Comedian Brad Williams Talks Fatherhood, Touring, and Finding Joy in Comedy

0:00Beyond the Mike, it's Sean Delan. We're joined on the Starline by an actor, stand-up comedian, entrepreneur, podcaster, and most importantly, Dad. He's out on his tall tails to work. We welcome the very funny Brad Williams. Hey, thank you so much for having me. Out of all those things you just listed, yeah, Dad's the one I'm proud of stuff. But just so everyone knows, I work hardest at the stand-up comedian part. That feeling the other stuff is fine, it's fun, whatever, but the stuff that I work on every day, that's the stand-up comic point. Brad, let's go beyond the Mike. You've done it all, acting, creating hot sauce, podcasting. How is laughing and comedy helped you? Oh, I was laughing and comedy helped me. How much time do you have? Comedy's helped me because it's bought a house that puts food on the table for my family. It feeds my daughter. But it's also helped me just have a purpose.

1:01It's saved my life in terms of it's giving me a reason to wake up in the morning every day. And laughing in general helps because I don't know if you know this based on what's going on in the world. Life can be pretty grim and bleak and sometimes depressing and if we don't laugh at these things and we don't laugh in general, then that's all we're surrounded by is just horrible awful ness. Comedy and laughter, that's the light that helps us wake up, say it's going to be okay and find joy in the thing that we call living. Well, you've acted, did a little wrestling on the Jericho cruise. What gives you joy now? How it brings me joy. Writing new jokes and the audience getting them, that brings me joy. It means I'm still good at this thing. It means my crew is going to keep going on. So it brings me joy is waffle houses, late night talking with my opening act, that brings me joy. I'm supposed to say my daughter's smile and laughter that does bring me joy.

2:06But she recently started telling jokes on a karaoke machine and that brought me a lot of joy. So yeah, there's a lot of things that bring me joy. The Denver Broncos last year brought me a lot of joy. How do you create your comedy? Is it punchline back or set up to punchline? I create my comedy with a very simple writing process. Step one, be a dwarf. Step two, wake. Funny stuff's going to happen. And that's pretty much how I've always written my jokes and yeah, it's been a hell of a career so far. 22 years and some people are just hearing about me now so they think I'm an overnight success. And 42 years, that's all it took to be an overnight success. When you're out on tour, you let Jasmine take care of everything else. How's the 10 plus years together changed the way you laugh, love and enjoy life? So just so we're clear, Jasmine is my wife, just because I don't know if your listeners

3:07know that and they don't know if that can be my dog or a bird or what. But yeah, that's my wife. We laugh because you have to. You have to laugh as you're growing as a couple and then your as new life hurdles come your way. You have to laugh to get through it and you find ways to laugh because I mean, I fell in love with her mainly because she could keep up with me in my sense of humor and she didn't try to tell me that I shouldn't joke so much. If I couldn't make a woman laugh, that's not going to laugh long that relationship or any person really. I can't be friends with someone, I can't make laugh. So she makes me laugh, I make her laugh, it's a wonderful transactional relationship. Add on his tall tales tour, comedian Brad Williams joins us for the Rocky Nade. Brad, all this is an eight random questions. Trust your first instinct, no pressure. Okay. That's right at Disneyland. That's right at Disneyland. Well, it's closed down at Disneyland, it's still going at Disneyland world.

4:08Rise of the resistance is pretty great. But in terms of a classic, you can't beat face mountain. I like to use the Rick Flair quote about face mountain, oldest ride, longest line. Always will be that way. What's your favorite charity to support? I usually try to support some military based charities. There's one like Fisher House, that's a good one. The USO is always good. I've been on several military tours and I've done jokes for our brave young men and women who sacrificed so much to be over there on the front lines and for our freedoms. And whether I agree with conflicts, they're involved with or not, I truly honor their service. So I try to support military based charities. What was the last pro basketball game you enjoyed? From my birthday, my wife got a sweet at the Laker game. The Lakers played the Atlanta Hawks and the Lakers won and I was trying to buy really great

5:15friends. And so yeah, that was last basketball game. I was in person at and enjoyed and it was a time, man. It was great. Outstanding. Best Halloween costume when you were younger? One year I was Blanca from Street Fighter 2 and that's when I was a kid. And it just kind of worked, man. A dwarf dressed up as Blanca, Blanca is a shorter one of the fighters. It just was awesome. It just worked out. That was probably the best, but the most convenient was I played hockey as a kid. So for like three years straight, I went as a hockey player just so I could be on rollerblades and go and get so much candy that my bad couldn't even hold it all. Describe Carlos Minceia in ten words or less and you can't use the word tall. Ten words or less, huh? I'm not here without him. Amen to that brother. What's your typical waffle house order?

6:18All star special with grits, grits instead of hash browns, cheese on the grits, bacon instead of sausage, the bacon is extra crispy and I stub out for toast, I stub out toast and I add in raisin toast, eggs and eggs scrambled. I go for grits instead of hash browns because I was raised on grits. Waffle house knows the secret to good grits and that's just some mother and butter. Amen to that. What's your favorite place to do a show? Ooh. Favorite place to do a show is a comedy club in Denver called the Comedy Works Downtown, it's the Downtown Comedy Works in Denver. That is an epic place to do a show. It's a perfectly designed comedy club. It's literally perfect. So yeah, love doing shows there, love doing shows in Vegas just because they spoiled me. I was just a Venetian and they're always so kind to me, I get to pretend I'm a big

7:21shot for a weekend. But for the show itself, the Vegas is the show is fun but it's all the added stuff. For the pure show, you can't beat the Comedy Works in Downtown Denver. Brad, what's your favorite joke that someone else told? Wow, there's jokes I quote all the time, but the Robin Williams joke about how an Irish guy invented golf is one, I've heard that joke, oh my god, it is so good and thorough and it's the best part of joke writing, it's storytelling, it's act out, it's accents, but then just clever premise. It's just Robin Williams' golf, if you don't know it, Google it and you're welcome.

8:24Brad, it Williams joins us beyond the mic. Brad, how has your daughter changed your life in the way you look at comedy? Change my life because, hey, I don't sleep and then be, one thing kids will do for you is you truly stop living for yourself and you start living for someone else. Every decision I make, I think about how it's going to affect her, decisions I make in my career, content I put out there, it's all about how does this affect my kid. Life is hard enough as it is, I'm just trying to be a great father and give her a fighting chance. How is it affected my comedy? There's certain topics I don't talk about because I don't want my daughter to know that I'm talking about that or I don't want to get back to her, but it really refines the joke writing process, at least for me. Yeah, I really like where my act is right now. I like where it is, I'll be proud if she watches these specials one day.

9:29Yeah, so it's just improved all aspects. When you're out in the road, what's the one thing from home you have to have with you? My iPad. It sounds dumb, but when I first started touring and going on the road, you were just at the whim of whatever TV channels were on the hotel television, that was all you got. Now you have your iPad, you have your whole TV with you, you have all your streaming services, you have all that, I have something to face time, my daughter with, yeah, so that would be the iPad. There are certain things from my home, I wish I could bring, I wish I could bring my Squatty Potty, wish I could bring that thing on the road, that would be really helpful. But for the most part, yeah, it's just my iPad. You've launched a podcast with JB Ball Heighten Babel. Why was podcasting important to you and how has it helped you evolve your comedy? Well, I launched it because I wanted, because right now we're living in a time where sort

10:36of politics is bleeding and absolutely everything. Even when you like sports, let's say you like sports, okay, well now there's a halftime show and then for some people there's another halftime show. If you're watching a UFC event, there are certain people that show up to that, whether you support them or not, whether you're, you know, whatever you're watching, politics has bled into it with athlete protests and everything, which is good, I'm all for freedom of speech and I'm all for people expressing their opinion and promoting their causes. But I just wanted to turn something on and forget about everything for a little bit and just laugh and just laugh. So that's what I did when I started this podcast. This is a podcast that where me and JD Ball just find stupid stories from the internet that you may have missed and then we just joke about them. And this is what we do essentially when we're sitting having our waffle house. So I just wanted to bring that to the masses and it gives me an excuse to hang out with

11:39one of my best friends and have it be a business expense. It's pretty great. What's the best and worst thing about JB? The best thing is just how his brain works, man. He loves to embrace debate. He loves to, like, we'll be driving and you know, be, you know, one of those four hours, six hour drives and just be bored and then randomly he'll say like, all right, if you can have any superpower, but also your enemy got the same superpower, what superpower would you have? And I'm like, oh, that's a good debate. So then we start debating that. So that's the best part about him is his brain. The worst part about him is that he is tall, good looking black man where after a show every woman comes up to me during the meet and greet and goes, is JB single, can I get JB's number? What's JB's situation? That's the worst part about him.

12:40So it's good for him. It's just, you know, like, I'm a, I'm a happily married man and don't get me wrong. I enjoy living vicariously through my buddy, but, you know, take a weekend off. Who makes you laugh today? My wife intentionally and many times unintentionally makes me laugh. Really? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. She's really funny. But in terms of comedians, I would go, Billburg, Jim Jeffries, Mahim and War, Mahim and War makes me laugh. That's great comedian. A comic named Daniel Schloss and so yeah, those, those four I could always count on to make me laugh. Is there someone you'd like to do a set with or, or four that you haven't done so yet? It's strange because I both want to do a set for this person and it would absolutely

13:45terrify me to do a set for this person. Conan O'Brien. Really? Why? I've never met Conan. He's one of my comedy idols, got me through college and it's just always really great, really intelligent, really smart comedy. So I would love to, like, you know, the game of it, if you could have dinner with five people, Conan O'Brien is on that list for me, might be number one. But then I fear doing a set for Conan O'Brien because if he ever said, no, that's not good. That's not funny. Then it would be heartbreaking. So I both want to do a set for him but also and terrified of it. What should people expect when they come see you? Comedy for people to have ADD. So if you don't like a joke, wait 10 minutes, there's another one coming, you know, not 10 minutes, holy crap, no, like 10 to 15 seconds, 10 to 15 seconds, there's another one

14:45coming. I make jokes for people like me, so it's a lot of fun and I really enjoy it and you can expect a lot of high energy material when you come see my channel. Normally I end up, my interview is with one big question but that would be insulting. So I'll do one dwarf question. How do you want people remembering you when your time on this Earth is over? Hey man, there are some people that this is something that they think about a lot. You know, what's my legacy? How do you remember it? How will my name carry on? You know, they try to put their name on a building and they think that's going to do it. Honestly, I don't care how people remember me. I truly doubt. As long as I was a good friend to those around me and my daughter thinks that I was a good dad and I tried my best and she knows that I love her and my wife knows that I tried

15:48my best and she knows that I love her. As long as those close to me know me and know who I am and they think fondly of me, that's okay. I don't need anything else. If people all rose up tomorrow and said we all hate Brad Williams and his comedy but my family and friends still love me, that's okay by me. Brad, where can people find you online? radwingscomedy.com and that's got all the links, all the tour dates, all the everything. Love doing shows at the comedy works in Denver. Conan is his idol and he wants you to see him on his tall tales tour. Brad Williams, thanks for taking the time to talk with us today. Hey, thank you so much and thanks for offering us a psychopath comedian's platform, sir. And that my friend says, be on the mic. If you're enjoying these conversations, please check out another Beyond the Mic episode to find more actors, artists and people you need to know. We'd also appreciate a like and subscribe on The Good Pods app.