Marc Maron by Seth Olenick

Veteran stand-up comic Marc Maron is the most intriguing interviewer in the comedy world today. His revealing conversations with the hottest talents in comedy, many of whom he’s known for decades, are marked by an unprecedented emotional depth. Maron delves into both the often never-before-revealed inner lives of his celebrity subjects, and the very nature of what it means to live a comedian’s life.

On his podcast, WTF with Marc Maron (wtfpod.com), Maron has interviewed two comedians a week, without fail, since September 2009. By mid-July of this year, WTF was not only the most popular comedy podcast in the world, but the #1 podcast on iTunes overall, with 400,000-450,000 downloads per week.

Whether speaking with A-listers such as Ben Stiller, Judd Apatow, Conan O’Brien, and Robin Williams, or comics you’re learning about for the first time on his podcast, Maron’s conversations are marked by an intimacy that late night TV banter simply cannot match. Maron reveals as much about himself as he does his guests – occasionally airing, and settling, long-simmering resentments as he goes – and often persuades his subjects to expound on previously off-limit topics, such as when both Williams and Carlos Mencia addressed, both for the first time ever in public, their long-time reputations as joke thieves.

We spoke to Maron about how WTF came to be, some of his more revealing encounters, and his unique and fascinating approach to the art of the interview.

Talk about how WTF Pod started.

What happened was, I pretty much hit a wall. I was working for Air America for the third time, having been fired from there twice. I took the job primarily to pay off an ex-wife who was trying to bankrupt me through a divorce, and after about a year they fired me again because they ran out of money. I didn’t know what to do. I was dead in the water. My manager didn’t know what to do with me, and I was broke. They didn’t take our security cards from us when they fired us, so I had about a month still in the offices at Air America with my security card. So me and my first producer started breaking into the studios and doing our first podcasts there. I’d seen that some other guys were doing podcasts – Jimmy Pardo, Kevin Smith, Jimmy Dore. The podcast looked interesting, and I liked the medium. So we broke in after hours, brought guests up on the freight elevator, and did the first dozen or so right there at night, in the studios. We hijacked them.

How did guests react to the fact that you were breaking in to record them?

We didn’t let on. There was a night guy who had to watch the machinery and he was our friend, so it really wasn’t that clandestine. We’d go down and walk them up. We didn’t let on that we shouldn’t have been here.

What were your original intentions for WTF Pod?

I had no idea. I knew I liked the medium, I thought I was good at it, and it was good for me to speak freely and be on the mic and improvise and go stream of consciousness. I just knew I wanted to evolve in that medium. All we knew in the beginning was, if we’re gonna do this, we don’t have to know what the show is right away, but we have to stay steady. We picked a schedule, and remained on that schedule. We have done a show every Monday and Thursday since we started doing this two years ago, with no repeats, and we’ve never taken a week off. We just stayed steady with it and let the thing evolve. I moved back here to L.A. to my house, which I didn’t lose by some miracle, and set up shop in my garage. The agenda was, do the show no matter what, honor the schedule, and let’s see where it evolves. And over the arc of two years, I’ve become a different person. I’ve worked through a lot of stuff, it seems to have some respect, and I enjoy talking to people.

How have you become a different person?

Two and a half years ago, I had suicidal ruminations, because my career was nowhere, and I’ve been doing what I do for twenty, twenty-five years. I had no idea what the hell I was gonna do, and I brought that to those early episodes. And as I started to talk to my peers and talk openly with them about my own issues, I started to find a voice for that stuff, and people related to it and liked the show. Over time, it literally worked as me reiterating myself into the community of comedy, my once again learning how to laugh and how to listen, and how to empathize with other people’s problems and relate. All this stuff was very organic.

It’s unusual for an interviewer to reveal so much of himself in an interview. Any role models for that?

Not really. I don’t listen diligently to much, or watch much diligently. I never studied interviewing. These felt like conversations.

Do you prepare a lot for most of them?

No.

So you just look at it as a conversation and that’s it?

Yes. Most of the people I talk to I’ve had experience with, where I know their work a bit. Some people walk out of that garage, and even if we’ve had a great conversation, I’m like, “oh shit, I wish I’d known they worked on that,” or whatever. A lot of times people think I’m being passive aggressive if I don’t know the name of a movie someone was in, or the name of a show, but generally, I genuinely don’t know. Is that a problem as an interviewer? I guess it could be. Does it become a unique situation, where the guy in the conversation doesn’t know the guest’s bio properly? In a way. Whatever I do, whether it’s intentional or not – and most of it isn’t – it brings the conversation to a very immediate place. It’s very hard to sit with me and run through some calculated talking points of one’s career, or handle it as just another press junket stop. So whatever happens in there, it’s just the way it is. Some people I prepare more for if I’m interested in something. Like when I talked to [“Community” creator] Dan Harmon, I really, finally understood the craft that defines his comedy in “Community,” and that became a very intelligent conversation about process, and about the comedic disposition. When I interviewed Ben Stiller, I knew that I wanted to celebrate “Tropic Thunder” as a classic American black comedy – it’s a dark satire, and I thought it was very well-handled – and I wanted to give him props for that. So if I’m interested in something about the person specifically, other than just who they are, then I’ll talk about it.

Being a veteran comedian yourself, what is it you know about the nature of comedians that convinced you this could really be a fascinating series?

We have a lot of time on our hands, and we’ve risked everything to chase a ridiculous dream because it’s in our hearts to do it. So given those things, these are very philosophical, very sensitive, very thoughtful, and very intelligent people who have a lot of time outside of the box of normal life to process a lot of stuff. I see them as poets and philosophers in a sense that their job is to sit around and think about life and the world, and have a reaction to it in the free zone they’ve created for themselves – by taking this tremendous risk with their life. And, they’re funny. I don’t need people to come on and do jokes, because I know that if someone’s funny and we have a conversation, the bottom’s never gonna drop out of it, because either me or they will pull it back up with a joke. So that’s what I thought. I thought, who better to talk to about just about anything than comedians. Traditionally, they’re very deep people.

Do certain types of comedians – and by that I mean, for example, alternative comics vs. blue collar comics, stand-ups vs. screenwriters, etc. – work better for this than others? Are these interviews different depending on what type of comedy someone does?

I try not to draw lines, and my sense of comedy and comedians has evolved over time as well. If someone does the job of comedian, in that people come see them do it, then they’re a comedian. That’s it. Some people have surprised me, but I think the question you’re asking is relative to how well any particular comic knows their audience, and how they relate to that audience. That’s really what that’s about. I don’t know that the lines need to be drawn between the blue collar guys or a comedian that might play to a different, more alternative audience, although the more alternative comedians are more likely to use the blue collar comedians as some sort of fodder, like they’re the enemy. But it really is relative to the audience, and to whether or not someone is actually doing the job.

You mentioned there were some people who surprised you. Can you share a few examples?

I bring a lot of baggage to my interviews. I’m odd emotionally in the sense that I’ve done comedy half my life, and I have sort of weirdly deep emotional connections to people in comedy based on us starting together, or us hanging out for an hour [at some point]. We’re all sort of in the same world, and it is my world, and a lot of times I make assumptions about people. I don’t know if you’ve had that experience where you know somebody from twenty years ago, and you haven’t seen them in fifteen years, and some part of you thinks that you’re gonna hold them to who they were then. A lot of times I bring that to the interview, and I’m very surprised at the fact that, as close as I feel to all these people because we’re kindred spirits, I make assumptions about who they are based on what I think, and not about who they are. Look – when was the last time you sat down and talked for an hour to anybody that you didn’t have to talk to? Like Louis C.K. He made a good point where, I consider him a good friend, I’m emotionally connected to him, but I missed most of his life, and he missed most of mine. So what are you holding on to? So any real interview with me becomes sort of surprising, because I assume that I know people. I had no idea the Dan Harmon interview was gonna be what it was, and how deep that got. Bob Odenkirk was very surprising when he revealed a rage he feels. I think Louie was very revealing in that this is a guy who built most of his act as being sort of endearingly callous about fatherhood, so when he got choked up about the birth of his daughter, that was very powerful. When I interviewed Todd Hanson, the writer from The Onion, he candidly spoke about his suicide attempt. Are you kidding me. Tears have come to my eyes more times than I can tell you in these interviews, even if they’re happy tears. When I talked to Jimmy Fallon, this guy is just a good guy having a great time. That makes me cry. Paul Scheer revealed a childhood I could never have imagined he would have lived through. Sue Costello had a very harrowing story about being broke and lost and trying to find the strength to go on. All of this is powerful stuff.

How do you feel your interview style has evolved since the podcast started?

The biggest evolution for me was active listening, because I certainly was not a guy who was capable of that. An example is….the second Carlos Mencia episode, where he comes unraveled. No matter what anyone thinks about that guy, or how much they hate him, after that interview, you have to see him as a human being. A lot of times, what happens on my show is that people who make assumptions, as I do and everyone does about somebody because of whatever they hear about them or see of them on television, they’re very one-dimensional until we talk. Then, all of a sudden, whatever you think about Dane Cook or Joe Rogan or anybody, after we have this hour-long conversation, you’re going to assess them as a fully-dimensional person.

It seems like Robin Williams and Carlos Mencia were real landmarks for the podcast.

Yeah, well….for Robin, I was at his house at eleven in the morning. It was me and him, and he talked very candidly and very honestly. Even with Jonathan Winters, holy shit. I had a hard time keeping it together because of my awe and respect for that guy. It was like time travel  something almost eternal, in terms of the comic personality, when you sit with Jonathan Winters. You feel the minute-to-minute battle against the darkness that enveloped him. [Author and good friend of Maron’s] Sam Lipsyte was talking about my podcast, and he said, “you’re like the authenticator. People come in, and have real conversations, and you view them as people in the best case scenario.”

The Gallagher episode [where Gallagher walked out on Maron] – what the hell happened there?

He was solicited to me by his manager. I would never have thought to interview him. Quite honestly, I did not have any real respect for him. But when the opportunity came, I was like, this guy’s a real guy. He was significant culturally, he was a popular comedian, he has a place in the history of modern comedy. He was a Comedy Store guy. There’s a lot of history there that we could do. And then I’d read some articles about these accusations about his racial insensitivity and his homophobia, and I don’t know how he got to that. So I came to that interview hoping we could have a conversation about where he came from, his roots in the Comedy Store in the late 70s and early 80s, and I thought, maybe we could work from there. And he immediately was condescending, oddly delusional, and aggravated, and started to say things about modern comedy and what he considers a real comic and not a real comic, and it became so ridiculous to me. And when I got to these accusations of racism and homophobia, to a fault, did not set them up as properly as I could. But I don’t care what anybody says, if they can own it. There are a lot of people who make jokes that are dubious, and I’ve been guilty of it myself, but if you can handle that, then so be it. So he started to flail around and freak out and claim that they were street jokes and not his jokes, and then he was condescending to me. I think what happened there was, my ego got inflated, and I became actively defensive and tried to keep the thing on the rails, and tried to keep it a conversation. But he was impossible, because all he wanted to do was talk at me. He did not want to have a conversation of any kind. I was trying to make it a conversation, and he was continually more aggravated, and then he stormed out, which I thought was ridiculous. I thought it was very surprising.

There are comedians who would seem less likely to fare well in this type of conversation, like maybe the Blue Collar comics, because they don’t go personally deep in their acts. I would love to see what would happen if you interviewed Larry the Cable Guy, for example.

Dude, I’m trying to get hold of him. Look, I’ll adapt to a conversation. I talked to [Reno 911’s] Tom Lennon. We didn’t get all dark and weird, and he was hilarious, and still very informative and candid. There are certain themes about how people are brought up, because that’s my own curiosity. I would interview Dan Whitney in a second [that’s Larry the Cable Guy’s real name - Ed.], and I’d love to interview Ron White. One of the first weeks I worked as a paid feature, I worked with Jeff Foxworthy in the late 80s. I got no truck with those guys, and I can certainly…at this point, if you’re asking me how things have changed for me as an interviewer or a host, it’s that I’m willing to work with somebody as long as they’re not bullshitting me, or as long as it’s not canned conversation. I think I could have a great conversation with Dan Whitney. And I have a tremendous amount of respect for Ron White as a comedian. If anything has changed for me over the last couple of years, it’s that this is not easy for any of us. It’s a difficult calling, a difficult occupation, and I have a respect for people who succeed in it whatever their comedy is, or whatever people think they are.

Was there anyone you interviewed who was disappointingly dull?

Absolutely. But the thing is, I’m not gonna tell you who those people are, because that’s where I have to understand that I am an interviewer, and if I’m disappointed in the way a conversation goes, that doesn’t mean that people who have never heard this person talk like that are going to sense that, or feel that it was disappointing. So I never really bring that baggage to the podcast. Whatever my emotional needs are out of a conversation, they may not be met, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good conversation for people who are listening.

Talk about the feedback you get from comedy fans.

A lot of people who listen to my podcast may not be comedy fans. I get a lot of people who come to my shows now who, not only do they not know me as a comic, but they’ve never been to a comedy show before. The tone of my monologues, and the tone of the show, seem to be speaking to something deeper than just comedy fans. I’ve gotten hundreds of E-Mails in response to the Todd Hanson podcast from people who have struggled with depression, or had family members who struggled with it, and were just grateful that it was out in the world and that they don’t feel as alone. The higher percentage of the E-Mails were basically saying, “Thank you. It’s been a rough year, and having the podcast has really made it better.” Most of the E-Mails, outside of people requesting guests, are people who just really get something out of it. It’s a very personal relationship you have with a listener when you’re doing what I do. It’s very intimate, and very individual. A lot of the e-mails are just gratitude for people realizing that they’re not alone in the world, and that their struggles with frustration, resentment, and disappointment are shared with people they may know and respect in comedy, or with me. It was always my choice to move away from politics and into existential struggle with people, because I believe that most people’s issues are personal, and that because we’re a very selfish and isolated culture in terms of how people live their lives, that most of what people are struggling with is just getting by. In their relationships and jobs, or their lack of a job or relationship, that inner dialogue goes on, and it’s either self-flagellating or completely isolated. So most of the e-mails are in response to that, which I think is great, because that’s really what I set out to do in terms of tone.

When you started this, you were broke. Has this been a decent earner for you?

It’s getting there. Look, you wanna keep it free, and we chose to keep it free so everybody can get it. But we figured out a way to build a business around it, and it does OK. It’s certainly encouraging and exciting, but I just wanna make a living one way or another at this point. I don’t have any big dreams anymore. But it’s exciting to figure out how to deal with a new medium, and how to monazite things. We’ve got apps now, and I still have a pretty good donor base, which is how we started. We’re now attracting pretty big advertisers because of the numbers. It’s a new world. I have merch, and I tour. It’s all new, but we’re bringing in some money.

So what has this meant for you career-wise?

It’s changed everything in terms of my visibility. I got a book deal I think because of the podcast, and I shot a small pilot presentation for a TV show built around my life right now, and that involves the podcast. I seem to be drawing a few more people on the road, and also, people enjoy it. People in the industry and other comics, they love listening to it. That’s very gratifying.