Speaker 1: Caalaroga Shark Media.
Speaker 2: Hi there, I'm Johnny Mack with your daily comedy news.
Speaker 2: Today's guest is comedian Drew Lynch. You may know Drew
Speaker 2: from America's God Talent, or you may know him as
Speaker 2: the stuttering comedian from America's Got Talent. He's got a
Speaker 2: really interesting origin story. He explains, I was playing softball
Speaker 2: and a hard hit ball took a bad hop and
Speaker 2: struck me in the throat. I fell and smacked my
Speaker 2: head on the ground. That led to my career as
Speaker 2: a stand up Yeah. Apparently he had a traumatic brain
Speaker 2: injury from it, which created a neurogenic stutter. Kind of
Speaker 2: messed up his career. He's up for some roles. His
Speaker 2: agent dropped him. He explains, I got the cold shoulder
Speaker 2: and I realized that I want to control. I rehabbed
Speaker 2: and that's what I discovered stand up. Three years after
Speaker 2: the injury, he appeared on America's Got Talent. He said
Speaker 2: that validated him as a comic. It was an amazing
Speaker 2: experience and I can't tell you how great it was
Speaker 2: to get such great feedback from Howie Mandela. I have
Speaker 2: so much respect for Drew. Will be part of just
Speaker 2: for Last Vancouver, the big comedy festival up there in Vancouver.
Speaker 2: He'll be at the Vogue Theater on the nineteenth. The
Speaker 2: festival continues through the twenty second. Now, as I prepped
Speaker 2: for my interview, if you listen to every interview with him,
Speaker 2: if you read every article about him, it talks about
Speaker 2: his origin story, and I chose not to go there,
Speaker 2: and being candid, I think I may have thrown him
Speaker 2: by not asking him about it. And a couple other
Speaker 2: notes on what you're going to hear today. What's crazy
Speaker 2: to me is in the recording session, he was on
Speaker 2: what I call an open mic, like he wasn't holding
Speaker 2: a microphone and I was. However, I was on someone
Speaker 2: else's recording session, not my recording session, and as I
Speaker 2: got the audio back, it sounds like my microphone didn't
Speaker 2: pick up and it may have been using my laptop microphone.
Speaker 2: So like as you hear me now, I have some
Speaker 2: processing on my voice. That's what you hear on a
Speaker 2: normal episode. Sometimes you'll hear an episode where I do
Speaker 2: an interview or the conversations with Mike Chisholm on The
Speaker 2: Letterman podcast, which is using his setup. Here I'm processing
Speaker 2: and whatnot. But as I listened back to this, I'm like,
Speaker 2: Drew sounds really good, and I sound like I'm on
Speaker 2: a laptop, which is just funny to me because I
Speaker 2: had my microphone out neither here nor there. Also, I
Speaker 2: want to be transparent. I re sequenced this interview. This
Speaker 2: first part I'm going to play is from later in
Speaker 2: the interview, but I wanted to lead with this part
Speaker 2: because it's so good. Listen to Drew Lynch channel Mark Marin.
Speaker 2: Here he channels Mark Maron. It's he's not doing an impression,
Speaker 2: but he channels his inner Mark Maren. It is fantastic.
Speaker 2: Here's Drew Lynch. You spent some time on the Maren sitcom.
Speaker 2: I feel like weird using the word sitcom with Maren show,
Speaker 2: the television show How is Mark?
Speaker 3: Is Mark?
Speaker 2: What we think Mark is in real life?
Speaker 3: Mark is exactly the way Mark is in real life.
Speaker 3: And and you should you should be comforted by that fact.
Speaker 3: He is And I've told him this. He's a he's
Speaker 3: a He's just a. He's just a. He's a he's
Speaker 3: a he's just a brouchy guy. He's not I mean,
Speaker 3: not grouch, but he's just a he's a hard guy.
Speaker 1: You know, he's just like I feel that way. Oh yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: well that's well that's weird.
Speaker 3: Or you know, he's like, you know, he kind of like, uh,
Speaker 3: just a he likes to kind of scrutinize and just
Speaker 3: kind of get in it.
Speaker 1: And I love that about.
Speaker 3: Him because he's that's where that's where his comedy is.
Speaker 3: He's but he's begrudging all the time, and that's hilarious,
Speaker 3: Like it's just like that's my Yeah, that's my uncle
Speaker 3: who lives in my attic.
Speaker 1: That's who he is.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, he's I guess he's coming down for
Speaker 1: a soda.
Speaker 3: But he's upset because because the handle on the fridge
Speaker 3: is broken and he doesn't want to he doesn't want
Speaker 3: to try to put his nails into the side and
Speaker 3: open it that way.
Speaker 1: He and Mark's going to talk a lot about that.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It's frustrating. Why is the why is the bottom of
Speaker 3: the fridge? Why is why is there heat coming from
Speaker 3: the bottom of the fridge but the inside of it
Speaker 3: is cold?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: And these things used to be an icebox? Should I
Speaker 3: just get an icebox? Like I'm talking in the voice
Speaker 3: of Merrion right now. But that's how well, that's how
Speaker 3: well I know, yeah, how well I know how he goes,
Speaker 3: you know, and he's like, you know, and then he
Speaker 3: and then he goes in for a soda, and then
Speaker 3: he's and then he's and then he pulls out something
Speaker 3: and he's looking.
Speaker 1: He put he sees it.
Speaker 3: He finds a protein bar in the drawer, and he's like,
Speaker 3: you know, oh, what is it with these protein bars?
Speaker 1: There's so much sugar.
Speaker 3: It's like it's I'm not even getting what is this
Speaker 3: you because you mashed up a date and you put
Speaker 3: some Joe Rogan pills in a thing that I need
Speaker 3: to like. This is this is the way Mark is.
Speaker 3: I could just watch him. He's like an angry cat.
Speaker 3: You're just like, okay, just keep going. I guess, Bud,
Speaker 3: that was amazing. I was just trying to hang back
Speaker 3: and not step on you.
Speaker 2: Boy. You channel him really well.
Speaker 3: Well. I think it's just because at my heart, I'm
Speaker 3: probably just as much of a grouch, but I just
Speaker 3: I have a softer face or all American good looks
Speaker 3: if you if you read the review Journal in Las
Speaker 3: Vegas from twenty years ago. But but yeah, Maren is uh,
Speaker 3: we all have a maron inside of us.
Speaker 2: I saw you did in an AGT showcase. Are you
Speaker 2: just part of the AGT extended family? Is there a
Speaker 2: pay it forward aspect to that?
Speaker 1: There?
Speaker 3: Definitely is. I mean that show is very rewarding and
Speaker 3: they're also very demanding, you know, and I mean that
Speaker 3: in a professional way. They just expect a lot because
Speaker 3: they give a lot. So you know, take that for
Speaker 3: what it is. And I don't mind being part of
Speaker 3: the of the u of the of the the family
Speaker 3: or the alumni or or whatever. And I'm all for
Speaker 3: for advocating for other people to find their opportunities on
Speaker 3: that show. You know, like I was doing the show,
Speaker 3: I was at the showcase, and like, you know, like
Speaker 3: they want to kind of they want to kind of
Speaker 3: like say like, oh and we got we got these
Speaker 3: people here who did the show, these alums there's there.
Speaker 2: Look at where they are. You know.
Speaker 3: There's a comic that was on the show just showcasing.
Speaker 3: His name's Lachlin Patterson. You probably know him. He's a
Speaker 3: Canadian comic and he has been doing it for almost
Speaker 3: thirty years and he is in every sense of the word,
Speaker 3: like just a bro and he is so good and
Speaker 3: he's so funny, and it's like he I mean, no
Speaker 3: one's above anyone, but just this idea that they're gonna,
Speaker 3: you know, they're gonna be like and look at this
Speaker 3: guy who we found and it's like, yeah, I mean
Speaker 3: he's been doing it for longer than television, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, like, what are we talking about? He's so
Speaker 3: funny and so you know, like, I don't know, it's
Speaker 3: just so interesting. It's just the world is just the
Speaker 3: world of our world stand up and navigating whatever your
Speaker 3: path is is all so different and you just never know.
Speaker 3: I mean you look at like the Louise of the
Speaker 3: World or even the Bills, where like it's like these
Speaker 3: guys were twenty eight, twenty nine years thirty or twenty
Speaker 3: five years in and then showtime was like okay, and
Speaker 3: they're like and then what It's like what all right?
Speaker 1: And then like maybe the best comedians ever Okay.
Speaker 3: So I don't know. Maybe it's supposed to be more
Speaker 3: of that, and it's definitely less of that because people
Speaker 3: have tiktoks and they have thumbs and then they get
Speaker 3: to decide what I guess, maybe what happens quickly is
Speaker 3: what happens is where there's tremendous value, And for me
Speaker 3: is someone who's a student of what it is that
Speaker 3: we do and has such appreciation in seeing it done well.
Speaker 3: Dude comics who can write down and just write for
Speaker 3: eight minutes and ten minutes and twelve minute bits on
Speaker 3: one thing.
Speaker 1: It's just my favorite.
Speaker 3: And I hope that that's not going anywhere because that's
Speaker 3: a part of this art form that I really fell
Speaker 3: in love with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's changed. Pre pandemic, there were all these people
Speaker 2: that oh, so and so came out of nowhere, but
Speaker 2: like you said, they'd been doing it for fifteen years.
Speaker 2: They just finally got the light shown on them. In
Speaker 2: the age of social media, maybe some people have accelerated
Speaker 2: in a way that you just couldn't do in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty five. I know, as just a guy sitting on
Speaker 2: the couch, I just look at it as I hit
Speaker 2: play on something on Netflix, and did I laugh that
Speaker 2: that's my entire barometer. And if you're good at social
Speaker 2: media or people think you're handsome or whatever, we want
Speaker 2: to knock a comedian for because they didn't do it
Speaker 2: the right way. You didn't do ten years at the
Speaker 2: cellar did you laugh? And I think that's the good civilian.
Speaker 3: Test, right right, And that's part of why it's so
Speaker 3: you know, it's so accessible now in today's plying that
Speaker 3: you can you can be much more in control of
Speaker 3: what gets distributed and how people maybe find you. So
Speaker 3: it is it's in that way, it's it's great, But
Speaker 3: in another way it you know, we're not dealing with gatekeepers,
Speaker 3: but those gatekeepers were there for a reason to hopefully
Speaker 3: kind of that maybe quality and you might have to
Speaker 3: sift a little bit to find whatever it is your
Speaker 3: your interpretation or or what it is you value is quality.
Speaker 2: Growing up in Indianapolis, you're a Colts fan. You guys
Speaker 2: had quite this season.
Speaker 3: Come on, John, we're having such a good time. Why
Speaker 3: does it have to be this You had a good season?
Speaker 3: We did, and then we had the rest of the
Speaker 3: season and it was it was good. Then tell this
Speaker 3: and then until the midpoint of the season.
Speaker 2: You're heading to Vancouver for just for laughs. You'll be
Speaker 2: at the Voga Theater on the nineteenth. Have you been
Speaker 2: to Vancouver before?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, many times. I love it.
Speaker 2: Great place. Do you find it? Festival? Is that it's
Speaker 2: your fans or is it Sometimes I find it festivals
Speaker 2: it's just whoever happens to be playing when we want
Speaker 2: to go out on a night and we'll go see whoever.
Speaker 2: Is it your crab going to see you? Or is
Speaker 2: it just festival fans comedy fans.
Speaker 3: I think it's I think it's a healthy balance of both.
Speaker 3: And I think it's it's artists specific for sure, but
Speaker 3: the festival, I mean, what I think they do a
Speaker 3: good job of is people do just are like, yeah,
Speaker 3: they do just commit to just going out, and that's
Speaker 3: kind of cool because you're just going in blind and
Speaker 3: be like, yeah, I don't know, we'll check it out.
Speaker 1: So I think it's a healthy mix.
Speaker 2: As you got your comedy career started, America's Got Talent,
Speaker 2: how was it pulling out? How long were those segments?
Speaker 2: I feel like you're doing like two minute.
Speaker 1: Chunks, sometimes even less.
Speaker 3: I think I did ninety seconds my first first audition,
Speaker 3: and then like the second round was like two minutes,
Speaker 3: and then like the next round was like a minute
Speaker 3: forty five or two.
Speaker 1: It's not much.
Speaker 3: And it's weird because comics are also almost given like
Speaker 3: less time, like a song is, like you know, as
Speaker 3: long as like two and a half minutes, or sometimes
Speaker 3: a magician thing will be eight minutes, you know, like
Speaker 3: a whole thing. You know, like they get all this
Speaker 3: time to kind of like set up. And I know
Speaker 3: that that sounds like I've got ill will towards towards magic.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 3: I just mean like they need a longer, They need
Speaker 3: a much longer, Like they need more time to be
Speaker 3: able to have something kind of unravel and set it up,
Speaker 3: and it's you know, it's it's a different pace. So
Speaker 3: I don't know. My struggle was that I was already
Speaker 3: on a time budget and I stuttered. So it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, how do I get out jokes for a
Speaker 3: minute when I get barely a minute? You know.
Speaker 1: So it's that was definitely a challenge trying to navigate that.
Speaker 2: It's gotta be hard because you can't really just storytelling.
Speaker 2: You have no time to set up a callback. You
Speaker 2: just kind of have to come out and read.
Speaker 3: A tat tat, Yeah exactly, which is why I think
Speaker 3: comics who have like one liners, you know, Tom Cotter,
Speaker 3: you know, Taylor Williamson, you know, like you know, even
Speaker 3: my buddy, like he's got great jokes too.
Speaker 1: He just he fills in the space with big energy too,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: And so it's like it's everybody's kind of got their
Speaker 3: own approach.
Speaker 1: But it does feel like comics who are very one minery.
Speaker 3: You know. Erica Rhoades, she did the show and she's
Speaker 3: she's really really great at that as well as strong writer.
Speaker 2: All right, let me get the break in here. You've
Speaker 2: seen my heating bill right, Oh my goodness, Johnny Mack,
Speaker 2: I hate the commercials. I get it. I get it.
Speaker 2: If you want them to go away, become a premium
Speaker 2: subscriber on Apple Podcasts five bucks a month and liw
Speaker 2: with that. We got to pay the heating bills. So
Speaker 2: we'll take the break. I want to come back. I'll
Speaker 2: ask Drew Lynch about coming off America's Got Talent and
Speaker 2: getting respect from his peers. Drew Lynch is my guest.
Speaker 2: He'll be at JFL Vancouver at the Vogue Theater on
Speaker 2: the nineteenth. As you got deeper into it, I see
Speaker 2: that you are well respected in the comedy community. I
Speaker 2: can tell by which podcast we'll have you on as
Speaker 2: a guest, and you're part of the mix. Did you
Speaker 2: run into in the early days, any pushback from the
Speaker 2: comedy snobs of oh he's from the TV show, or
Speaker 2: did anyone accuse you of the stutter being a gimmick
Speaker 2: being a gimmick comic?
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, I got that a lot, you know,
Speaker 3: and I'm sure I still do. I think it's uh my,
Speaker 3: my big, my big projection onto the onto. The situation
Speaker 3: also didn't help, like me like feeling like, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't deserve to be here, you know, because my
Speaker 3: path was different and I was I came from a
Speaker 3: family friendly show, and then I went through a period
Speaker 3: of time where based on the influence of maybe maybe
Speaker 3: maybe what other comics said or maybe what I thought
Speaker 3: other comics were saying, was that I felt like I
Speaker 3: had to be edgy, or I had to swear, or
Speaker 3: I had to go through a period where I was
Speaker 3: here to prove something. And that's just not I mean,
Speaker 3: that's just not really authentic to who I actually am.
Speaker 3: So I got I kind of got away from from
Speaker 3: from a lot of that, And it does hurt when
Speaker 3: when when people are saying, like, you know, like oh, well,
Speaker 3: he only got this because of this because I work
Speaker 3: very hard, like I if anything, I probably work harder
Speaker 3: than I am like to have skill or talent, you know.
Speaker 3: I just I'm someone who I've always had a drive,
Speaker 3: and I think you kind of need that in order
Speaker 3: to keep up with the frequency of what the demand
Speaker 3: of comedy and content is, especially in the current climate.
Speaker 3: And I've always done things to try to protect myself
Speaker 3: when it comes to uh, you know, my own fragile
Speaker 3: I guess, like ego or perception. But comedy is like
Speaker 3: being willing to get rejected and reevaluate and reassess and
Speaker 3: go back in and do the work and look at
Speaker 3: and look at the weakness and expose it over and
Speaker 3: over and over and it never ends. So this this
Speaker 3: healthy balance of not taking it personally and trying to
Speaker 3: navigate who you are, your own authenticity and not leaving
Speaker 3: your center and the processes is has been something that
Speaker 3: it's uh that it's tawmy.
Speaker 2: Was there a point in your career where you said, okay,
Speaker 2: I've made it, now I've dead. This is working.
Speaker 3: I don't know that any of us ever feel that way.
Speaker 3: I mean, and you shouldn't feel fear, but you definitely
Speaker 3: should never feel fully stable.
Speaker 1: And that's like that.
Speaker 3: Margin is so thin you can't even if it was
Speaker 3: Google Maps, you'd have to do this so many times
Speaker 3: to try to find that tributary on the freakin' on
Speaker 3: the on the on the dividing line of one place
Speaker 3: to the next.
Speaker 1: Because some comics.
Speaker 3: Feel like I meet people who there they couldn't be
Speaker 3: less happy with everything that they have, And I've met
Speaker 3: other comics where everything is all bravy, like this is incredible.
Speaker 1: I just get to be here doing this.
Speaker 3: This has insane and the energy that comes from each
Speaker 3: of those is is something that I think is is
Speaker 3: maybe to be learned.
Speaker 1: You know, you can, you can learn from both. So
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know that the answer is ever yes, because
Speaker 3: it's an ever moving, breathing thing.
Speaker 2: As you're traveling the country. You're not a political comedian.
Speaker 2: Do you feel you need to avoid it? Do you
Speaker 2: feel you need to on any particular day. There was
Speaker 2: a weekend a couple of weeks ago, and I'm not
Speaker 2: going to get into that, but you know, there were
Speaker 2: topics in the news where a lot of people are
Speaker 2: very passionate about it. Do you feel you need to
Speaker 2: address any of these things or is it more of
Speaker 2: the That's not why we're here.
Speaker 3: I used to feel like I can write a joke
Speaker 3: about it, so I might as well. And I sometimes
Speaker 3: feel like that does more harm than good because people
Speaker 3: are so sensitive right now. And there's some comics who
Speaker 3: are like, well, but for the sake of comedy and
Speaker 3: for the purposes of comedy, we should be able to
Speaker 3: say this and it is this, and people should be
Speaker 3: able to and you know what, I agree. I agree
Speaker 3: we should for in the name of what the art
Speaker 3: form is. Yeah, we should. But these are kind of
Speaker 3: unprecedented times, and they're certainly trying times. And if I
Speaker 3: can try to have some grace for the situation or
Speaker 3: maybe for the fact that people feel very personal or
Speaker 3: very close to some of these things for reasons that
Speaker 3: I don't understand. I try to understand that there are
Speaker 3: things that I don't understand, and that is very difficult
Speaker 3: to account for something that you can't see, or that's
Speaker 3: something that you don't know or that isn't tangible to you.
Speaker 3: So as it applies to trying to navigate a very
Speaker 3: hostile and volatile and maybe toxic sort of political social environment,
Speaker 3: I have always found it to be better if I
Speaker 3: can just make myself the target and try to have
Speaker 3: people try to maybe forget their lives or forget the
Speaker 3: pressures of whatever that climate feels like. And that's hard
Speaker 3: because there are some comics who are like, well, it's
Speaker 3: our job, and there are even people who who are
Speaker 3: like who say, like, we have a bigger responsibility as
Speaker 3: comics to get involved and stuff and maybe, but I'm
Speaker 3: just trying to do my and maybe Andy and maybe
Speaker 3: Bill Maher and maybe John Stewart or Trevor or like
Speaker 3: there's there's there's you know, there are a lot of
Speaker 3: people who I think could do it really well, and
Speaker 3: I can.
Speaker 1: I feel like I can write that really well.
Speaker 3: But does it make me feel uncomfortable knowing that I'm
Speaker 3: making people uncomfortable? Yeah, And maybe that's because I'm I.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I'm just I have to maybe a
Speaker 3: little too much compassion, or I'm orm or I'm sensitive
Speaker 3: or I'm weak or whatever.
Speaker 2: Next week, Chappelle's heading to Minnesota, and I can't wait
Speaker 2: to hear what he says. But conversely, j Leto is
Speaker 2: very adamant about I don't do politics in my acts.
Speaker 2: So if I go see Jay Leno, I understand what
Speaker 2: I'm going to see so I think it's a tough road,
Speaker 2: but I think he explained that really well.
Speaker 3: You know, like Nate I think does a great job,
Speaker 3: you know, Sebastian I think does a great job. You know.
Speaker 2: Like if I go see Marin, I would expect Mark
Speaker 2: to talk about the elephant in the room, but that's
Speaker 2: what he does.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, like he leans into that.
Speaker 3: I mean, he he he uh, he pursues it.
Speaker 2: I'll let you go before I get the light. But
Speaker 2: I just wanted to ask you, in spirit of paying
Speaker 2: it forward as you travel the country, who's a comedian
Speaker 2: out there that we should know that maybe is off
Speaker 2: our radar? Who are you into with that?
Speaker 3: You're saying, oh, oh, well, Lachlan's a great example. Lachlan Patterson.
Speaker 3: He'll probably be on this season of America's Got Talent.
Speaker 3: I hope he goes so far because he's so freaking
Speaker 3: funny and he's got just endless amounts of material. There's
Speaker 3: another guy named Orian Levine. He's so funny. Emma Willman,
Speaker 3: she's kind of getting her her flowers now. She's super funny.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to think, like, who else is just like
Speaker 3: you know, Steve Fury He's.
Speaker 1: A guy who makes me laugh.
Speaker 3: Jason Cheney, Uh yeah, Like these guys are all just
Speaker 3: like so you know, so so fresh, im ed Barucha.
Speaker 3: There's I mean, I could I could, you know, I
Speaker 3: could go like endlessly. Anny Liederman, Uh yeah, I don't know. Man,
Speaker 3: Like these these I advocate for so many of my friends.
Speaker 3: They're all they're all so funny. I hope, I hope,
Speaker 3: I hope they all succeed. Nate Bargatzi, if you don't
Speaker 3: know who that is, he's He's kind of coming up
Speaker 3: the ladder right now.
Speaker 2: He's doing okay for himself. He's still a Grand Marshal
Speaker 2: at Daytona.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'm not surprised.
Speaker 2: Drew Lynch. He'll be at the Vokee Theater at JFL
Speaker 2: Vancouver on the nineteenth. Thank you for your time today.
Speaker 1: This was awesome. Thanks John, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: And that's Drew Lynch. Catch him at JFL Vancouver. He'll
Speaker 2: be at the Vokee Theater on the nineteenth. The JFL
Speaker 2: Vancouver Comedy Festival continues through the twenty second and I'll
Speaker 2: see you back here tomorrow.