest one came up about a week ago. We had a week to change our name from Talking Sh*t. Even though we censored it, it still can’t be on there.

AVC: Weird.

EI: Censored. So we changed it to TalkingS hit, and that’s okay now. But then they said that we need to change our logo, because the title is in there, so we’re changing that. It’s just amazing. I’ve had easier dealings with the Christian church.

AVC: On one episode of the podcast, Jim Jefferies asked that fans of the show Google “Eddie Ifft has AIDS,” so that it would be the first thing to pop up on the search when you type in your name. Any awkward situations come up as a result of that?

EI: I’ve had ex-girlfriends call me. It’s almost one of these things where I almost feel like I have it. I have real, real empathy for AIDS victims. I want to do work for AIDS charities because, beyond the tragedy of having a deadly disease, there’s also the social stigma of it, and I just have the stigma of it now. So, I don’t have the horrible part, but Jim has basically imposed the stigma on me. I was just out and a couple of guys saw me and were like, “Hey, I enjoyed your show. Where are you playing next?” And I was like, “Just Google me.” And then I was like, “Ahhh, no, don’t Google me.” That must happen all the time where people google me and are like, “Oh … wow.” I’m lucky I have a girlfriend, because if I didn’t, I don’t think I’d ever get one again without taking them to an HIV testing center with me on the first date. I’m going to get Jim back. I just want him to really forget about it, and then I’ll get him so good.

AVC: That’s the best way. It hurts more when they don’t expect it.

EI: Yeah, and he’s more sensitive than I am, weirdly. He will really, really get upset. I have some plans.

AVC: What’s going on with your documentary America: The Punchline? Are you still working on that?

EI: It should be out. I’m thinking about starting it back up. It took me five years to make, and then we never released it. The film came about because, as I traveled around the world, I found that the common denominator of pretty well every comedian’s act was that they make fun of America. It was the punch line of every joke, so I wanted to get to the bottom of why America is the punch line. We interviewed people and found out all these things, like how our foreign policy hasn’t been great, and how our media and other exports that are imposed on other cultures don’t make people happy. And then, of course, there are the American stereotypes that we’re loud and obnoxious and fat and gluttonous and rude, which doesn’t help. So the goal was to show America how the world felt about it in a funny way.

Looking back, we have all these amazing comedians in it like Rhys Darby, Lewis Black, and Russell Brand. Everybody from the film has exploded. I just never finished it. It’s finished pretty much, and it still resonates, but it’s pretty George Bush-heavy, so now we’ve got to take that out a little bit. I might put it on Netflix or something like that, just because I put so much work into it.