Marc Maron’s comedy falls somewhere between Woody Allen’s self-deprecating rants and Lenny Bruce’s angry, confrontational stand-up. He came up in the club circuit in New York with Louis C.K. and David Cross in the late ’80s and early ’90s, making regular appearances on Late Night With Conan O’Brien, where C.K. was a staff writer. Over the years, he’s had two Comedy Central specials, written a book about his unusual religious experiences, and also had bit parts in films including Almost Famous, playing an “angry promoter.” In 2004, Maron shifted gears a bit to co-host a political-comedy morning show on Air America that featured sketches with Wyatt Cenac and others, along with commentary and interviews. He now hosts the biweekly podcast “WTF,” interviewing comedian friends out of his garage and broadcasting the show to millions of listeners. The A.V. Club recently spoke with Maron about the origins of the podcast, a chance meeting with Larry David at an airport, and the evolution of his comedy over the past two decades.
The A.V. Club: Where did the idea for “WTF” come from?
Marc Maron: I was working at Air America in my third—yeah, they fired me twice. I was doing an Internet TV show with Sam Seder, and then they fired me again. I’d done radio for a few years, and the guy who was producing my Internet TV show and my radio show, he got fired too. So we were down there in this beautiful facility. They hadn’t taken our pass cards away, so we were like, “Fuck it, let’s do a podcast. We’ll come in after hours and just hijack the studio and bring guests up in the freight elevator.” He knew how to work all the knobs, and I was ready to jam. So we did it that way. The first six or eight episodes are really us stealing time after hours at the Air America studios. Guests would come, and we’d have to be like, “Text us when you get here, and we’ll come find you.” That’s how it started.
AVC: Now you do the show from your garage, right?
MM: Yes, sir. I know enough people and the show seems to be getting popular, and people dug it. I figured out—I talked to some other podcasters; the community has been very supportive. Jesse Thorn from The Sound Of Young America helped me out. I had no idea what to do, and I’m like, “What do I need to do this in my garage?” He told me what mic to get. I got a little mixer, and then he showed me how to work GarageBand. So I basically just know what I need to do, and then I send the files to my producer, and he does his part.
AVC: How does it differ from your Air America experience?
MM: Well, no one can tell me what to do, I don’t have to talk about politics, and I can do whatever the fuck I want. I’m so relieved to not talk about politics. If I do, it’s just relative to my immediate experience of something, as opposed to having to service a point of view. I’m back to being a comic and a cultural critic, as opposed to a partisan talk-show host, which I never could do anyway. I never was that good at it.
AVC: Morning Sedition was a great show to wake up to.
MM: That show was as far away from a political talk show as you can really get. We were doing satire and political comedy on Air America. Morning Sedition was the greatest show—I’ll never forget that experience, and that show has more loyal fans than I could ever imagine. They still write me e-mails about how much they miss it. It was just this perfect storm of talent and opportunity to do a type of radio that I don’t think has ever been done before. I’m not in any way dismissing that, it’s just my approach to politics has always been through comedy and my personal experiences. Now I can really choose how and when I do that.