Name: Bill Burr & Craig Ferguson Discuss Bill's Meteoric Rise in Comedy
Uploaded: 2023-12-26T16:00:03.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Bill Burr & Craig Ferguson Discuss Bill's Meteoric Rise in Comedy' from Fans of Bill Burr on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-12-26. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Bill Burr & Craig Ferguson Discuss Bill's Meteoric Rise in Comedy' from Fans of Bill Burr on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-12-26. Transcript available.

cool you know yeah domerera was here last week and he was talking about you uh
and he said an
interest what did he say no it was good it was you'll like this you'll like
actually you won't
like it because it's complimentary and it'll make you uncomfortable pasta
eating so and so but he
said he said you were always he said he was always good he said bill was always
good he's always a
good comic he said but something's happened and remember he said yeah he said
the past couple of
years he's great it's like something magical i remember he used to start
talking about my
dick he said something my no no it's the magical you've always talked about
your day no but this
is more the thinking man's dick jokes that's what i'm doing to set myself apart
from the pack no but
it's it's an interesting thing because something has happened to you in the
past couple of years
you you're better than you've ever been uh well thank you well coming from
another comedian that's
that's about as good as it gets yeah and it's uncomfortable and i appreciate
that bombing in
front of the cops was pretty cool too you know i've had a great day here but
but what is it is there
anything cognizant is it are you aware of anything jay i what i did was i i i
did there was a few like
weaknesses um versus the on stage me versus the off stage me stuff that i could
do to get laughs off
stage that i couldn't do on stage so i just decided to start working on those
um the same way if you were
playing basketball if you couldn't go to your left you start going to your left
you play got with guys
that are better than you or if you've learned an instrument you you know try to
new learn a new lick
or a new riff or something like that just just keep doing it but like i i am
you know once you start
selling tickets then it becomes the game within the game right like and then
then you just sort of
you put out a special just becomes like okay what can i do okay i did that what
can i do in this next
special that takes that and does it a little differently or maybe hopefully
progresses it to
like another level so i don't at the end of my career have like he did 10
specials yeah at the exact
same level the exact same style i mean there's something to be said about that
there's certain
bands like that like ac dc sure one of the things i saw with them one time was
hilarious it's like this
guy was trying to give him shit he said some number he said like you guys have
put out 15 of the exact
same album and they're like that's bullshit we've put out 16 exact same album
whatever like that so
they just knew you know you can have like what you work but what you have you
know works you can stick
with it but like it was something that i wanted to uh you know i wanted to see
how good i could get
and i and what i've learned is is you're better than you that you than even you
know if you push
yourself right so if you really start to push yourself and try to like just be
aware off stage
if you're doing something that you know there's so much shit that you do off
stage as a comedian just
because you're not on stage and you're comfortable and you're also completely
uncensored um like there
was stuff that i would do in the car with my wife i just do like these one-way
conversations where you
couldn't hear the other person but you knew what they were saying right it was
something that i saw you
know a lot of guys specifically prior doing right and i'd be doing it in the
car and my wife would
be dying laughing and i would try to do it on stage and the second it started
going bad i bailed and i
did that for fucking 10 years of trying to learn this new skill that i knew i
could do because i'm doing
it off stage i i couldn't and i would bail after like two seconds and then one
day i just decided
fuck this i'm staying with this and i'm bombing with this till i learn how to
do it and it was like
within 10 days i was like you know 10 times better than i mean i was bailing
after two seconds but i'd
already seen the growth and then that just set off this whole thing of like
what about doing this what
about doing that and then i kind of noticed dude you got like two different
voices you do in your act
why don't you try to expand on those so i've had a couple more of those and if
you just you know act
out some stuff a little more then what happens when you have those different
skill sets when you
go to take on a subject you then have different tools that you can sort of mix
and match it's like
when you're in the kitchen like a pussy yeah and you start getting you'll never
let that go man let
it go man i loved it though it was endearing to me from the east coast that
meant you liked me
but it's the same kind of thing do you think do you think that because you talk
you said a word
there was which i think is really important you said the word comfort uh and
when you were talking
about you know you started to experiment you started to use things that you
knew you could do but you're
a little scared to use right do you think that success like when you start
selling tickets as opposed
to be a now your headliner right you know what i mean so the first yeah yeah do
you know what i mean
it's like you when you're selling the tickets when they're coming to see you
you know you you've got
permission a little bit from the audience like all right i'm gonna try they're
here to see me they
already like me yeah but that kind of haunts me yeah because i that i feel like
i was a better comic
when they didn't because i had to get them and i had a uh a show i did recently
i just dropped in at
the improv and earthquake was headlining and it was a you know mainly a black
crowd and most of them
didn't know who i was right so i had to prove myself and it was the most fun
set i've had this
year it was just like ah i remember this but is that were you were you were you
funnier or was it
just you enjoyed the difficulty more i mean i don't know if it makes you funnier
because it's a harder
show to do or it's more i don't either i don't either but i will say that what
i liked about it was
was that uh that you know just that those years we just like you know so much
of your stand-up
career is just one impossible situation after another and you're just standing
there trying to
do the math like how the fuck am i going to get these people we don't have a
microphone is that
going to be a problem can you do 10 minutes while the band changes yeah no i
can't they're just going
to take the instruments off and on the stage no that's not oh yeah and as you're
doing it they're
coming in there tuning up uh done gigs in hallways yeah hallways areas that met
in a hallway cafeterias
during it like one in the afternoon sure college kids have no idea there's
going to be a show
and they just go we have a comedian's name's bill burr here he is and then you
just walk up there and
have to do an hour sure hour i know of humiliation i would always say to myself
i'd always say in
an hour and one minute this is going to be over and i'm going to be in my car
driving away and that's
what i would do and the and and the part that i hated was the waiting to go on
yeah i still do it
once you go on yeah it's the hourglass has been turned over yeah the sand's
starting to fall and
every second you're up there whatever hit you take that's one less one you got
to take yeah no it's
true i always call my college agent afterwards flipping out going i'm done with
these things i'm never
doing this again i don't give a shit he'd be like all right all right all right
and then he knew i
needed the money then he called me up he like he'd be like billy uh scott bass
that was my agent scott
bass calling i know you said you're not going to do this but i i do have a nooner
i'm going to build
around it and you know by then i'd be at home and i cooled off it was a couple
weeks later from being
on the road and rent was coming i needed the money and he would be like all
right it's going to pay 700
bucks it's like in the middle of iowa for 700 bucks all inclusive and you know
after taxes yeah
that comes out to about 175 bucks so um i would literally go you motherfucker i
go all right okay
but i have to be able to say whatever i whatever i'm going absolutely i go are
they going to know
they're going to know there's a show and all that stuff so um we gradually you
know got like some better
better gigs out of it but um i i do want to get back to that what haunts me is
the fact that um
i have noticed times where i could just sort of stop and smile or i can laugh
and they're laughing
because they know my laugh from the podcast going oh that's his laugh and i'll
get a laugh there and
i'm just kind of like you know that's the kind of thing um i i will be on stage
going am i getting
soft now am i gonna be that guy you earn a little bit look you know it's like
you know if if you go
and see a band and you know they play a song that you like that's okay you know
there's nothing wrong
with that there's nothing wrong with or if a guitar like if brian may's guitar
sounds like brian may's
guitar always does but it's a new song that doesn't matter he's earned that
says guitar sound you know
or steve jones and the pistols that's why i always hate when they say that when
they say he's become
a parody of himself it's like how do you parody yourself that's just people
saying on their blogs
that yeah it's it's uh you you don't become a parody of yourself you just keep
going yeah how can you rip off
yourself it it's not possible it's not possible according to these blogs well i
think that there's
a lot of stuff i mean there's an interesting thing that you look at i mean if
you look at the internet
when it what it does with criticism on the one hand it's removed the power of
critics because you know
there used to be like a guy who gives you a bad review in the new york times he
shut you down man no one
would go uh and now that doesn't really happen anymore but but now that
everyone is a critic so
people write skating reviews but nobody reads them except the guys me up when i
go overseas and these
critics always show up and it's just like yeah it's like first of all the show
is already on sale and
done yeah and then secondly everybody in the crowd has the now does your job
right so you're gonna sit
there by the time yours comes out i've already left town so it's such an old-fashioned
thing i know it's
such a weird thing i remember i've had a couple of those and they're usually a
little even the good
ones are a little snippy you know i have never that's why i don't read them
ever yeah they have an
inability to go wire to wire they just can't say you know what i enjoyed the
show he's worth the money
yeah go down there you know but i still wish he had touched more on this or
they always make fun of
how i look you know when the pasty bald you know freckled cunt took the stage
it was a masterful
performance like even if they said masterful performance they would still have
to trash the
way you look yeah no i get it too it's like oh yeah but you know you using the
scottish brogue i'm
like i'm not using the scottish bro this is where i'm from i didn't put this on
this isn't an act
you know but the the material is the material i'm not doing a character i'm
doing me oh you've become
a parody oh you bill i mean really and with that i i am so glad you came in
bill it's lovely to finally
meet you you are you're a giant among men